Location, location, location.
We had two areas we were focused on buying based on the elementary schools we prefer. Of those two areas, one had active opportunities to build, the other did not.
Price.
In my previous post, I had mentioned how hot the Seattle real estate market has been. Prior to mid-March, sales were going crazy. Offers were being made way over asking, most were non-contingent and the elusive all-cash offers we’re kicking everyone’s butt.
We were prepared to sell our home in advance of the offer to be non-contingent with cash in hand and had a real estate attorney help us with an escalation clause in preparation of making an over asking offer. We also had our lender pre-approval ready to go too.
Timing.
In early March we were mere weeks away from putting our house on the market to sell. Then we were all thrown the huge ugly Coronavirus curve ball.
We immediately retracted from our plans to list our home. We are still waiting, but in the interim something unusual happened.
One of the the builders we had narrowed our search down to reached out to us (and the rest of their lengthy interest list) to determine how ready any of us were to move forward with an offer. (IN THE MIDDLE OF COVID-19).
We we ready? Absolutely not. Did we tell them that? Absolutely not. Within 72 hours, we went from, “sure, we’re ready” (fingers crossed behind our backs). To “holy shit”, we are building a house again”!
I’m no expert but if I had to guess what happened, was something I learned in business school. Their sales pipeline had a temporary gap because of the ‘Rona and they needed to fill it. But because of the ‘Rona, no one was biting. So they offered us a ‘first right of refusal‘ and we bit. They accepted and here we are.
We’re building a new house. Eek!
