For the last few days I had been negotiating with a seller for the purchase of his apartment in New West. The unit is less than a year old, the 16th and top floor, a beautiful view of the Fraser River, granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, a parking spot, and storage locker. The asking price was $249K but after some offers and counteroffers, the seller approached me with $238K. I accepted on Wednesday morning and within the hour my realtor had faxed me the contract, which I signed and faxed back in less than ten minutes.
It took about ten hours to contact and locate the seller, as he apparently keeps some odd hours or is hard to get a hold of. By 10pm, some ten hours after I had signed the contract, the seller was finally reached and contract presented to him. Unfortunately, because so much time had passed, another offer had been presented to his realtor. Though I had verbally agreed to his offer and actually had signed the contract, the seller instructed his realtor to tell me that he was not going to sign and that he would be entertaining the other offer. I was free to up my offer if I wished but he was going to look at both offers one after another and then immediately take the one he liked better. I was given a little over 12 hours to decide how much more I was willing to give him.
My own realtor was pretty choked about this as it was a pretty much a dick move on the seller's part. He was totally within his legal rights to do this as verbal agreements mean nothing, even if I had actually signed a document, agreeing to his offer. My realtor told me I could do three things: walk away from it, stick with my original offer of $238K, or increase my offer to what I felt comfortable with.
I was left with that to think about and sleep on. The next day, I elicited some opinions from some people at work whom I respect. The most popular sentiment was for me to ask myself how much did I really want this place? Indeed, that was the question that I had to answer. A lot of people told me to stick to my original offer and that was what they would do in my shoes. One or two people suggested something I had already thought about. I would actually submit a new offer of $100K as a big "fuck you" to the seller. Only one dude said that if I really like the place, I should go completely balls out and give it another $11K, giving him the asking price. On the other hand, many people said listening to that dude might not be the best idea.
I didn't actually know what the hell I was gonna do until about 15 minutes before I had to phone my realtor. In the end, I told my realtor I was willing to pay $242K, knowing full well that probably wasn't going to get me the place. Realistically, even another $7K more wouldn't matter that much on a 25 year or 35 year mortgage in terms of monthly payments. I just didn't like how things went down in the last 24 hours. Had this been a traditional multiple offer, escalating price bidding war, I would have been ok with it, since that's just how real estate goes. This was different.
It took a few hours but my realtor finally phoned back to confirm that I indeed had lost out to the single offer the other party had placed. She didn't know what the offer was but she did find out the other party had absolutely no restrictions or conditions on the offer. They didn't want to inspect building nor read any of the strata council minutes. Those kind of risky propositions are hard to compete against. It is possible, though I don't believe it so, their offer might have been lower than mine. Such is the lure of the condition-free proposition.
I certainly feel disappointment at the outcome but not because I lost out on the apartment but because the manner in which business was conducted. It was law abiding in the strictest sense but ethically, I'm still unclear how proper things were there.
This was my first real foray into buying real estate and even this small skirmish has taught me much about the whole business. My only consolation is that I'm wiser going forward.
If I had the foresight to know my offer was dead in the water, I really woulda given him the "new and improved" offer of $100K.
So the other day I was upstairs at work in the reception area. I was on my way back down to my floor when I passed by the EA store. I noticed there were a line of hoodies out on display. Now I hadn't seen the hoodies out for a while but from where I was standing they looked like the same old ones we had last year for skate. and Need For Speed. Nonetheless, I went over to check them out.
The first thing I did was to grab one of the sleeves. I immediately saw the skate logo and the familiar font but I then also saw a big ass "2" after the skate. On the back near the bum was the logo for skate it. So these were the new hoodies for the sequel and the spin-off game for the Wii. This was the new hotness, as it were.
I went back downstairs but I was now thinking, can I still wear my old skate. hoodie (picture above)? Yes, of course I could but now it's not the latest and greatest. On the same day, one of the other software engineer I work with bought the new hoodie immediately, while wearing his original one! He has two now, both the same colour.
For a guy that didn't own a hoodie a year ago, I probably don't need another one (I also have a Black Box one) but I'll be keeping an eye out on what the cool kids are wearing.
Nothing to report on the home purchase yet but I've recently thought about how much furniture I'll have to buy. At the very least, I need a new bed, sofa, and bench for the TV. Oh yeah, I guess I'll need to buy that new TV as well.
The amount of money I have will dictate what I can buy but should I go the cheap route? Should I buy all my furniture from Wal-Mart? Maybe I won't care about a unified colour scheme. Perhaps a purple couch goes well with a dark birch TV bench. I'll sleep better on my white bed frame next to my green bedside table.
The whole OT thing at work has started again. I'm not at liberty to disclose what stage the game is at, suffice to say it needs a bit of love for the next little while. What it does mean is I'm getting free cab-rides home again, which also means another roll of the dice when it comes to my cab driver. So far, it hasn't been that bad.
With my extended work day, I'm warning you that it leaves precious little time for blog posting. Sometimes it means the difference between writing this or going to work with clean underwear the next day. Don't ask me what other sacrifices I've made.
Keeping with the gaming theme, I'm sure some of you know the guys and gals on the floors of above me work on a franchise called Need for Speed. Sadly, I have not seen Maggie Q at the Slurpee machine on 19th. What is interesting is a split second of footage in the trailer below. It shows the Black Box logo after the EA one. I've mentioned to Rory, our studio head, how we should be distinguishing ourselves from the other EA studios. We should be known as our own studio first and being an EA studio second. The fact the logo has made into a trailer means we might be heading towards where Criterion and DICE are in terms of studio image.
It just occurred to me tonight I don't know everything I should about buying real estate and/or a new home. I have no idea about lawyer fees, land transfer taxes, Johnson rod inspections, or closing costs. I research every single spec about a $100 piece of computer equipment but when it comes to a $250 000+ home, I've got some blind spots in my knowledge. I'm not sure what I'm feeling is pure exhilaration or just pure terror.
