Z/Web

Day dawns with faxes, pages of them. I sign and initial in dozens of places, and fax back the stack of papers. It’s our offer on the house. My uncle submits it immediately. The seller is a bank so he’s worried it could take time to get a response. I’m nervous all day. This is exciting, terrifying, and I can hardly eat.

I stop by BofA with my $200 check for the loan app. I visit a local storage facility to make sure they have storage units available and confirm prices. My plan is to rent one and begin packing and moving my zillions of books and junk as soon as I can so that the move itself will be half done by the time it’s time to rent the U-Haul.

This afternoon I called the people who offered to buy my place. This was another nerve-wracking experience. Would the offer still be available? I had a letter from them, but that was from August. When the rep came over at five, I explained to him what was going on. I didn’t mention we’d already made an offer in Oregon, but implied I was interested and wanted to see if the sale offer was still open. I explained I was working with BofA on the mortgage loan. Because my income is modest and I’m self-employed, I needed a hefty down payment on the new place to get the loan. I also was going to have substantial moving expenses (including needing to purchase a fridge and washer and dryer for the new place) for which I would need cash. So I countered their offer by raising it by $10K. Timing was another crucial aspect of this, because I needed the cash in 30 days to complete escrow. That’s when things began to go south and I felt my dream come crashing around me. The rep explained that he was in the middle of four similar transactions right now and didn’t “need” mine; his plate was full. There was no way he could come up with all that cash in thirty days. Maybe 90 days, but not thirty. For a moment I thought all was lost. But I hinted that maybe I didn’t need all the money at once and the guy began sketching out ideas, playing with numbers. It looked like we could maybe figure out a multi-part payment plan that could work. The only remaining question was the final amount. Now the park I’m in has rent control, but the rep explained that since they, as a company, were not considered a tenant, rent control doesn’t apply to them. So my landlord charges them a whopping two grand a month “storage.” We agreed to deduct that amount, minus the rent they would normally pay anyway, from the purchase price I’d asked for. So the bottom line is I almost got my asking price! Then another twist: the guy whipped out a contract, filled it out, and had me sign right then. I had thought this was just a preliminary meeting, but suddenly I’d sold my house! (I did make him include verbiage that the sale was contingent upon me getting the property in Oregon.) He gave me a check for $1,000, so-called “earnest money” in real estate parlance.