Our house is officially in contract! Wednesday, 5/22, was our deadline for buyers to submit their offers at noon. Susanna was going to review with us all the offers at 6pm. Little did we know that there would be more things going on behind the scenes…

We initially thought we’d have about 5-6 offers, but ended up with have 3 (technically 4, but our agent thought that $1.65m all cash wasn’t strong enough…this market is crazy). The 1st offer was the Google couple with $1.68m (same as their preemptive amount). The 2nd offer was from someone at Meta with $1.71m. The 3rd was from a couple that offered $1.83m. And then, the bidding war started…1st offer revised from $1.68m to $1.828m, and the 2nd offer revised from $1.71m to $1.825m. At this point, I was debating on whether I wanted to give to the Google couple, but our agent pointed out that they are using almost all of their Proof of Funds, and 2nd offer seemed to also be in the same boat. Both 1st and 2nd offers were bidding +$100k over their initial offering amounts.

Then, the 3rd revised their offer from $1.83m to $1.85m! I think what happened was that our agent let them know that all the offers were so close in range that we were probably going to multi-counter offer all buyers. They did not want to have to go thru with that, so they upped their bid $20k. They were already the highest offer and came out strong showing that they wanted the house. Their loan agent said that they will have no problem obtaining the loan, and I was impressed that their proof of funds was just in one clean statement for $1.2m and could definitely afford these insane mortgage prices. Plus, they’re going to give us free rent back for 30 days after the loan closes to give us time to pack and move…so, even though we kinda had an affinity for the Google couple, we eventually accepted the 3rd offer. I think it was the right thing to do since the other 2 offers were probably swept into this and might not be able to afford in the long run (weird saying this about DINK Asian tech workers lol).

We accepted their offer on Wed, and they deposited their 3% earnest money of $55.5k on Thurs. Susanna came on Friday and put the “Sale Pending” sign up. The total cost for expenses/improvements was $15,120 which will be reimbursed to her when the purchase closes. They are doing a 21 day close (which is pretty fast), so will close on 6/12, and then we can stay in the house till 7/11 (though we will probably leave sooner). We need to rent a POD, pack, and get together with a few more peoples to say goodbye. I’ll write another blog about peoples…they deserve their own entry 🙂

Where to start? It’s surprising that we signed with Susanna on 4/12…it’s only been a month, and on Wednesday, 5/15, we have officially listed our house on the market. We’re listing it for $1,569,000 and already got a preemptive offer for $1,680,000…but I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start at the beginning…

After meetings with the HVAC, painter, and gardener on Wed 4/17, HVAC came back to finish adding freon and installed a new thermostat. The handyman, Quy, was here over the weekend on the 20th and 21st and got rid of our ceiling fans, installed LED lights, 4 recessed lights, installed a new toilet in the masterbath, took away the shower door, removed the patio cover, etc. The gardener came on Sunday and cleared out all the weeds…we can now see the dirt!

Our anniversary weekend was the toughest in that we had to move all our furniture to the middle of the room (note that we’re still both working) so that painters would be there on the weekend to paint the baseboards. They also “fixed” the cracks in our walls, all our problem areas, painted all our doors white, and did almost all the exterior. There was also a guy who refinished the tub, though our tiles in that bathroom don’t look as nice after the shower door came off. Quy came back and installed all the hinges. Anson didn’t want to pay $70 for each installation of door knobs/pocket doors and did it himself over the next couple weeks (I installed 2!)

Honestly, the last two weeks have been more of a blur, but most of it was to just declutter our house. I fixed up Anson’s mats in the gym, started packing everything into boxes, and we started moving them into the garage on Wed 5/8. We moved my desk and end table from our master into the spa room. We didn’t want to list during the week of the Santa Clara city cleanup since trash would be everywhere. It was very helpful to get rid of 2 large patio chairs, some big boxes, various miscellaneous items, and our old sofa (too big of a butt imprint for staging lol). I bought a smaller sofa on Wayfair which arrived on Mon 5/6. Setup wasn’t too hard and I like that there is storage underneath and can pull out to be a sleeper sofa. The landscaper, Benjamin, and his team came and pulled out all the weeds in the planter box, put in wood chips all over our backyard and planted flowers in the front and back and installed drip irrigation. Benjamin planted some tomato plants in the planter box. We’ve had to hand water some plants that aren’t on drip in the very front and some in pots in the back.

The cleaner came on Thurs 5/9 and Fri 5/10. Susanna used some of her staging material (pictures, fake plants, cushions, pillows, etc) and got her husband to hang up pictures on Sun 5/12 & Mon 5/13. Termite inspection and home inspection happened that Monday too. The photographer took pictures on Tues, 5/14, and the listing went up on Wed 5/15. Meanwhile, Anson fixed a “leak” in the secondary bathroom by tightening the handles (yay! Glad it wasn’t serious). The wiring for the sprinklers up front were corroded (that’s why our lawn wasn’t looking as green), so Anson got guy who came at 6:30 am to fix it. I used almost a whole bottle of liquid fertilizer on it. Since weed blocker wasn’t installed, have been weeding a little everyday o.O We had an open house on Thurs, 5/16, and there seems to be good interest in our property. We’re staying at Granada Inn from Friday 5/17 thru Thursday 5/23 so that we don’t have to keep packing/unpacking. On Friday, there were 3 appointments (at 2pm, 4pm, and 5pm). The couple who gave us the preemptive offer work at Google and have been renting in our neighborhood for many years. They knew our house was going up for sale cuz of all the work that has been going on. Truthfully, I think $1.68m isn’t a bad offer since we first though $1.7m was on the high end, but this is how the Bay Area market is. I’ll update once our place is sold!