The house sold.
In less than 48 hours.
And for $16k over asking.
And in the uniquely Bako twist (you knew there had to be one), the buyer hasn't even seen the house.
It seems they REALLY want to live in this neighborhood. Why, I couldn't tell you. Must be the charm. At any rate, they had put in offers on three other houses around here and each time had been outbid. So there was no way that was going to happen again, even if they were buying it sight unseen. It's actually not quite as crazy as it sounds... every other house here has the same floorplan, so it's kinda "seen one, seen 'em all".
The offer actually came in Thursday morning before the house had been shown even once. I was initially relieved - I had a huge deadline Friday and never anticipated there would be such a demand to see the house. I thought with the offer in hand we could cut out all that nonsense and let me get some work done. But the realtor insisted we keep showing the house, convinced we would get some sort of "Storage Wars" bidding action. So I gave in, although I tried to get them to cluster the showings so I could pack up the dogs and leave only once.
That worked OK Thursday, when the dogs and I took our road trip out west.
But Friday they scheduled showings for 11:00, 11:30, 12:00 and 12:30. I was already having heart palpitations over my deadline and the dogs were none too happy either. But we had no choice, so off we went again.
This time north.
We cleared the Bako Metroplex fairly quickly and soon found ourselves driving through almond orchards. With the unseasonably warm weather, the trees were already starting to blossom and even I have to admit it was beautiful. I found myself thinking "Maybe I've been too hard on Bako because this is actually pretty cool". Just then the road ended, right at the gates of the massive industrial complex of... Halliburton. The fine folks who brought you the Iraq War. Allegedly, they're big into oil field production, but I think that's just a cover. I think they're really training mercenaries and militias. I have to say it was like coming unexpectedly upon the Death Star.
We tooled around for about another hour and the the dogs and I went through the McDonald's drive through. The dogs love the fries.
Finally we headed back to the house and when we got there I was livid. The front door was wide open and there was nobody there. Just weeks earlier the neighbors across the street had been robbed in broad daylight, most likely by Jim and his felonious drinking buddies. I've got ten grand worth of computer equipment in here, not to mention the TVs and other electronics. I'm leaving this morning with the dogs to spend the weekend in the OC with the boyfriend (and the folks), searching for somewhere to live (the dream home he thought he had lined up for us fell through). There was no way and hell I was leaving a lock box on this house for three days if the realtors were this brain dead.
I railed at the boyfriend and he called back 20 minutes later and said he accepted the first offer. All the other showings were canceled and the lock box was removed and now I can leave with at least a little peace of mind.
And now the real fun begins.
"I didn't really read through the contract when it was faxed" said the boyfriend over the phone, sounding really panicked. What was it, I asked.
30. DAY. ESCROW.
Starting yesterday.
