I actually enjoyed talking to the realtors. I asked about their experiences in working in the industry, and also they opinions about the slowdown market (at the time of writing, the Canadian housing market was still holding on).
As for the Internet advertisements, I learned that Craiglist, Google, and Facebook were pretty much ineffective as far as selling my house was concerned. Many replied from Kijiji, all because they were curious about the price, which I had deliberately left out from the ads. All my leads ended up coming from the sign in front of my house. They saw my sign and my phone number. Then they called me. Come to think of it, serious people would naturally check out the area when they look for a house.
Another phenomenon I have observed was that people usually called in the weekends. This was the time they would drive around the area to hunt for houses. So I set aside my Sunday afternoons to open my house for showing.
I put up my sign on a Friday. The next day I was outside my house patching up the exterior wall of my house. A family in their SUV stopped by and asked me if I could show them my house. I told them my house was not really at that time, but they could come back in 3 hours. They did. Serious buyer would not mind setting up an appointment and coming back another time.
The family liked the house very much, except for (guess what?) the colour of the carpet. It seemed that they were not too desperate to buy a house at that time, but the wife anyhow gave my an offer of $540,000. I said what? $20,000 less than my asking price. Sorry, that was too low. It was only the second day so I had no rush for a deal. We both exchanged contacts and agreed to keep in touch. They never came back again.
The next Saturday I was out in the park and another potential buyer called. They told me that they lived in the same area, and were thinking of moving up to a larger house. I then arranged a time on Sunday for showing.
They showed up on time on Sunday. They walked around the house very quickly. It seemed that they had done some research and were quire familiar with the layout of the house. They did not comment on the colour of my carpet, but instead the carpet itself because they preferred hardwood floors. They complained about the absence of a central vacuum system and any landscaping at all. They looked dissatisfied with my house, but was willing to give me an offer, a low one: $525,000. They were real negotiation experts!
I yielded and offered them $540,000 as a return. This was the unacceptable price the previous family offered me, but this family was still unsatisfied. I told them that was well below my bottom line. So we exchanged contacts and the negotiation ended there.
The same night they called me back. They wanted to look at the house a second time. There was hope again. I arranged a showing the next evening. Again, they arrived punctually. They walked around the house checking everything in details.
At the end, they asked me to lower my price further. Since they already gave away the sign that they really liked the house and were willing to strike a deal, I refused. I assured them that was already a bargain price, and indeed it was. After adjusting the lists of exclude and include items, we stroke a deal!
This was only a verbal offer. Both sides were to get our lawyers engaged to iron out a formal deal in the form of a written contract.
Part 2
Part 4
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