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In this business, you never know where your clients will come from! Tanner and Melinda Sims were referred to me by Tanner’s father, a realtor in Kansas who specializes in ranches. They came up for a few days in October to look for a house, with the expectation that they would most likely be coming back to look again later.
I connected them with my preferred lender, Dawn Crownover with Opes Advisors, who I have worked with for 15 years. If there is a loophole somewhere that can work to her client’s advantage, Dawn will find it! She was able to get them pre-approved very quickly, despite the fact that Tanner was not starting his new job for several months, which otherwise would have prevented them from closing until then.
Tanner is an avid pilot who was offered a great job at Boeing testing all the new planes. It was fun to meet someone so excited about flying. His previous job had been flying around to detect hurricanes of all things!
Melinda is a mechanical engineer who consults on all sorts of projects, including robots and how they operate. She told me a funny story of a big corporation that had purchased a very expensive robot with no idea of how to make it work.
Their main priorities were finding a three bedroom house that had a decent commute to Boeing Field and Renton Airport, where Tanner would be working, as well as a shop big enough for Melinda to work and store all her big mechanical engineering equipment. They also needed a library to accommodate their massive collection of 900 books, most of which were on engineering.
We spent the weekend driving all over West and Southeast Seattle, looking at lots of houses, and as luck would have it, we found the ideal home in West Seattle, with a shockingly large insulated shop that was perfect for Melinda.
The house had been listed for $950,000 in July, with the expectation that it would sell for over a million. However, the market had slowed drastically by then, and after three more price drops, the sellers finally landed at a price of $735,000. Then, despite multiple offers, Tanner and Melinda had the winning bid without having to go higher than the new list price of $735,000.
The house was in amazing condition as the sellers had totally remodeled the kitchen, painted everywhere, and added new carpet in order to sell it. Not only that, they had been camping out in the shop for five months so the house would stay pristine. Yikes!
Unfortunately, the sellers were not happy given their expectation of a much higher sales price. So the transaction was a little touch-and-go at times as we tried to negotiate a few things. At one point, the listing agent actually became quite belligerent, and it was unclear whether it was coming from her or her clients!
Now, it takes all types in this business, and in 20 years, I’ve seen some agents get very bent out of shape. And while I totally understand advocating for your client, getting angry really does not benefit anyone! However, I was able to navigate through it all so that Tanner and Melinda would get their dream home.
I did feel sorry for the sellers though, as they had lived there for a long time and put a lot of money into the house to sell it. Unfortunately, the timing was off, and it was listed too high to start with, so their expectations were unrealistic. I did meet them just before closing, we had a nice conversation, and I wished them well, as they were ready to be done and move on.
Tanner and Melinda are lovely folks and a joy to work with. I truly enjoyed our time together and look forward to seeing them again, when they finally move to Seattle. Congratulations, you two!
