Best Spring Clearwater Real Estate Sales Since 2006
Helping a Deserving Mother and Wife Get Her Dream Home
| Table of Contents |
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| Statistics and Graphs |
| Helping a Deserving Mother and Wife Get Her Dream Home |
| Another Homeowner Saved from Foreclosure |
| Dealing with a Tough Negotiation |
The experience I had this past month in trying to get a client her dream home will illustrate why it is important to understand the conditions in our local market and to be prepared if you want to get a property you like and it is a property that is well-priced and in a popular area.
My client is a working wife and mother and has a wonderful 21 year-old son who has a physical disability and wanted to find a nice house at a reasonable price to buy in Safety Harbor close to the downtown area. We were looking for a few weeks but any we found either were not quite right or went under contract too quickly. I had made sure from the start that she had her financing worked out and, since she was paying cash, had a proof of funds.
I had set up an automated search in the MLS so I would be notified immediately if something came on the market that met her criteria and on a Thursday evening I received an email with a listing that looked exactly like what she wanted. The seller was not represented by a Realtor so I contacted him directly and asked if we could see it right then (it was about 9:30pm at that time) since my client was going out of town the next day. He didn’t have a key in the lockbox so we arranged to have him get a key there by 10am the next morning and I told him that if she liked it she would want to put in a contract right away. He didn’t live in the house but is local and agree to come over if I called to do a contract.
I called my client and sent her the listing and she felt it was exactly what she was looking for. We arranged to meet the next morning at the house at 10am.
We got there at 10 the next morning and after checking out the house my client did feel it was what she wanted and I called the owner to come over to do the contract (I brought all the paperwork with me). While we were waiting for the owner, another Realtor came through and I told her that we were going to put it under contract. She replied that if the seller hasn’t signed anything then it was still available and when the seller pulled up she walked right over to him and asked him if he had signed a contract yet. He told her he hadn’t but was not too thrilled about her doing that.
We went inside and filled out the paperwork and while we were getting all the signatures done another Realtor came in with a client and was holding up paperwork saying she wanted to put in an offer. The seller said that we were just finalizing a contract and that hers would have to be a backup – she turned around and left.
We closed in mid-March and my client is thrilled with her new home.
The reason I wrote about this here is to give an example of what can happen in this current market so you can see how important it is to be prepared with your financing early on and how you need to be able to move quickly when you find something you like, especially if it is something where you might have competition from other buyers.