It was the saturday morning before the July 4th weekend, and here we were sitting in the Los aAtos office of Coldwell Banker. This was the culmination of 2 weeks of back and forth discussions between Joseph and I whether we should put an off on this house.
It all started with a phone call from Annette. Her friend Barbara said a home was being fixed up for sale, and that she thought it was the perfect home for us and that we should call the realtor and check it out.
I called the agent, Bea Waller, and she said that she was still fixing it up but I could see it at the open house that weekend. I called my agent, Gwen Luce, who knew Bea and arranged for me to see it on the brokers tour on Friday. As I drove to the home, I like the neighborhood immediately. People were walking and kids were riding their bikes and it was close to shops and a park. But the place was swarming with realtors representing potential buyers. I felt defeated already since I knew it would be another over-bidding situation and we had been outbidded twice already on other homes. The bones of this house were solid although the kitchen and bathrooms were dated and it had a slope up from the street. Nevertheless, there were a lot of positives. I mentally made a list of pros and cons and thought about the other homes we had seen, and figured this was a good home for us. When the weekend came, we had a list of 8 homes to see including this one and Joseph didn't like any of them. I still wanted to see the disclosures on the property. When I got them, I was impressed with what good shape it was in--- but the kitchen was a no go. We met once again at the property and Joseph warmed up to it but the kitchen would take so much money to remodel that it would be out of our price range. Or would it? I asked my architect friend, Gary, to take a look at it. He liked the home and gave us some ideas on how to reconfigure it and estimated that it would cost half of what we expected. With that info we thought we could get this house, but only if it wasn't bid up sky high. 14 disclosure packages went out and 8 offers came in. We were in the top three. Our agent recommended that we meet at the office so if any negotiations would happen, we could be there to approve. We agreed. As we walked in at 10 am I glaced by the partially opend door to a conference room where Bea was sitting with the 2 women (daughters of the parents) that just to own the property and their husbands. Neither daughter had lived in the property but I am sure they had fond memories of this family home and I made note of that in my letter to them of why they should choose us to buy their home. Joseph, I and Gwen sat in the waiting room for 2 hours until we broke for lunch. When we came back, Gwen had been the last to make the presentation and she said all went well, and now we have to wait. Around 1pm, there were 3 offers including ours that were all around the same price. We would have to offer more money. We went into a separate conference room and started to think of what we could afford. There was some comfort in knowing we could sell our San Francisco home if we had to. I said nothing, and let Joseph process until Gwen looked at me and said, "You really want this, don't you?"
"Yes, but it also had to be want Joseph wanted." And I didn't pressure him by talking.
He finally asked me what I thought. I gave him my low and my high.
He added $5K to my low and that was our offer.
At that moment, I was prepared to lose and prepared to win. And just prepared to let it be.
Then Gwen walked back in the room, and said one offer bowed out and now it was just us and another party. The tension in the air was thick but peaceful as we waited for a reply to our final offer. Then Bea walked in and said, "Congratulations! They have accepted your offer." I broke down in tears. Tears of relief and tears of joy that we got this beautiful home for just a bit over what we budgeted when we began this journey 8 months ago. We settled down and we were able to meet face to face with the sellers and thank them and we all hugged and cried and talked about the birds that came in the back yard and our dogs - our labradoodle and their two labs.
Happily we drove off to Costanoa for the 4th of July holiday. It was a very happy 4th of July for us even though I haven't gotten my new leg and I wasn't able to do any hiking.
It's been over three and a half years since the accident and I am now going home.