jym626

Artlovers,
I think your seller must have used the same attorney that citibank used for our last refi!!

Hayden-
It made no sense that there was some outstanding lein that hadnt been there before, but now its makes sense. Who knew that their atty's firm would fold and never file the documents!!?? Of course, I'd suggested to the current atty's that they call the title company, especially since we had title insurance, but noooo, they insisted it had to be done the way they did it. If they'd called the title company we could have saved a lot of time, money and headache.

I have to hand it to the title company-- they worked hard to track me down and get the refund processed! Quite impressive, really.

wis75

Give me another month or two to say "SOLD"! Finally after no second looks in over 2 years we got 2 offers the same day after leaving the state for our new (25 years young) house this month. We looked for a year and bought when the right house was available, so lucky could afford to own two houses. Unfortunately the second offer came in hours after we negotiated an acceptance of the first (they knew about the first offer's deadline), but they're our backup if the first falls through (under contract). Both couples had seen the house twice before the latest open house (third time then) and finally made their moves. It would have been so much easier if they had done so a couple of weeks earlier instead of while we are busy with movers et al. Life in the very slow lane. Bird in hand. Feast or famine. All sorts of cliches come to mind. Guess we won't be able to be snowbirds after all.

dstark

This house is beautiful. Pelican Rapids in Minnesota...for those that know the area or like to look at houses.

Beautiful Lake Home for Sale! | Scott Hennen

menloparkmom

planning a move to Minn dstark? Brrrrrrrrrrr......
whats the price of that place?

dstark

No... never....

I know the owners.

I think the price is around $2.9 million.

alwaysamom

Very pretty, dstark. High taxes, although a bit lower than ours here in Toronto.

arabrab

Artlovers -- I see a number of properties in our area where the schools are listed incorrectly. I think that it is one of many things the buyer really needs to confirm. I saw one listed with an excellent charter school a block away, but enrollment is a lottery that does not rely (or benefit) from living in the neighborhood. Usually the school district will tell you exactly what the situation is when you call them with an address. Another listed down the block also has a (different) wrong middle school listed because the agent probably thought that the boundary was the creek, but it is instead phrased as "south of the north side of XYZ Avenue" and this house is on a tiny lane squeeze in just a few years ago just north of it.

MIL's house painting should be finished by the end of next week. Looking at closed sales, February really does seem to have been a five year low point, so I'm glad we ended up not selling then. Prices are pushing up in the area and there is very little inventory except for houses along very busy roads. The stager is supposed to pick out the carpet by Monday so it can be ordered -- she wanted to look at samples in the actual light against the newly painted wall, and we've hit that point now.

I wish I could convince the handyman we found when I was out there before to move here. He's great, and I love the quick snaps he takes with his cell phone so that I can see what he's talking about.

dstark

Alwaysamom....I guess to save on property taxes...you should move back to the US.

hayden

Wis75 - awesome! congratulations. Hope the deal closes smoothly.

jym626

Congrats, wis!! Where ya moving to??

alwaysamom

Well, we pay U.S. property taxes, too. On our second home, where we'll spend more time once my H is retired. One foot in each country, so to speak.

dstark

That's a bit of a stretch....

artloversplus

wis.. congrats. Now we have to have our finger crossed for the buyers come through.

arabrab - yes, regarding school district, it is buyer's responsibility to check it out. In my case, it is very tricky, in my development, the school district is assigned by house number. Two houses down on my side of the street is in a different school district, for example. And the enrollment is guaranteed because you pay a different property tax. As the neighbor explained to me, the builder had to pay a higher school fee to get the home re-assigned to the better school district. In a REO bidding war when I bought the house, you really don't have the time to think about schools because I was juggling with two to three offers at the same time in the same city. I did rely on the broker's listing information and assume it is in the city with the bad school district. My house had 16 bids and at end of the day, I won by a small margin. There was no time to call the school districts and to verify. I was assume the worst, but it turned out much better then I expected. This is one of the reasons that you do not hire out of town brokers to sell your house.

jshain

Good advice. I would also add, many successful (translation: extremely busy) agents use "assistants" to do all the verbiage— home description, area info, etc. etc.— and THEY can go unchecked by the listing agent. In my case, the assistant was only employed by my agent for 5 months and was not all that good, imo.

So.... even if you have a local, highly experienced and successful agent, you will still need to monitor their assistants. And buyers should assume that all this detail work was done by someone other than the listing agent themselves.

artloversplus

When you interview agents for listing, you can screen agent who uses assistant or not, also, you can demand certain things in a listing agreement. Like the agent must handle the descriptions and negotiations, not the assistant. Also, you can put in the contract how many time of open houses, how often and where to advertise etc. If you know how to ask.

Lots of agent in our area advertise:

Sale your house in 39 days
Sale your house in 59 days or commission free (I guess listing side)

etc.