Bought and Sold!

I haven't blogged for quite some time again, thanks to no computer & no time... here's why:

We've bought a new house and sold our condo!


Buying
It had been a month since our previous serious attempt to buy a house.  We had been constantly looking, but we hadn't found anything really interested us.  Actually, there were a few which were potentially interesting, but the market has picked up soooo fast that they were sold we often didn't have a chance to see it.

A specific house triggered us to put in an offer for the previous house (let's call it House A) again: there was a new house (let's call it House B) in the neighbourhood we were looking at which was listed early in the week, listed at a price 10% higher than what a similar house (House C) was sold at a month ago.  We asked our agent to schedule an appointment on Saturday, along with 6 other houses.  Come Saturday, our agent told us 4 out of the 7 houses were conditionally sold.  Particularly, House B had 4 offers, and was already having an inspection done on that day.  Knowing House A was still on the market, we decided to immediately put in an offer at the final price the sellers wanted (which was $3k higher than what we last offered them).  Time was not on our side: we wanted to make sure the sellers accept our offer before the actual price of House B--which we estimated would be at least $25k higher than House C--was listed on MLS.  (The sellers of House A based the final price they asked for on the selling price of House C.)

We were lucky: we signed the offer on Saturday night, and the sellers accepted it on Monday.  We scheduled the home inspection on the past Saturday, and have waived all conditions.

Selling
Also on that same Saturday night, we signed the paperwork to start selling our condo.  Daniel wanted to make sure we sell our condo before we move in to the new house.  (Back then, I thought we would sell our place in days, so there was no point to rush.  Daniel thought we would sell it in weeks, so he was more pressing.)  The listing would become active on Monday, but we were still way behind on tidying up our place for showing--it's not easy to show our condo when it was filled with stuff, especially the baby stuff.  We had been slowly moving some of our belongings to our parents' places, but the work was still far from done.

On Monday, I received 3 requests to see our condo.  Naturally, I rejected all. :D  In fact, when we saw a memo on our condo's notice board stating they'd clean the carpets in the common area on Tuesday and Wednesday, we decided to delay all showings until Thursday.  Also, since it was (and still is) nearly impossible to plan Isaac's nap times and meal times, I decided to stay at my parents' place for Thursday and Friday nights, along with Isaac of course.  Daniel would stay behind because my parents live too far away from work.  We figured we'd be going out on Saturday and Sunday anyway, so there was no need for Isaac and I to stay at my parents' place.

I left with Isaac on Wednesday afternoon.  My mom stayed behind and helped me with the finishing touches.  When Daniel got home on Wednesday evening, he was amazed at how clean and tidy our place looked: "this is my home?!?! It looks like hotel!!!"

Well, the first visitors of our hotel-like home arrived earlier than the requested--Daniel was still brushing his teeth when they came in (the key was in a lockbox)! He told them to wait 10 minutes for him to get ready.  That was the first of 5 appointments on Thursday.

By Thursday afternoon, we already received our first offer!  The price offered was our target price, so we were ecstatic.  Before we responded with a counter-offer on Thursday night, a second offer came in at an even better price!  Our agent also told us a third offer would come in the next day.

Our agent asked us how did we want to handle the situation.  We decided to have a deadline on Saturday evening and decide then.  (Daniel: "We've spent so much time preparing, let's at least show it for one day of the weekend!")  There were 4 or 5 more appointments on each of Friday and Saturday.  With only 3 days of showing, we received a total of 4 offers and sold at (a what we thought as an aggressive) asking price. (One more offer was supposed to come in, but the buyer probably backed out after knowing there were so many.)