This post is long, but what a story!
Yesterday, I was in a predicament. I had to make a decision about which realtor we are going to use.
There are two properties that we liked from our two days of looking. Both realtors had informed us about the too expensive, big, brick 4 BR house. However, only the Costco wife had given us the yellow 3 BR that I think is the place we should buy. My realtor had only sent us 4 BR houses to look at.
I really wanted to be loyal to her but I can’t use her to buy a property that she didn’t tell us about! Talk about tearing up my integrity and throwing it into the trash!
Then I remembered that I had told her that we were looking for 4 BR homes. So, yesterday afternoon I asked if she could send me a list of 3 BR homes. I checked my e-mail when I got home…nothing new.
I woke up from my headache induced sleep when my wife got home from work. Her co-worker had told her that the real estate agents really make very little money on a foreclosure. So, rather than have our realtor work very hard only to wind up making a small commission, we decided that we would go with the Costco wife since she knew that was what we wanted from the very beginning.
Since my wife knows our realtor on a personal basis, she volunteered to give her the mildly bad news. Unbeknownst to me at the time, she drove to our realtor’s office at 11:00 this morning! Guess what?…
Our realtor wasn’t there!!! So, my wife couldn’t tell her!
That little piece of providence turned out to be a VERY good thing!
At 12:00, I decided to take a prayer walk for my half hour lunch. At 12:20, I felt like I should go back and check my personal e-mail.
What do you think I found?
Several e-mails with over 100 3 BR houses!
That is great but there was no way that I had time to organize them on a spreadsheet and plot them on maps by the end of lunch. In fact, by the time I looked at the last e-mail, lunch was over. I thought “I guess that is what I will be doing tonight.”
At 12:34, my phone rang. It was my realtor…
“Did you get my e-mails?”
“Yes, I’m just opened them right now.”
She started saying something and I realized that the house that we were interested in was on the list that was currently on my screen!
I interrupted her, “Hey, what do you think of the property on 123rd Street? I looked at the pictures and it looks like a nice property.”
OK, I am guilty of feigning a little ignorance…
I mean I didn’t tell her EVERYTHING that I knew…
She looked it up on her computer, “Yeah, that’s a foreclosure…It’s only been on the market for 3 days (that was the day we started looking!) so that’s good…Oh, wow, that one probably won’t make it through the weekend at that price.”
“Well, if we are not going to make a cash offer, what would we have to do?”
“You would have to have an approval letter from a lender.”
“Do you have any lenders that you would recommend?”
“Yes, I have two. The first is really quick but she is unavailable because she had surgery today. The second guy is also really good, but he takes at least two days to respond.”
“Can you send me their information?”
“Sure. I’ll call Gary and tell him to expect your call.”
We hung up the phone at 12:53.
I then got permission from my manager to leave work early if by some strange twist of fate, I was able to get an appointment with the lender. I then called my wife to warn her of the possible changes to our afternoon plans.
The e-mail containing the lender’s information showed up at 1:12. I immediately called and left a voice mail.
At 1:30, I sent an e-mail communicating the details and the urgency of my situation.
At 1:31, I called to leave a voice mail informing him about the e-mail. Guess what happened?
He answered the phone!
“Gary? This is Lord.”
“Yes, your realtor said that you would be calling.”
“I just sent you an e-mail.”
“I know. I read it and it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“What do you need from me?”
He then spelled out all of the information that he needed.
After we hung up, I went online, and after multiple tries, finally guessed correctly on my user name and password. I then printed copies of my W-2 ad the last four weeks paychecks, scanned them in on our copier and at 1:54, e-mailed them to him.
I followed up with a call…he got them!
At 2:10, he called me back and told me that I was approved for more than the entire asking price of the house! The guy who never responds in less than two days approved me in 39 minutes!
…over the phone!!
I called our realtor…
“Gary called me and said that you are approved. I can’t believe it! What is going on? He has never done that before! I’m serious, this is like a miracle!”
I asked her we could see the house today…
“I have an appointment at 5:00 Any time before that is good for me.”
“How about 3:00?”
I called my wife and told her that we were going to meet the realtor at the property. This would be Bunch’s first glimpse at the inside of the the place. We just did a drive by on Wednesday night because there was a car in the driveway and we thought that it was occupied.
When our realtor arrive, she informed us that the listing agent had told her that someone had already made a full price cash offer. However, the bank was not going to consider any offers until the house had been listed for 72 hours! Since it was listed on Wednesday, we are still in the game!
When we walked in and saw the vaulted ceiling with the kitchen/dining room overlooking the living room, my wife’s eyes lit up. When we saw the master bedroom with the vaulted ceiling, a large walk in closet, and a master bath with diamond jacuzzi tub, she was sold. When I saw that the unfinished daylight basement was already plumbed for a full third bath, there was no question as to what we were going to do!
By 4:30, we had driven to the realtor’s office and written up our offer!
From nothing to submitting an offer in four hours! Wait a minute…
I’ve been in this play before…
That sounds EXACTLY like how we got into the apartments that we have been living in for the past two years!
Since someone has already made a full price cash offer and we are going to finance our purchase, we went in a little higher.
We should find out on Monday…stay tuned!
