While the sellers of the property have not formally countered our offer, we were just told a counter is in the works. The property is in an estate with 4 sellers, so patience is a virtue during this period. The wait is working in our favor, it is allowing us more time to prepare our present home for listing. All good news.
I do not know details but there was another buyer who may have written an offer to purchase, but a contract was never finalized. We were advised this past weekend these same buyers sought to renegotiate. I would like to think they contacted their Realtor around the very time our Realtor was showing us the property – makes for a serendipitous tale. So the sellers were presented with two options this weekend; go another round with the “foreigners” (that’s anyone, even southerners, who do not live in the mountains) or sell to locals who are asking to close with a small down payment and a balloon note in 6 months. Neither option was ideal for the sellers, but with our Realtor’s persuasion, our offer won out.
There is an art to negotiating in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Foreigners best be aware that mountain folk are shrewd and savvy, and more often than not they’re owing to no one, so rare is the desperate property seller. Also be advised, people born of this land, or the mountain souls who have found their way back to the motherland, understand full-well the rarity of a prime piece of protected and well-laying land. The home on this land is a challenge (understatement). But the acreage with 2 creeks and a pond are stunning and feature well appointed infrastructure allowing us to finance the purchase unlike purchasing raw land.
Property value is one thing, valuing the heritage and legacy of a land is another…our Realtor shared with the sellers’ Realtor we are a couple rooted in the community and entering our golden years with full intentions of living out the rest of our days on the property and making memories with our children and grandchildren just as surely as did they. Our gift, our legacy, will be a respite in the mountains for generations to come and this is all possible because of the sellers’ many years nurturing the property before us – and THAT is priceless.
donna
