The Saga of non-Bidding War in Trichotomy

House as identity

We’ve been going to open houses on the weekends but up till two weeks ago hadn’t found anything we liked. Two weekends ago we saw two nice houses that we would put an offer on. One on the south shore and one north. Both tick almost all our boxes - neither of them have a garage and we don’t want our plugin hybrid to be out in the code. On the other hand, most houses here don’t have a garage.

The north shore one is smaller but the neighbourhood is slightly better. We have friends and coworkers living there, and they all say good things. It’s more expensive so the house is smaller. It then became a question of what we value.

In the end we decided to make an offer on the north shore one.

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A Gamble

On Thursday we got word that our offer was accepted but the sellers want a no-contingency contract, specifically no home inspection contingency. That was unheard of when we bought our house, so we said no. But our agent said we could arrange to do a home inspection now, and if it passes, sign the contract then. Meanwhile the sellers held another open house on the weekend, so we had to hope that another offer doesn’t come along before we sign the contract.

We did the home inspection on Saturday; turned out the house was solid. So we got in touch with a lawyer to draw up the contract - and hope that we’ll still be the best bid by next week.

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The world has come to

Unfortunately on Monday we got word that the open house yielded a “significantly” higher offer with no contingency. So the sellers are going with that. We decided not to bid higher since neither of us think the house was worth what the buyer was bidding, so we’ll let it go.

But it’s annoying to have done the inspection and have it go to waste. Is this what the world is coming to?

So we are back on square one. At least now we know the northshore neighbourhood a lot better and will focus on it.

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Last updated March 02, 2024