Gone Fishin'

Real Estate transactions are interesting. Apparently, one can make verbal bids, thus avoiding the paperwork while still finding out if you're in the ballpark. Every time one comes in, the realtor must call both my sister and me to present the bid for our acceptance or denial.

Personally, I think it's the potential buyers who are in denial.

Grandma's house is rather run down, true; but it sits on top of a hill on nearly nine acres of raw, beautiful farmland in a growing area of Southern Ohio. Pastoral is a word I often use to describe the area. The house isn't where the money is; the land IS.

I realize that there is a way to become rich in real estate by purchasing rundown properties from estates, from very naive sellers (like little old widowed ladies) or from people in desperate circumstances who need to "unload" something fast. The buyers then fix up the place, invest a little money, and turn around and sell it for a huge profit.

That's fine.

But we're not desperate. And we're not naive. And we heard the appraiser when he told us a figure over $200k, because it's not about the house.

So is it criminal for me to laugh hysterically when someone calls me (as they did several months ago) and makes a "generous" offer of $75,000 for the whole thing? And to laugh even harder when they get mad at ME and try to tell me they're doing me a "favor" by offering "that much"?

We got an offer this week for $110,000.

Nice downpayment—oh, you mean that's the entire offer?

ERNGCK! Wrong answer.

Today they (or somebody) raised it to $170,000.

Getting warmer.

It's going on the market for $259,999.

I'm fully expecting that price to weed out the "how to get rich quick in real estate" wanna-be's and bring out those who will truly love Grandma's old Victorian on the hill. I'm also fully expecting that there will be a grand bidding war that will take the price even higher. I know by watching the verbals come in that they are just biding their time tossing a line in to see if we'll bite; trying to get the deal of the century, hoping we'll jump prematurely. What they are soon to find out is that WE are the ones with the line and the bait.

This should be interesting.

posted by Jeanne @ 2:27 AM