The Selling of 1209

My youngest brother has sort of a "hands-on" theological issue he's trying to resolve: either Dad has an angel riding on his shoulder or Dad is riding on an angel's shoulder. Neither he nor I know have figured out how to resolve this. But it's sort of fun to think about...

And the issue of the sale of his house (i.e., 1209 Tupelo Place) brings this issue to mind.

As reported in a previous posting, my Dad had come to understand that the house he had owned and lived in for more than 50 years would have to be sold. None of his kids wanted to or was able to live there and the money from the sale would be critical in paying for his assisted living accommodations.

So we found a realtor who put the sign up in the front yard -- and that's when the magic started to happen. First of all, the guy we chose to represent us turned out to be wonderful at his job. He understood immediately how the four of us siblings felt about the place -- and how those feelings could interfere with the sale: "When the four of you look around this place, you see your childhood come back to life. Each room, each piece of furniture brings back memories, and you probably wish that nothing would ever change. But anyone looking to buy the house has no such attachment. To them it's just another house -- probably one of many they've looked at. So you have to start looking at this house the way they are going to look at it." That basic idea was a huge help all the way through the preparation and sale.

One of my brothers had a wonderfully romantic idea about the sale. He suggested: "We need to find someone who understands how special Wilson Point is -- and specifically this neighborhood on Wilson Point. We shouldn't sell the house to someone who will just 'flip' it for resale. And we shouldn't sell it to... well, the wrong kind of person."

I tried to explain to him that being selective as to who we would sell the house to was not only unreasonable but illegal. If someone met our price with a legitimate offer, it didn't matter whether they were the "right kind" or not. (See "redlining real estate" for an explanation of this.)

Anyway, we cleared the house as explained in the December 2010 posting. And we gave our realtor an initial asking price that was probably unrealistic in this current market. (He had given us several sets of Competitive Market Analyses to help us set this price. But realistic or not, however, the realtor was smart enough not to argue or propose a lower number. If that's what we wanted to ask for the house, that was our business.)

And over the next several weeks, several prospective buyers came through. And everyone's impression seemed to be the same: The house is a wreck. It needs too much work. The price is much too high. (Well, the house wasn't really a wreck. It had, what our realtor called, "good bones." But the carpeting was shot and all the windows needed replacing and the basement was only half-finished and the kitchen was decades out-of-date and so forth and so forth. Got the picture?)

Now I had taken the lead on the sale process for several reasons. One, I was the oldest surviving sibling. Two, I had a legal Power of Attorney over Dad's financial and legal matters. Three, I had more spare time than anyone else. And I felt it was critically important that, no matter how the sales process went, the four of us needed to be comfortable with what took place and be at least as close as we were before -- and hopefully even closer.

So I had to relate these dismal reports on the house via e-mails and try and coordinate the responses from my siblings. And I was mentally composing an e-mail to them suggesting a revised strategy: lower pricing and investing in substantial renovations.

But then the miracle happened:

The realtor called and said that a couple who had lived on Wilson Point for several decades had been looking for a home for their parents/in-laws. They thought that 1209 (which was a block from their house) was exactly the right place and were anxious not to let the house get away from them. So they made an immediate counter-offer astonishingly close to our asking price. And they would accept the house without a thorough inspection and take it "as-is." Lousy windows and shredding carpet and everything. (Which would, of course, allow them to upgrade the house exactly the way they wanted to!)

Oh yeah, and they were already approved for a mortgage by their bank, so money wouldn't be a problem.

Now let's count up the blessings here: Dad now has the financial resources to meet his needs for the forseeable future. And the four of us did not have to spend weekend after weekend painting, pulling out old carpet and putting in new ones, learning how to replace windows (or hiring someone to do that for us). And my brother got the new owner he had hoped for. Exactly what he had hoped for. And the new owners get a chance to "feather the nest" of their own parents to meet their needs exactly. And Wilson Point doesn't have to put up with "the wrong kind of people." And our nice young realtor make the commission he richly deserves. And none of the four of us needs to worry about Dad's finances.

So the aforementioned theological issue remains. But it doesn't really matter that much, does it?