I'm buying a round for the house. Landlord, a bottle of your best, please.
We sold the condo this afternoon. Paperwork to be done on Monday, closing on Wednesday, we fly Thursday. May the bridges I burn light the way...
Unfortunately, the couple who bought it are Chinese. Culture strikes again. We put the condo up for sale at a nice price, all things considered. Call it 'just a bit above' the going rate for a condo this size, in this neighborhood, etc. The Japanese would never consider making a counter-offer when purchasing a house. Or almost anything, for that matter. But the Chinese are ferocious bargainers. They came back with a counter-offer that would have rocked the socks off of most Japanese... but not off an American who lived in Thailand for 10 years, where ferocious bargaining is the norm for even a taxi ride or a kilo of onions.... We talked, offer, counter, offer, counter, and finally arrived at the exact price I had set in 'my' mind when my wife and I first put the condo up for sale. While I didn't expect anyone to make a counter offer, (I didn't count on anyone other than Japanese buyers... My error.) I figured maybe someone really wanted to be here... maybe buy a place to put mother or father close by, etc.. and made an asking price just a bit higher than what was really expected, planning that if it didn't sell after the first 6 months, we could always come down to the 'real price'... to just what we sold it for today. Thank you, God.
Stitchawl