Well, that was fast!

So the house went up for sale on Friday evening, we had our first viewing on Saturday morning and by Monday at 9am we had an offer! We’ve been back and forth with these people over the last few days and this evening we agreed a deal in principle. We’e agreed to cancel our planned open house on Sunday and instead their inspector is coming round to survey the house. This is standard procedure before buying any home.

Once they get his report back, they’ll either agree to sign a contract to buy the house at the agreed price or, well, they won’t. So until that is done, nothing is a done deal and we can’t count our chickens. But still, I’d rather be in this situation than be still waiting for an offer.

Are we nuts?

I suppose there are some people who might think we’re mad to jump at the first offer. It’s a little below the asking price (although not much) and since the asking price is already on the low side, there’s probably no doubt that we could have held out for more. Maybe not from these buyers, but from someone else. And our agent was itching to push back even after they came back with an increased offer. I could tell she thought she could have squeezed a little more out of them. And I know most people would have tried.

There’s this reflex that kicks in once you receive an offer – this reflex that says “try to get more. They must want it if they offered so quickly. Make them pay!” And when you really need that little bit of extra money, that reflex makes sense. But in our case, we have made a nice profit on this house because we were lucky about buying at the right time.

Holding out for that extra bit of money would cost us in countless ways. We’d have the stress of waiting for another offer that may or may not come. We’d have the inconvenience of continuing to show the house, which is a real pain in the butt let me tell you. And we’d lose money every month because our cost of living in the UK will be quite a bit less than here, so the sooner we get back, the sooner we can start saving.

Looking at it that way, it’s a no-brainer. We’ve accepted the offer gladly and we’re just keeping everything crossed that the inspection goes well.

But there’s one more thing

Oh and I didn’t tell you the best bit – when they were here, the buyers noticed the plates outside on the patio and the cat food in the kitchen, and the cat house on the patio table and surmised, correctly, that we take care of stray cats. They sent word with their offer that they are cat lovers too and that they’d be happy to keep taking care of the cats we feed.
That sealed the deal for me. The house is theirs!