From the blog...

HUNGER GAMES OF HOUSE HUNTING

It is no secret that Ottawa is the hottest housing market in the country right now. In Ottawa, one of the most active segments is the $400,000 to $480,000 price range. Our team was engaged by Heather and Byron who were relocating to Ottawa. Unfortunately for them, they were in this HUNGER GAMES price range. This is their story!

Day 1

We spent all day looking through various neighbourhoods in the city. We found a great house in Chapel Hill. It was a bit underpriced and judging by the multiple showings during our visit we knew it was going to be competitive. In the end we were notified there was 11 offers on the table! Let the games begin.

Offer 1 List Price $400,000 Our Bid $426,000 The winner was $451,000 with no conditions in the offer. 11 offers total.  We were told our offer was in the top 1/3 of offers.

Me learning the news:

Day 2

More viewings and a new listing came up in the afternoon that we are the very first buyers into see. Excited at potentially doing this quickly. It is a holiday Monday and we figure this gives us an advantage. Beauty house on Steeple Chase in Kanata. We have our offer in within hours of listing. Afterwards, 3 other offers come in that afternoon. We know we have to go high to secure it. We make a very strong offer.

Offer 2 List Price $489,900 Our Bid $521,000 We felt very good about our offer. Unfortunately, they get a higher offer and we lose out again! The hunger games continue…

Pretty sure this is what the seller looked like:

Day 3

Time is starting to play a factor here. We need to secure something. A listing comes on the market at 9:30 am in Stittsville. We are in the house at 10:30 am and can’t believe our luck! It is a beauty. It is grossly underpriced for today’s market. They basically priced it at last years numbers. We head back to the office to chat about it. Before we can do much the agent calls and they have an offer on the table already. An hour later they already have 4 offers. They are presenting that afternoon at 4:30 pm. This is a bit of a problem because another house we liked was presenting at 6:00 pm. What one do we choose? We ended up putting an expiry of our offer of 6:00 pm for the first one so if we lost we could pursue the next. We go way over asking on this one!

A surprising loss, time for a drink!

Offer 4 List Price $424,900 Our Bid $441,00 The house was really one of their favourites all along. We just didn’t want to overpay and felt our offer was a bit conservative. Funny that we were all not feeling overly confident on this one and then the call came in that the house was secured!! The hunger games were complete!!

WINNER!