Our new Indiana Home

Our house went on the market just after the memorial day weekend, and we had an offer early in August. My employer about the same time decided they'd help out with relocation assistance, so things got slow for a few weeks to let the paperwork catch up with the real world. Wednesday we signed the papers. We'll be out of our current home on the 1st.

Initially we'd planned on renting for a few months after moving, but the current rental market is busy (to match the slow housing market) so most landlords would not consider leases less than a year - at least not those landlords who would rent to a family of ten! So in the last couple weeks our plans have changed quickly.

Just before Labor day I spent a day looking for houses between Denmark and New Jersey. (Those were the locations I visited before and after my first day of searching - not the geographical limits of my search.) After looking at the cheapest stuff that seemed like it would fit and finding it unacceptable Pooka and I returned 12 days later to continue the search.

One of the complications of being allergic to spending money is that searching for a new home requires repeated reinforcement of the fact that inexpensive houses have low prices for good reasons. Most commonly in our new state - they stink. Literally. Due either to mold, animals, or both. For homes that fit a family of ten inside and out the minimum price for not stinking seems to be 87% of the median listing price.

Even some that didn't stink had issues. Like the very expensive house at the top of a cliff that was in the process of slowly moving to lower elevation. Or the very nice older home with a cellar that was slowly destroying the structure with excess moisture. Or the home with very deep shag carpets - that used to house a cat.

A week ago in Minnesota a local real estate radio show indicated that homeowners selling at the median home price or a little more were getting good value for the money while the higher priced homes were much harder to sell so there was considerable value for those selling on the lower end and moving up to the higher end. We found the same was true in Indiana.

We picked a home and made an offer after 2 days of searching. Because we were planning on flying home after the 3rd day we gave the sellers only 24 hours to consider the offer. In Minnesota the last time we purchased a home our agent gave the seller only 6 hours - but things move more slowly in Indiana. I felt like I was twisting arms to get less than 48 hours, but it made clear to the seller's agent that our agent's comments that we were ready to place an offer on another home if this offer didn't work out were based in reality.

Even knowing we'd hear in less than 24 hours didn't make the wait pleasant. Talking to a friend much more experienced in real estate transactions helped Pooka gain confidence that we were in good shape, but I was still anxious the next morning.

That friend's husband had earlier commented, "You have only one chance to low-ball." Not meaning that you'd offend the seller so much that they'd never talk to you again, but that you can almost never reasonably go lower than your first offer. The whole idea is something I think my agent would see as heretical.

Still, the home we made an offer on had been on the market for 256 days and the price had been dropped once already. With the general slowness of the market in our new state we made an offer that was low. We were confident we could get a similar home in the same neighborhood for much less if the seller on our first choice wouldn't meet us on price.

The seller came back with a counter-offer very close to our original offer. We accepted their counter and will be moving in early next month to a place with twice as much room and 6 times the land of our current home in Minnesota. So if ya'll don't yet have plans for Thanksgiving, we have space for you!