A Penguin in Purple Clothing

Tuesday February 01, 2005

17 Bennington St.

My fiancee, Aubrey, and I recently bought a house. It still hasn't closed, but it has been a long road to where we are today.

We first saw the house back in November druing a public open house. 17 Bennington St. had been on the market since September, a long time in the bay area. When we went in, Aubrey fell in love with it immediately. Although I love Victorians, I was a bit more reserved having noticed the plethora of issues including water and termite damage that I would have to fix. The house had great curb appeal -- bright yellow with beautiful detail -- but the rest of it is old, rotten, and in need of much work. When Aubrey pulled me aside and said she wanted it, I gulped and made sure she was thinking clearly. She was.

I went over to the dejected listing agent and talked to him a bit about the property. He was a brutish Russian fellow who was very forthcoming with the situation: the house has been on the market a long time; it is a probate sale; there have been five offers all of them rejected; the seller is old and a bit nuts. In any event, we took down his name and number and left.

That was on Sunday, November 21. I called the listing agent on Monday and asked if the house was still available. He said it was, but that another offer was going to be presented on Tuesday, the next day. At that point, I called Aubrey and asked what she thought. She wanted to put an offer in as well. I spent that day calling banks and loan officers trying to get the funds ready for the ten percent needed as a cash offer (this is necessary in a probate sale). I also got a real estate agent of my own to represent us.

That was a mistake. Apparently, the listing agent had inferred by our conversations that he was representing both the sellers and us. This caused a bunch of consternation, but was eventually worked out. Why can't this all just be done on computers (like buying gas) without human intervention?

The other (sixth) offer was rejected on Tuesday before we even got ours in. But, we were higher than that one, and the seller's agent assured me it was going to be enough. Then, we got the call on Wednesday before Thanksgiving: they had accepted the offer and would sign it next Monday. We celebrated.

Next Monday rolled around and I didn't hear back from anybody. On that Tuesday, I called. There had been a screw up. The sellers hadn't signed in ink. There was some sort of language issue. They thought the seller had verbally agreed, but apparently not. The seller was an old Filipino woman who didn't speak much English. She wanted full price. Well, Aub and I were devastated. We had offered as much as we could afford and couldn't go any higher.

A week passed and the selling agent called my agent: if we could raise our offer just ten thousand dollars, the seller would take it. And the listing agent would reduce his commission that same amount so it would be a wash to us. That sounded great so we agreed to put in another offer. Once again, we went back to the agency to sign pages and pages of paperwork.

Then, we got another call: they rejected that offer. What?!?! In any event, we couldn't do any more, so we said goodbye to the whole situation.

After that, I did a little online digging and found out that the probate sale is only for 25% of the property. Plus, there were close to eight other people CC'ed on all the paperwork for this sale. I called up the agents to ask what the deal was and finally I learned the sordid truth: It turns out the man who died left the house to his wife, but he had lived a separate, secret life with another wife and set of kids. Everybody had a stake in this sale and it was a total mess.

Aubrey and I reluctantly let go of the house. We moped our way through xmas break.

When we got back, a few days into the new year, I got a call from my agent. Apparently the sellers had reconsidered. If both the seller and buying agents would reduce their commission, they would sell for only 5K over our original offer. Not to let 5K get in the way of our dream house, we agreed. The paperwork was drawn up, offer submitted, and it was finally accepted in writing.

But alas, this was a probate sale subject to court confirmation. We had to present our offer in front of a judge. And once our offer was tentatively accepted by the seller, it went into the public record. That meant, anybody who wanted to could bid just 5% over our offer and then come to the court and snipe the house from under us. We had to wait til January 24 for the court date.

On the 24th, I went down to the court house in downtown San Francisco and presented our offer. Luckily, there were no other offers on the table, and the judge approved the sale.

So, now we are in the 30 days between approval and closing. Let's hope there are no other glitches in ths already hectic process. And without further ado, here is a slide show of the money pit we bought in San Francisco.

(2005-02-01 19:39:28.0) Permalink Comments [0]