By Living Room Realty, August 12, 2019
Amy and Luis were along for the ride last month when Amy’s sister Kara bought her house. Two weeks after that house closed, Luis texted me with a house he wanted to see for a rental. The idea was to either buy a house that Amy and Kara’s parents can move into, or just a house they can hold onto for a long term investment. We hung out for an hour at a really beat up bungalow. It had been a rental forever and the tenants had a weed operation in the basement. The location was cool, but the house needed a minimum of $100k to bring it back to life.
As we were standing by our cars talking about the offer we were going to write, I mentioned that I’d really like to see them buy a mid-century instead of an old bungalow for an investment. Even if it were a grandma ranch, the bones would be a lot more solid and it would likely only need cosmetics. I had a house on my radar that I was meaning to check out for myself so I showed them photos of it online. Ten minutes later we were there.
The house had been on the market for two weeks at $625k. I really think the only reason it didn’t fly off the shelf was because it came on during a holiday weekend. The history of it was that it had been in the same family for 50 years and when the mom died recently, the daughter came up from Florida and updated all the systems. She replaced the roof, electrical, furnace, painted, remodeled a bathroom, and added an egress to the basement family room. It was important to her to honor her mother and the home she grew up in and get it ready for market. It was immaculate and bright with pass-through picture windows that look out into the large landscaped back yard. She left all the mid-century details untouched and did all the right things to make it modern.
Because this house has a full basement with egress and it’s own entrance separate from the main house, it would be very easy to convert to a duplex. Everyone left in love and an hour later Luis called to tell me to write it up. Because it wasn’t going to be his home and there’s less emotional attachment with a rental and there were no other offers, he offered $25k under asking. The next day the seller accepted.
There wasn’t much to negotiate on this deal because everything had already been done. The only tricky part was the sewer line but we were able to get the seller to replace it before closing. The timing worked out perfectly because Amy and Luis married last Saturday and Amy’s parents were still in town Monday when it closed to check out their potential new home. I love these clients and I LOVE when deals go super smooth. Congrats Amy and Luis!!!
