Dennenstraat 7

Wij hebben een nieuw huis gekocht!

It’s been a stressful few days as we tried to navigate the process to secure a bid on the house. As I’ve told some of you, the market here is extremely hot right now and houses frequently sell for more than the asking price.

The way that you bid is downright bizarre. Whoever makes the first bid on the house holds all the power. Anyone who comes in afterwards with another bid has no idea what the opening bid was. And to make it worse, you only have one opportunity to place your bid. So it better be right on target! Once you make your bid, then the opening bidder is notified and has an opportunity to match or beat your bid. As the second bidder, you are done. You have no other chance to again match/beat the other's bid. It is downright brutal!

We were sent information on this house late last week, but they were not doing any showings before Tuesday. We got a 2:00 timeslot for viewing. As soon as I walked in I knew it was our place. It had the kitchen on the front side of the house and was built out in the back. This configuration is pretty rare and leaves a large open room on the back south facing garden. It allready had the third story built up and everything was remodelled in the last 5 years. There is very little work to do besides painting and carpet. Perfect!

But by the time that I got there, there were already two bids for the house. Did I mention that Beth was in Germany from Monday to Wednesday? So, what do I do?

I sucked up and made as an attractive bid as I thought was possible without causing a divorce in our happy little family. Full price, no contingencies. My realtor called it in from the sidewalk in front of the house. She suggested that we put some pressure on them to accept by setting a 6:00PM deadline on the offer. At 5:30 I got a call from the realtor. They rejected the offer because of the deadline. There was so much interest in the house that they wanted to continue showings for another day. The only goal of which would be to drive bids up over the asking price. Disappointed and sure that we'd lose the house, I let the bid ride until noon on Wednesday.

To my surprise, I got a call at 12:30 on Wednesday that the bid had been accepted! Our “no contingency” clause had sealed the deal. So, I had just spent almost $400,000 Euros on a house that Beth had never seen! And you thought I didn’t have any cajones!

All the paperwork is due in next week. I don’t think we’ll be taking possession for several months…another oddity in the way that the real estate market works here. But for now, we're happy with the purchase. We’re flying down to the Alps in France to ski away a carefree weekend with friends.

Beth will get to see the house next week. ;-)