It is final

a couple laying on the terrace's chairs smiling at each other

It is final

 

 

Well it has happened.  And it was a nail biter.  I guess I shouldn’t expect anything less on this roller coaster we’ve got ourselves on.  Reverie might not have been the best name for our business, at least not the development part of it, since I have not had one single moment for a reverie since we started down this path!

But I won’t hold you in suspense any longer.  We managed to sell our house and once we close escrow tomorrow we will have a chunk of money in the bank to help us develop Reverie and get this place open by late next year if all goes well.  We decided back in September, 2015 that the best plan of action was to sell our house, we interviewed real estate agents in October, moved a lot of our stuff out in December and interviewed contractors to do what we thought would be minor renovations but ended up being a bit more than that, we finalized the construction schedule in February and moved the rest of our stuff out.  February was spent in a whirl of managing all of the contractors and Ramon did some of the work as well to cut down on costs.  The first two weekends in March were crazy rainy weekends so we didn’t hold the broker’s tour until March 17, which was a gorgeous day and more than 90 brokers came through.  We had a request for a disclosure packet before the broker tour even began, and by Friday we had our first anticipated offer.  A former client of our real estate agents wanted to make an offer and knew what our minimum price was. So we felt pretty confident going into our first open house on March 20, which was still rainy but at least not a deluge. More than 160 people came to see our house in the first two hours before it started raining in earnest.  Our agents were advising us not to do another open house and just call for offers by the end of the week.

But within a few days, the “for sure” offer decided he wanted something bigger and wasn’t going to make an offer after all, and we knew of only one confirmed offer coming in.  Even though there were 15 disclosure packets out, our agents thought it would be smart to do another open house.  The problem was, though, that the next Sunday was Easter, and we were worried it would depress traffic.  But there was nothing to be done about it – if we were going to do another open house it would have to be that weekend. Ramon and I were starting to worry that we wouldn’t even get an offer that was the minimum we needed to make it worth it for us to sell our house.

 

 

Fortunately March 27 turned out to be a beautiful day, and there were nearly 100 more people who came through.  By Monday we had 22 requests for disclosure packets and our agents called for offers on Tuesday by mid-day.

As it turned out, as my agent told us over the phone on Tuesday afternoon, by Monday evening he knew of three confirmed offers coming in.  By Tuesday morning, all three withdrew their offers for various reasons, but the main reason seemed to be that our house was just too small. One person couldn’t figure out where they were going to put their television. Another woman was worried she wouldn’t be able to fit all of her clothes in the closet.  And another didn’t know how her UPS packages were going to get delivered over the fence (huh?) That one seemed particularly strange to me since UPS won’t leave packages on porches in that neighborhood because the packages get stolen. Having a fence actually makes it possible for you to get deliveries.  But it sounded like people were finding reasons to talk themselves out of it and there was nothing to be done about.

However, in the end, another offer came in that he didn’t know about and wasn’t expecting. And it was a great offer!  $50,000 over our minimum and no contingencies – not even for a loan or an inspection. She’s a single woman, a doctor at Kaiser, and has been trying to buy a house in the neighborhood for a while.  She wrote a lovely letter about how perfect the house was for her and that it was worth the wait. With her offer she clearly wanted to make sure she got the house.

So in the end, we were extremely lucky as we came way too close to getting no offers at all.  Which I certainly wasn’t expecting!

We are taking a few days off starting Friday for some much needed recuperation from the stress of it all. We haven’t been on any length vacation since 2014 so I’m really looking forward to a few days away.  If you will recall we tried to take a vacation in December but Otto had a stroke the day before we were leaving so we had to cancel it. (He’s doing great now, by the way, and my parents are generously keeping him for us this weekend).

 

 

While all the money we are making is already accounted for in the Reverie development plan (and then some –we will still have to get a loan!) we decided for our own sanity that we needed to spend a little of it on some time away, so we will also do a week-long vacation in June at a place we’ve been wanting to stay at for a long time, Tu Tu Tun Lodge, on the Rogue River in Oregon. In the meantime, we are meeting with our pool contractor next week to get the timeline for pool installation so hopefully we will have a pool by the end of the summer.  Then we can just go on vacation to our own pool, since that is all we will be able to afford to do anyway!  I guess I should just enjoy feeling wealthy for about five minutes when I see that money hit our bank account tomorrow (not that I’m complaining!)

 

 

 

 

 

#reverieretreat

 

3 thoughts on “It is final”

  1. Kathryn Sears Conrad

    Sounds like quite a rollercoaster ride, but what an exciting adventure for all of you. Wishing you all the best.

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