The Effects of Irma Even Stretched to Bristow, VA
How can a hurricane, swirling so many states below Virginia have an effect on anything going on in Bristow, VA? Well, it was certainly not a widespread effect, but certainly had this Bristow Real Estate Agent on edge from Friday into Sunday.
It all started months ago when I had a Bristow Seller contact me, wanting to list their Braemar home. They were looking toward retirement and hadn't yet chosen where they wanted to move, but they knew it would be Florida. Mr. Seller was very judicious in pouring over flood maps, assessing which would be the safest place to reside in the Sunshine State. He had four options, and I hooked him up with an agent in every locale.
About six or eight weeks ago, during their house hunting trip, Mr.Seller called to tell me that Marnie Matarese had helped him find the perfect new construction home in Venice, FL. As time went by, I touched base with the sellers and, when they informed me that their new home was projected to be ready at the end of November, we decided to list right before Labor Day.
Both the sellers and I were pleasantly surprised when the house had two interested buyers after only one day on the market. We had been 
racing for a few weeks, which would most likely result in a mid-November settlement. The only issue, which really was a non-issue to the sellers, was that the winning buyers wanted to settle in early October. That meant some time in temporary housing. And since most of our temporary rentals in th Bristow area require a six month time frame, that meant an extended stay for them. These sellers are some of the most easy going folks I have ever worked with and understood that short term pain was not a deal breaker for them.
Come home inspection negotiation time, Irma was a looming event whose track was still uncertain. The buyers made some requests, which the sellers thought over the top. As such, the sellers countered with what they thought was reaonsable, pairing a request for a large sum of money for two repairs, to one repair that in reality would cost about $300.
As the negotiations over the desired repairs were stalling, Irma was now lined up to hit the gulf coast. Even up to the last day of pleading fromthe buyers, the storm was most certainly going to hit Venice. As Irma's course was more definite, the buyers lost all 
negotiating power with my sellers.
We've all been there, dealing with a buyer's agent that wants to tug at your heart strings and starts begging for the money and/or repairs. "These two are going through a lot. They have a new baby on the way." Blah, blah, blah.
My sellers, now facing more of a delay in moving into their new construction home at best, and at worst having lost personal items they have moved from their Bristow home into storage in Venice, were not of a mindset to indulge the stresses of the buyers. Take the offer of minimal repairs, or not. At this point, there was some thought as to whether the sellers even wanted to move to Florida.
Cooler heads prevailed on the buyers' side, and they snatched up the offer of the one repair. At the end of the day, the buyers are getting a home that is about as meticulously maintained as a home can be. Perhaps they understood that the additional repair they were so concerned with were about the same cost as having a new home inspection on another home, not the overblown amount that seemed a second attempt at getting the closing cost help they had to cut back to win the home.
My sellers, meanwhile, are less stressed since Irma didn't seem as powerful as it was thought she would be coming into Venice. There still exists uncertainty to time frames on the new construction side, but those will be dealt with gracefully by my sellers. Meanwhile, we are all pryaing for Marnie, since she was located closer to the water in Sarasota. Hopefully, we'll hear from her today or tomorrow. And like the rest of the world, we are waking up to see so much devastation that it puts a delay in new construction into perspective.
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