Real Estate is Like Running a Marathon - From Contract to Close in 7 Months!

Working in real estate isn’t for the faint of heart or those addicted to instant gratification. We’ve long forgotten the concept of “steady paycheck”. Working in real estate is like running marathons and requires intestinal fortitude, building endurance and astounding flexibility. We just crossed the finish line on one heck of a long distance run.

 

 

• From showing to closing … 14 months.
• From contract to closing … 7 months and 1 day.
• Ability to deposit a commission check…priceless.

 

This marathon started with the Buyers Guide (print media). The buyer liked the image of one of our listings and loved our names. She googled us (pre-AR) and found our website…liked what she saw. Ultimately, as so often happens, that first listing didn’t suit her circumstances. Since she lived out of state and was searching for a retirement house, we could only work when she could arrange to be here. After looking at 492 , well okay…25 or so houses, she found THE ONE.

She worked for government, our government…the big cheeses in Washington. She submitted her paperwork to start the retirement process and was told it would take 2-3 months. Turns out that information was…ahem…bull messy pants.

Lucky for us, we are from the pre-social media era and have a few years of negotiating diplomatically and were fortunate to deal with sellers’ agents possessing similar skill sets. This deal could only have had a wonderful outcome through real time conversation and open honest dialogue. Not only were the sellers’ agents flexible and able to keep their seller soothed, we had the most astounding and dedicated loan originator with Nick Bazan of First Citizens Bank. With each delay we had to re-negotiate Due Diligence periods and closing dates, what extraordinary luck that the sellers, although nervous were accommodating.

The moral of the story is communication. Honest communication. The innards of the government are hopelessly tangled and confusing. Don’t even think about commenting that any particular administration is responsible for this abyss of red tape. It wouldn’t matter who was in charge. We know many long time government employees and they all have confirmed this sad fact.

The story has a happy ending. Even though our buyer was disappointed not to be settled months ago and would have loved avoided staying in motels and rental cabins for 7 months, the situation gave her a unique opportunity to really know the area before moving in. The sellers are ecstatic to have this behind them, the buyer loves her new house and surroundings, and the agents involved have gotten a great chance to see the best in each other. We’ve been paid, although shockingly the money will go out much quicker than it came in but I guess that’s how it goes sometimes.

The best news is that our intestinal fortitude is intact, we’ve increased our endurance, if we improved on our flexibility any more we’d be pretzels and most importantly we crossed the finish line on one heck of a long distance run.