The FUH’s seller tried to open the sale up for a bidding war between us and another buyer and we were like screw that. We decided to give up on the area we had been looking in (Ben Avon). The bus service was very quick there, but there were simply too few houses on the market and all the sellers were jerking us around. We shifted to more family-friendly Mt. Lebanon, and the process was very different. With a much bigger inventory of houses, we definitely found ourselves in a powerful position.
We went to a few open houses this weekend, and while a few were terrible, one house really stood out to us. It had been nicely kept up, had more space than we needed (4 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms) so that we probably would not have to move again, a finished basement that the owner ran her computer business out of (wired man cave YESSSSS), an ok yard, and a two car garage. Although a few things were dated, everything was well-maintained. Even better, the owner only needed 3 weeks to move out. This meant we might not have to sublet a place temporarily and pay for movers to truck our stuff around twice.
We decided to put in an offer the next day. We knew the house had been through two open houses, and might be due for a price reduction, so we came in very low (~$27k under listing price). In spite of this, the seller still countered very quickly, probably because she had no other offers. A few more quibbling rounds of back and forth took place, but we had a good feeling throughout the whole process. The seller was very quick to respond at all times, and she realized she would have a tough time getting as much as we were offering from anyone else. In the end, she accepted our offer for about $14k under the listing price. We were willing to go up another $5k, but fortunately she did not know that. Essentially we met in the middle between her listing price and our lowball offer.
Needless to say, Bunky and I are excited and relieved. The previous sellers were so uncooperative, that the process was tortuous. This one went through super-smooth, and I guess our third time making an offer was the charm. In other good news, no pipes burst in our place; it turns out the washer hose sprung a leak. Apparently this happens all the time with cheap rubber hoses. Now it’s just a matter of making sure both the sale of our condo and the purchase of this house go through and we’ll be living it up in a place with more than twice the space!
On an immature note, after learning that people call Mt. Lebanon “Lebo”, I have started referring to our new town as “Lesbo” and “Mt. Lesbian” to Bunky’s great dismay.
