Putting up several offers seems typical, at least in Boston.
The first house we put an offer on, turned out to already be under agreement, but the owners didn't tell us that until after they had our written offer to consider. See, they wanted a backup plan if the one they'd accepted fell through. A week of house hunt time was wasted because we didn't dare make any other offers until that one expired, lest we end up with two houses. Lesson learned: written offers should expire in no more than 24 hours.
The second house we out an offer on, it was laughed at, even though it was within the "value range" the agent advertised it at. Lesson learned: "value range" is bullshit designed to bait-and-switch you.
The third house is the one we're in, but only after about a month of inspections and renegotiating and ending up hating the other party so much I still hope they die. The only reason we didn't ditch the deal is that the two agents colluded to trick us because they wanted their commission. We only caught them at it because I actually read fine print. See, we had gotten to within $1000 on the price before we decided we hated each other so much that they didn't deserve our money (and we didn't deserve their house), and each of our agents told us the other set had finally agreed and then threw in the $1000 themselves in secret.
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Date: 2006-10-13 06:31 pm (UTC)The first house we put an offer on, turned out to already be under agreement, but the owners didn't tell us that until after they had our written offer to consider. See, they wanted a backup plan if the one they'd accepted fell through. A week of house hunt time was wasted because we didn't dare make any other offers until that one expired, lest we end up with two houses. Lesson learned: written offers should expire in no more than 24 hours.
The second house we out an offer on, it was laughed at, even though it was within the "value range" the agent advertised it at. Lesson learned: "value range" is bullshit designed to bait-and-switch you.
The third house is the one we're in, but only after about a month of inspections and renegotiating and ending up hating the other party so much I still hope they die. The only reason we didn't ditch the deal is that the two agents colluded to trick us because they wanted their commission. We only caught them at it because I actually read fine print. See, we had gotten to within $1000 on the price before we decided we hated each other so much that they didn't deserve our money (and we didn't deserve their house), and each of our agents told us the other set had finally agreed and then threw in the $1000 themselves in secret.
Drama is normal, and people totally suck.