Selling a house isn’t anything like this.

(This is part of the Selling Grandma’s House series. For the rest of the series, click here)

I was going to wait until next Tuesday to break the news, but it came so quickly I had to post today: we’ve got another full offer on the house.

Seriously.

The offer was in my email box Tuesday night and we’ve been working out the details since then. This new buyer isn’t asking for an inspec­tion clause and appears to be a fairly reputable home-buying company. Not sure what they want to do with the place, maybe flip it or rent it out to college students or something. Whatever the reason, they’ve put down a full offer on our home and we’re prepared to accept!

In the 24-hours since I’ve gotten that offer two more offers have come in. Neither of them have been full offers, but they were still very nice. With a little nego­ti­ating, I’m sure I could get them pretty close to what we asked for. If nothing else, they remind me that this house will sell, even if the first buyer backed out suddenly.

Unfor­tu­nately, the saga from the first buyer is far from over. Our case still has to be reviewed by the realtors asso­ci­a­tion in Florida and if it doesn’t pick a clear winner, we’ll have to start nego­ti­ating directly with the ex-buyer. It’s still a ways off, but it’s in the back of my mind as I’m working this other deal.

God has really blessed my family in this whole thing. We’ve gotten an amazing realtor who’s taken care of every­thing without complaint, we’ve found two buyers willing to pay full price for the house, and it’s likely we’ll get all our expenses returned to us by the end of this escrow dispute.

It’s an encour­aging reminder of who is in control.

And since I’ve been so bad at updating, let me assure you: there will be high­lights on Saturday and Tuesday will resume normal updates. Things got a bit rocky there for a few weeks but things are back to normal (or as normal as they can be, haha).

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No, the dog didn’t eat your contract…

(This is part of the Selling Grandma’s House series. For the rest of the series, click here)

We were set to close on Grandma’s house last Friday, but it didn’t happen.

At some point, the buyer decided she didn’t want my grandmother’s house anymore. There are a million possible reasons (she’s certainly not telling us the truth), but whatever her reason, last Monday she stopped talking to her realtor and a few days later sent us a certified letter saying her attorney looked over the contract and that we were in violation of it (we weren’t, and if an attorney did look at the contract, then he/she is inept because it’s obvious we weren’t).

After telling her that, she responded a few days later with another bogus attempt to make us look like the bad guys when we did every­thing she asked us to do and kept all our promises.

When closing day rolled around, the only thing she gave us was paperwork asking her for escrow back.

We are fighting for the escrow (since she is in breach of contract and we spent a good chunk of money responding to her requests even though we didn’t have to). So I’ll be learning more about realty than I ever imagined. It’s been frus­trating, but I’m not worried. We’ve already had a few people look at the house and I imagine offers will start coming in rela­tively soon.

Sadly, the whole thing is stressing my grand­mother out.

For now, we’re back at square one. The house is listed and we’re hoping for the best.

Fingers crossed!

(This is part of the Selling Grandma’s House series. For the rest of the series, click here)

Turns out, selling a house is more expensive than simply paying a realtor.

The govern­ment has their fees, the realty company has their fees, the buyer has a few requested fees, and there are always a few surprise costs waiting to spring up at the last minute.

I’m not mad about the fees – they all seem reason­able, but I do want to know what my grand­mother is paying. Like most people, I’m ignorant. (more…)

(This is part of the Selling Grandma’s House series. For the rest of the series, click here)

After choosing Brooke as our realtor, every­thing kicked into high gear. Brooke has proven to be an excep­tional realtor. She emailed me the contract imme­di­ately and was patient as I read it over and had my grand­mother sign it. The contract was long (11 pages) but my history as a paralegal helped me sort through all the legal mumbo jumbo and break it down for my grand­mother who was happy with it.

The majors of the contract work like this:

• Brooke is our only realtor throughout this process.
• When the house sells, she receives a 6% commission.
• We can end our contract at any time without penalty.

That last bit was important. If Brooke didn’t deliver, I wanted the freedom to switch realtors.

After dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s, Brooke and I discussed a price. After looking over compa­rable houses in the area, she suggested $50,000 dollars. I looked over the compa­ra­bles she sent me and thought it was a good price, but I wanted to end any nego­ti­a­tions as close to 50,000 as possible so I bumped it up to 53,000. She told me it might detour a few people, but still thought it was a good price.

We got her the key and security code and at that point she listed it. (more…)

This isn’t my Grandma’s house either.

(This is part of the Selling Grandma’s House series. For the rest of the series, click here. Also, I wasn’t asked or paid to talk about the ELP program, I just wanted to ).

How do you sell a house when you’re 1,000 miles away? You get someone else to do it for you.

The hard part is finding someone trust­worthy to do the job.

Like any good entre­pre­neur, I didn’t just want to outsource the selling part; I also outsourced finding a good realtor. Well, most of the finding.

Dave Ramsey has a program he calls Endorsed Local Providers. These are accoun­tants, realtors, insurance, health insurance, and invest­ment profes­sionals that have met the insanely high standards Dave puts forth including:

• Willing to teach newbies (like me).
• A veteran in their profession
• Years of success in good and bad climates.

You can’t get much easier than picking a realtor through this site. (more…)

This isn’t her house.

In December, my Grandma moved into my parent’s house. She’d had a few falls over the years and around Thanks­giving it got so bad that she couldn’t live on her own anymore.

She has lived in Florida since before I was born so, having her in Dallas has been a blast for me.

Unfor­tu­nately, there is still one big loose end to tie up in Florida – her house. It’s in a lower-income area of Florida and is pretty old. She’s taken care of it, so it should do pretty well. Plus, she paid almost nothing for it when she bought it.

Though I’ve never talked about it on the blog, one of my goals is to buy a few houses, get renters in them, and make a decent future living as a landlord. My kind grandma knows this and asked me if I wanted to sell the house for her.

How could I refuse?

So now I’m in the process of helping her sell her home. I’m contacting the realtors, making sure all the house stuff get taken care of, and will be nego­ti­ating the final deal – all from 1,100 miles away!

Join Me

I’m taking you with me as I sell this house. I’ll be blogging every­thing from finding the realtor to getting the house cleaned to final­izing the deal.

You’ll learn with me as I figure out how this whole house selling things works.

• Finding A Realtor
• The First Offer

Have you ever sold a house? What surprised you the most?

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