You never really know if the work you think you're doing on yourself is effective until you get into a situation that tests it. The universe tried me yesterday and I am happy to report that I passed with flying colors!
I put an offer in yesterday on a house. The asking price was in the range of other homes in the area, but the house itself was not worth it. This is evident in the difficulty they've had selling it. By my count, there were 7 other times this home was listed and on some occasions the listing expired, but on others, they had offers that were withdrawn. They can now add mine to the list.
It really was a beautiful house if you could see past the horrendous decor of the elderly people who had been in there for the last 30 years. It did need a lot of updates though - no way could I do any of those bathrooms or that kitchen - so I would have been looking at even more spend on the back end, but I was willing at the right price point.
So I submitted an offer about $35K lower than asking. The realtor who had never returned any of my calls, texts, or emails prior finally called me back to say that the owners had turned down all short sales because they're in default on their loan and needed what they asked for in order to cover the debt. But it's not worth that! I thought. I told him I'd get back to him.
Now I'm a licensed real estate agent but this was going to be my first contract process. Being the home I would be buying for my family, it was a pretty bold move to have that be the first, but I was going to do it. That being said, I didn't have a single point of reference for what to do here, and both my broker and "mentor" are out of office this week, so I called my go-to guy at the firm. We talked about what I could do short of paying full price, like waiving my portion of the commission which would essentially add that money back into the sale price, but in the end, he gave me the real. He said he'd pass on the house if it were him and went on to explain why. Y'all have no idea how much I appreciated his honesty because I had been feeling that was the best thing and just needed confirmation from someone who knows the game better than I do. I decided to follow that advice and broke it to the midgets, hoping they wouldn't be too upset as they loved the house too. To my surprise, given all the information, they, too, agreed we should pass. It was such a relief.
But the real surprise for me was my own comfort level. In years gone by, I'd have gone ahead with the deal simply because I wanted the house so much and I'd have probably found myself stressed the fuck out and going broke trying to bring the property up to my standards. Sooo many financial issues I had in the past were a result of my impulsiveness - literally almost all of them - so it's a pretty big deal to me that I didn't fall into that trap this time. As you get older and hopefully wiser, this should be the case, but we all know we don't always do the things we know we should. I certainly haven't, but it's so good to know that we actually CAN be and do better once we know better. Keep doing the work - really doing it - and you'll get there!
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