Quote:
Originally Posted by PeanutButter
Hindsight and experience is always 20/20.
We have friends who were looking at a great detached in Vancouver. Lot was ~33x130ft, two car garage + car port, house was built in 2000, with a two bedroom basement suite and house was in move in ready shape (it was 2000 dated, but it was clean). The seller offered the house at $1.99M and our friends offered $2.05M (This was around July 2021).
The sellers actually wanted $2.1M and my friends just passed on it. It sat on the market for another month and it finally sold.
It was a solid house and their budget wasn't even stretched, they could go up to $2.2M, but they didn't think it was worth $2.1M.
At the time I told them $50k on a $2M house was nothing, but they were adamant the house wasn't even worth that much.
Fast forward to today where they still haven't found a house and they're kicking themselves because $2.2M in Vancouver right now doesn't have much.
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Yeah... similar things happened to my friend when they were getting their place in 2019. That actually taught me a lesson, because they never found another house they liked better.
When I was getting my place, we were back and forth on offers on the phone between seller (their agents) and mine. Came down to a number that meant I had to add another 2% and they weren't moving after 3 attempts (where we entertained things like inspections, they taking care of tenants and some immediate repairs... but not on price). At that point, my agent kinda thought the deal collapsed because my last offer, I told her that's as much as I'd go. And that's from the logical side of me.
I could afford to go higher. It's just the math of nearby prices telling me I shouldn't go higher, even though knowing that the 2% is for the seller to cover all the agents' fees so they kinda breakeven from their purchase price a few years back. I was like... fuck... would I really be that worse off for a mere 2%?
At the end, the emotional side of me spoke... "happy wife, happy life" (up to that point houses were either I liked it, for land value, or she liked it, for the house) and I didn't want to push my wife on further house hunting that we might never find anything we liked more as our friend's case. So I told my agents, that if I agree to the 2% bump, the deal signs today. No if or buts or sleeping on it... it ends tonight (it was almost 11PM, we made the offer valid to 11:59PM). 5min later, they signed back on the accepted offer.
That was back in Dec 2020, before the whole "market heating up again" hitting headlines after headlines. I was glad to be able to finalize that deal because after that, listings in the areas we were looking just got more and more expensive/sold over asking, while we were actually able to haggle a bit from asking. Even for the price we paid (including that 2%), we wouldn't get anything similar after that month. And that 2%, in the grand scheme of things, was adding a few bucks to monthly... probably less than what my kids spend on their monthly fast-food day. So, I'd have hated my logical me if I didn't just buy it based on guts.
It's not because the house's assessment shoot up 30% to make me feel better on paper, but rather... a house that both I and my wife are happy with. Even when we find problems here and there, we'd just discuss about how to fix it instead of "should have gotten that other house". And that alone is worth a million dollars IMO.
So, if you really found "THE" house... don't try to be overly logical.