Cojones

Those are what we had this past weekend.

The appraisal for our house came back $15k lower than our contract and the buyer's agent asked if we would lower to that number.  He shared with us the appraisal and we looked it over pretty carefully.  And promptly said "No way."

Quite the ballsy move given the state of Florida's real estate market, and given the fact that it took us more than 4 months to get any offer at all.  But here's why:

1.  Two of the comps they used were short sales in a neighborhood that ALWAYS has values lower than ours.
2.  The two most relative comps they used, one in our neighborhood and one in a comparable neighborhood just north of us, once adjusted for differences were +/- about $3k of our contract price.
3.  The comp in our neighborhood, when it sold, was not updated at all and it sold for $191 sq/ft.  The price they were asking us to lower to would have brought us to the same PPSF.  Unacceptable, given our updates.
4.  The appraisal included current listings.  The house 2 down from ours, with one less bedroom and no boat lift, is listed at $125k more than our contract price.  The one at the end of our street is more than double our contract price.  Granted they are not going to get those prices, but it shows that some people still think our homes have this value, or will be there again soon. 
5.  We knew the buyers didn't need the appraisal to meet the contract price since they are putting down almost 50% in cash.
6.  After looking at the appraisal, I actually felt like we should INCREASE our price!

So we emailed the buyer's agent and gave him these facts, and he called back within a half hour to tell us the buyers were still a go. 

Seriously....nothing about this process is easy!  On to the next dilemma....

Moving right along

We spent this past weekend in Matlacha - another meeting with the bank to talk about financing and to open a business account, and another meeting at our accountants to get some training on using Quickbooks.  Tiki was welcome at both meetings.  I may start taking this dog friendly stuff for granted - god forbid I wind up in the ER or something, I'll be all "and why CAN'T my dog be here?  what kind of place IS this????"

We stayed at the Bridgewater (not view) Inn, which was nice and close for all the back and forth we did with the new property.  We took our photographer friends, Wendy and Davis, around to show them the property, meet the owners, see Pine Island, etc.  They loved it and we're all super excited for them to display and sell their photos.  Rich and Lesa joined us as well for Saturday day/night.

The owners had a bunch of furniture they wanted to leave if we could use it.  They also have decades worth of tools bought specifically for the property.  Between the two lots, we should have everything we'll ever need.  Included in the furniture lot is a ton of restaurant stuff.  Will make it easier to jump into that when we're ready.

Also took some detailed measurements so that I can start figuring out the store floorplan and what racks and displays we'll need to buy and arrange.  One of the detailed measurements was of the master bedroom in the owners cottage to see if our king sized bed will fit.....it will leave about 18 inches on each side of the room.
I think we're desperate enough for our large bed that we'll live w/ the tight space!

I made a list of all of the furniture things I need to finish and it's painfully overwhelming.  I thought I got such a head start on it, but once the frigging garage filled up, I couldn't really do anything (using spray paint anyway), so it came to a standstill.  I was planning to continue to procrastinate last night but felt the need to get something, anything, done....so I sprayed and covered the seat on this chair (it was already primed).  Baby steps :)  This pic is before I put the final coat of turquoise on. 

as a reminder; here is the before picture:

Also of note; the buyer for our home came by last night to learn all the details of the pool/dock/house maintenance.  He even brought me a bottle of wine!  These buyers couldn't be nicer and more excited about our home.  I am so thrilled.  Today is the inspection so pending that; we're golden!  Still looking at an August 15th closing date.

The contract is FINALLY executed

Wow.  What a ride.  After many, many, many go arounds....waiting...negotiating....paying lawyers....we finally have a done deal.  No turning back.  Friday we sent in our down payment and signed papers...which wasn't quite as smooth as it should have been due to a last minute request on the sellers part.  We realized last night it was so anticlimactic when we finally got it done because of all of the highs and lows, waiting, frustration, etc.  That and we were literally half way out the door for a birthday party weekend w/ 40 of our closest friends :)  Last night we finally toasted it and let it sink in a little.  Which was closely followed by the realization that we have a million things to do before taking over on August 1.  But we'll get there and I'm sure it will have been worth the pain and the wait.

So yeah, August 1 is the date!  Of course that's a Monday so it will be more like August 5-6 that we'll "open".  Not sure what we'll have in place other than the boutique.  We'll have to figure that out in the next 6 weeks as if the past is any indication, things will continue to change/evolve by the week.

Still no offers on the house but things have picked up a bit showing-wise.  After having the showings slow down to about one every other week, just this week we've had 3.  Yesterday we had a couple come to see the house by boat; that was a first.  We plan to hire a realtor in the next week or two to hopefully get this done asap.

Reluctantly Re-staging

I think our house is perfect, of course.  But after over a dozen showings and no offers, not even a "I can't even believe you would insult us with such a low price, get off of our property now before our dog pees on your leg" lowball, I'm lead to believe we need to step up our game.  We just lowered our price, so that might do it, but I've been thinking about anything else we can do to help move things along.

Our layout is a bit unique and I think people might have higher expectations in our price range and square footage, despite the fact that they are mostly paying for our land.  Our bedrooms and bathrooms are small, and we can't (won't) do anything about that.  But one thing I think we can do is make our layout appear more usable by at least taking the office out of our 3rd bedroom and making it back into a bedroom.  HGTV, realtors, and the rest of the world all stress that people can't visualize anything on their own and to make it easy for them, so here you go, you unimaginative people who can't see past a wall color or a furniture set up....you win.

Here's our office now.

And our entry space,

which is really wasted space since the only one who ever sits on this couch, and I mean EVER, is the dog.  And he has 2 other couches, a futon, a large ottoman, and our bed (when we're not home to know about it) to monopolize. 

So I'm thinking, move the bookcases and the desk out of the office/bedroom.  Store the desk but use the book cases where the couch in the entry way are.  We've already downsized the book factor by at least half from when those pics above were taken, so they will be more decorative and WAY less busy than in the picture. 

Give away leather couch and chair pictured above, store the spare tables.  Set up the ottoman bed (the striped chaise thing in the office pics, which folds out to a full size bed) as a "real" bed, flank w/ the 70's end tables (painted....they are just primed for now) and goodwill lamps...

...and the very next person to see the house will be in instant love and give us $50k over our asking price. 

Starting off with a bang

So we put our house up for sale this past weekend. 

Literally not 15 minutes after I put the for sale by owner sign in our yard I received a call from a couple who wanted to see the house.  They had been in our neighborhood seeing a couple of other houses for sale and in between the time they arrived to see our neighbor's house and the time they were leaving was when I put up the for sale sign.  I couldn't believe my luck w/ the timing.

They really liked the house and said it had many of the things they were looking for.  They liked the colors and decor of the house, and were hoping to buy a boat, so a dock and lift were important.  When we took them outside to see the dock, a bunch of dolphins were chasing mullet fish up against our seawall for a very close up view.  The timing was impeccable.  They left with a request for a follow up from us for tax and school info, and I felt maybe we did have a good chance of selling relatively quickly.  With this economy, unemployment, the fact that there are several other houses in our neighborhood for sale, the questions about whether real estate will continue to drop, etc. etc. it just seems like all the odds are against us.  But meeting this couple gave us hope that there are still people out there looking for properties like ours.

Then yesterday morning we woke up to terrible news.  A police officer was shot Monday night, just a few miles from our house.  And not even a month after two other officers were shot just southwest of this shooting.  There hadn't been an officer shot and killed in St. Pete in 30 years and now we have 3 down in 30 days.  Just horrible.  As much as I absolutely adore our city and our home, I can't say I would blame people if they were reluctant to buy here.  It's such a sad thing to see these things happen anywhere, but especially to our beloved St. Pete.