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Home-selling dilemma (long). Opinions please!
We are under contract to sell our house for $X. We sold it very quickly; in fact we didn't even have to put it on the market. We signed with an agent, and that same day, another agent in his office sent around an email looking for a house just like ours on behalf of a buyer she was representing. We negotiated and signed a contract for about 3% less than our asking price, but it was an all-cash offer so DH and I felt it was worth it to avoid the hassle of putting it on the market.
The dilemma is this. For the past several years, we have rented two parking spots in a nearby church parking lot. It's a month-to-month arrangement and either side can terminate at any time. We live in a downtown neighborhood where parking is very hard to come by, and this church parking lot is very close to our house and also very cheap. Earlier in the summer I called the church and asked if we would be able to transfer our parking permits to the buyers of our home. They normally do not allow this, but because of the long and positive relationship I have built with them, they agreed to bypass their waiting list and allow us to do this. We listed the two rental spots as a feature of the home, and our buyers included a clause in the contract that said the sale is contingent upon them obtaining two parking permits from the church.
Subsequently, the church changed its mind and decided to only transfer one parking permit to our buyers. Our buyers are now asking for a $10k reduction in the sale price. I told my realtor that I wanted to hold firm, so he offered to pay $5k out of his own commission if we pay the other $5k. He obviously wants to get this deal closed, rather than put it back on the market, since he only had to show our home once and he didn't have to pay any marketing expenses.
A big part of me just wants to get the deal done too, and sometimes I feel like it would be worth $5k to get it done. On the other hand, I feel like we already came down in price because we wanted to get the deal done quickly, and 3 out of 3 realtors we interviewed thought we could get that price or higher even with just one spot. I also feel the buyer is just using this parking situation as an excuse to wring more value out of the deal.
So what would you do if you were in my shoes? Agree to reduce the price by $10k (which would be split 50/50 with our agent) or offer just the $5k that my agent has offered to pay?
The buyers have already paid for the home inspection (there were no major
issues), they paid for an appraisal (it's a cash deal, but they are planning to take out a
HELOC after closing), and they have brought in a kitchen designer because they plan to
do a gut renovation of the kitchen. The husband is a savvy lawyer who buys and sells real estate as a hobby, and my husband is worried that if we just offer the $5k reduction, he will walk away from the deal, just to spite us. On the other hand, the realtor who is representing us in the purchase of our new home thinks we are crazy to offer any reduction at all - he is confident we can get a higher price if we put it back on the market, even with just the one parking permit. (Of course, he is probably just saying that because he wants us to list with him!)
Any thoughts or advice would be much appreciated. TIA!
Re: Home-selling dilemma (long). Opinions please!
We listed the two rental spots as a feature of the home, and our buyers included a clause in the contract that said the sale is contingent upon them obtaining two parking permits from the church.
I would split 50-50 with the realtor.
The parking was part of the deal - (but one that should not have been included in the first place since you did not control those spaces. - your error so split with realtor and conclude the sale)