Closing the Deal: Part 1

We scheduled an inspection with a guy specializing in old houses. At the same time we scheduled that, for the morning, we went ahead and scheduled a time to meet the seller’s agent that afternoon. I had told him that if the inspection checked out OK, we would offer the full asking price. I was not sure that would be enough. But he wanted to set up a time for us to come in & write the contract… So if it was worth his very scarce time, we knew he liked us. I should mention that somewhere in there, after a lot of phone tag, our brilliant, wonderful, indispensable loan officer finally got hold of the agent so that she could ask him some questions, and he could ask her some questions; due to some of the unusual conditions of sale (ie, “no inspections”) they needed to hash out whether we’d be able to get financing before any of us spent any more time on it. I firmly believe that the agent’s conversation with our loan officer was one of many factors that weighed in our favor; we were not only pre-approved, but this would be our third home purchase with that loan officer, and she probably did a good job of assuring the agent that we would not flake out on the sale. Time was of the essence, and above all, he needed to see this sale close before the bank’s deadline to foreclose on the property.

The house is solid. The inspector was especially impressed by the condition of the tuckpointing and the original windows. He remarked at one point, “I like your house; I don’t like your bathrooms.” (I agreed.) There were, of course, various things noted here and there. There is a pipe running through the basement that is wrapped in asbestos, but it’s been wrapped over & sealed so is considered OK as long as we don’t disturb it. Loads of other stuff. A light in the finished part of the basement that doesn’t work; no electrical wiring to the detached garage; the roof is too high and too steep to climb out on, or use a ladder for, so we’ll probably need somebody with a cherry picker to do gutter work; one of the big bedrooms has no electrical outlets(!), but wiring could be run down from the attic; etc, etc. All in all, nothing that shocked us. Nothing that was a deal breaker. Nothing of grave concern.

So after a mild freak-out session (are we doing this?! are we really going to own 2 houses??), we did it… We met with the agent, hashed out the contract with him, and signed on the dotted line. The next day, he emailed me the contract back with the seller’s signature of acceptance. Then, as now, all that remains is for the seller’s bank to OK the sale. Since it is short, they must agree to it. We are told we’ll be fine, because the bank pre-approved the asking price. Still, we’re dying to get that official stamp of approval. If all goes to plan, we will close... May 17, 2011. That is 2-1/2 weeks after we made our offer. That had always been part of the deal – an uber-quick closing… again, to beat the foreclosure deadline. It was yet another reason of many that this has all come together in our favor, instead of someone else’s. It is part of why we were the buyers of choice for this historic house; we were in the right position, at the right time. The agent told us, “You came in at the last second and stole this deal.”

Look for Closing the Deal: Part 2, hopefully, on May 17th.