Monday, August 14, 2006

Friday's news

I left work early Fri because our realtor was scheduled to come at 4pm. We asked her to assess our house and tell us what she thought a reasonable asking price would be. But just before she arrived the phone rang. When I answered it the caller asked to speak to Joe, so I gave him the phone.

It was Harvey, the guy Joe's been waiting and waiting to hear from regarding his new job! They had occasionally exchanged emails over the last 2+ months, mostly because Joe was looking for some kind of word regarding the additional approvals Harvey was seeking in order to pay Joe what he'd asked for.

As I heard Joe begin to speak with Harvey, Betsy knocked on the door. We selected Betsy as our realtor because she is a neighborhood specialist. She lists and sells lots of homes in our zip code and, more specifically, in our neighborhood. She also has the reputation for pricing houses accurately, leading to fewer days on the market (DOM). Since our home is in a sought-after community and we are hoping to have in on the market for as few days as possible, Betsy sounded like the perfect fit.

She showed us a binder she'd made with market analysis, listing and sales prices, this year versus last year, comps and more. She also described the marketing and advertising she does for her listings, both online and in local print. She described the 'realtor caravan' on the Tues before the house goes onto the market and the open house process. It was exactly what we wanted to hear. Six years ago when we'd put our former house on the market with a more 'reactive' realtor we were disappointed at the level of exposure and activity the house received. Betsy had it covered.

Next we went for a walk around the house, where Betsy pointed out things that needed to change and I carried a legal pad and quickly scribbled them down. There were very few surprises, likely due to my disproportionate interest in watching TV shows like "Sell This House" and "Design to Sell". We told her about several things (new kitchen floor, granite counters, etc) that were already scheduled and just waiting for installation. Betsy had a few ideas I hadn't thought of so I made sure to take particular note of them. Later Joe & I reviewed the list and felt pretty fortunate. It was less extensive than the list we had 6 years ago.

Betsy was optimistic about the size, condition, and desirability of our house. Then came the million dollar question: What would be her suggested list price? She said she really wanted to think more about our house, and then come back when the new kitchen, etc was done, and then she'd be able to more accurately assess its value and suggest a list price. However, she gave us a range with a $50K spread, and the price I had thought we could get was exactly in the middle of that range. That was good news.

When Betsy left Joe told me that it was Harvey who had called, and that he confirmed Joe's job status/offer and salary. Wow, what a relief! He also wanted Joe to select a start date so Joe looked at the calendar, considered what we were going to be doing with the house, etc and agreed to start work on Sept 18.

Initially Joe will stay at our beach house and I will remain here while the house is on the market. We'll see each other (either here or in DE) on weekends. Once we have an acceptable offer on our house here, we will immediately put an offer on the house in DE we affectionately refer to as the "water house". Hopefully both offers and resultant settlements will go smoothly and we will move to our new house. We're excited!!!

Drag Queen name of the day: Beverly Hills

1 comment:

Bugsy said...

Sounds like things are going well for you guys! Tell Joe congrats on his new job! Hopefully things will continue to go well!