After many thoughts about this home, the sticking point has really been the second-rated school district (but still better than probably 85% of the schools in California). Despite that the performance of a school district changes year from year, I just can’t make myself commit to it.
However, one really positive point about that home is that at the next door lives my nice friend from Church. It would have made baby-sitting so easily between the two families that I think my wife’s childcare burden will be reduced by at least some 25%. I keep thinking whether this positive would outweigh the negative.
I called the listing agent myself again this Thursday to check on the status. I thought the home must have been sold. Surprisingly, I heard the exact same story again:
There are two offers on the house. You should make your offer in the next couple of days before the bank approves those loan terms.
Not sure what’s the real story behind. But my agent certainly have delivered the words from listing agent verbatim. Looks like it was probably a trap.
After some research, I also found out that the price of my own residence has fallen further, now by some 10% from the very peak. I will update my net worth at the end of year to reflect this change (although I have assumed a more conservative price when calculating my net worth). In my own community, the homes that are sold or still active have gone through an incredible number of days on market (DOM):
- The active ones have DOM of 160, 125, 21, 50, 97, 84.
- The ones that have recently sold had DOM of 43, 131, 65, 59, 176, 17, 13, 31.
This housing market is getting REALLY slow. If I made a non-contigent offer on the home, I probably will have DOM of 150+ with either the similar pricing or lower.
I keep thinking to myself that maybe next summer I will have a lot more choices when more homes will come to the market. The slow housing market is making any house move to be difficult.
Many thanks to all who have responded last time. Your inputs gave me more angles on the issues. Waiting now should be to my advantage. And I can’t really spend $600K in just 1 week.
