DECISION MEETING on the House in Laveen

Our house on 48th St in Laveen, a neighborhood of Phoenix, was shot up while in escrow. We held a ‘Decision Meeting’ on 15 May and decided to go ahead with an initial offer of $150,000, all cash.

Negotiation Discussions and Strategy on the House in Laveen
The seller’s agent reported that they had repaired the damage. It was a thoroughly professional job.

The seller counteroffer was $190,000. Original purchase price was $200,000.

Jim, Jeff, Sherman, Rayven and Michelle gathered on a telecon to discuss our next step in the negotiation:

We decided to reply to their counteroffer of $190,000 with an offer of $170,000, all cash.

Seller’s Response

The seller’s agent sent the following reply via email on May 16th:

To: Jeff Sutherlin < jeff.sutherlin@exprealty.com>

Hi Jeff,

The sellers gave me their bottom line of $185k and asked me to pass that along. They aren't willing to go any lower, so hopefully you can get this done. You have put a lot of work into this!

I still have to get you the new SPDS and we have a disclosure letter as well.

Thank you,
Michael

Our ‘No Go’ Decision and Rationale

Later that afternoon, Michelle and Jim discussed the situation and decided to pass on the 48th St property.

Yesterday, we had an offer on a similar house in the same area accepted. The explanation stated there still holds (less financial return, more risk).
We’re still in the middle of our negotiations for the 48th St house in Laveen that was shot with 35 bullets. We had seen another listing in the same area that appeared to be a better deal for two reasons.

Financially, the expenses (taxes and HOA) were significantly less, about $150/month less. Geographically, it is in the same Laveen neighborhood, but in a better part. It is west of 48th St, in a newer development, and closer, but not too close, to the soon to open 202 freeway.

We documented the rationale for ‘no go’ on the 48th property in a memo to themonopolyproject team as:

Post Decision Planning

We cancelled the deal and received our $2,000 earnest money back. Even though we didn’t reach an agreement we were impressed by Zillow and their agent, Michael.

Both before, during and after the incident, Michael was thoroughly professional and responsive.

And we were EXTREMELY impressed by the quality of the Zillow house. The house was perfect. We will be looking into buying more Zillow houses.

We still have the Valencia deal in the works and are planning for international trips by key players in TheMonopolyProject in June.

Jeff’s planned trip to Israel in connection with his vicarage. He has arranged to have one of his eXp Realty colleagues, Rayven, fill in for him while he is in Israel.

And Jim and Michelle are scheduled to be in France for the 75th anniversary of D Day.