About this blog...getting you current...

Pin It

This first post will be a little long, after this "getting you current" posting we'll try to just update the current status of this transaction with some short, regular postings.

While traveling to Yosemite in early November 2009, my wife and I did some browsing of properties on the web like we usually do when we travel.  We currently live in Gilroy, CA on a small (3 acre) hobby farm, we have always talked about moving to a larger property some day, something in the mountains, a little more rural.  The problem is that we never really found that perfect spot and we haven't really been looking that hard.

Well, while on this trip we came across a property in Gold Country, specifically Georgetown, CA.  It was so interesting in what it had to offer that we decided to drive from Yosemite to see the place the next day.  Lucky for us, the Realtor was able to meet with us and show us the place so quickly.

Once we made it to the location, we knew that the place had pretty much what we were looking for and we wanted to do what we could to try and make a deal happen.  As it turns out, the property is a Short Sale which was something very new to us, so we had a lot of learning to do.

What we discovered that day was that this place had been on the market for almost two years without a single offer.  The price was continually dropped over that two year period and it had just been dropped the week before we were up there.  The price that was listed is (as we learned) not necessarily what the bank would take to sell the house.  Apparently, until there is one offer in on the property, no one really knows.

We felt that being the first people to actually make an offer would hopefully put us in a good position, our understanding is that we may have first right of refusal on what the bank comes back with based on our offer.  So our intent was to get an offer in quickly before anyone else did.

We are working with the listing agency in order to protect our interests with this property and hopefully keep the fees down as well.  We went home and immediately worked with our bank to secure a financing commitment so we could at least get the offer in.

By the following Wednesday, we had a Seller accepted offer in place for this home and now we are in the waiting game with the bank.  The waiting game actually works well for us since it gives us more time to pull together solid financing and plan for a sale of our property (of course, we would only sell once the other property closed).  Current time line is that we will not hear anything back from the bank until mid-to-late December at the very earliest, and even with that we don't know what type of information we would hear.

We have secured a Realtor here in Gilroy who will be listing our house when the time is right.  Horrible time of year to sell, again, good for us that the Short Sale takes its time!  But she has listed our home on a few websites, I'll provide links to those here in future postings.