Last time we explained how we found “The Perfect Monopoly” house in Apache Junction, made an offer and lost. We came in second. Then we made the offer on a house in Casa Grande that we thought could be “The Perfect Monopoly” house, made an offer and won. But it turned out to be a disaster. We canceled the deal but not before spending $400-$500 on inspection fees. More on those deals later.
Finally, last week we thought we found another “The Perfect Monopoly” house on the same avenue in Apache Junction. We made an offer and made sure we won. We had a strategy session where we reviewed the repair list line by line and decided which we would have fixed, which we would fix ourselves and which would be leave be and just live with.
We reconvened to finish the above process and prepare our counteroffer.
First, we do the repair triage:
And the results are documented in Jeff’s notes:
Second, we discuss our strategy to write a counteroffer to the seller:
Jeff spoke to the seller’s agent and outlined our concerns. Based on that discussion the seller agreed to treat for the termites and roaches, preferably using our supplier whom we trust. In addition, they agreed to a credit of $2,750 applied at closing to cover the balance of the remaining items. We documented this in our Counteroffer #2 which was mistakenly labeled “#1” so we had to go back with another correction.
We were satisfied with the negotiation that netted us $3,310 between the $2,750 credit and the $560 termite/roach treatment. This is about half of our estimate of repairs.
Next, we arrange for the repair work, deal with the HOA to repaint, decide how to take title, find a perfect comp, and much more.