Buying & Selling Home During Pandemic – Positive Overall
Luckily for us, we were able to accept an offer on our house and our offer on our new to be home also got accepted around February 2020 right before everything started shutting down. To be honest although it this offer process was filled with nervous moments driven by the shutdown, but we really did not feel much of a change in the process. All physical processes were completed digitally or without our presence including basic CO process. Closing for the most part was digital, but we did have to go in person to complete the final signatures.
The day after our offer acceptance, my wife and I were having our evening cup of coffee while the kids were busy in play time – we asked ourselves if this process of buying and selling will really work in our favor given the market/job uncertainty of both buyers and sellers, we decided to cancel the buying and selling process. I made a phone call to my agent to ask if the buyer of our home and the seller of our new home would cancel the contract as COVID has impacted everyone and there is a lot of uncertainty. She calmly said you signed the initial paperwork, and we should proceed with it as there is no way we can cancel this now. All the negative thoughts started to spark our talks, she continued with a same positive salesperson attitude and said we just closed on 2 houses and there were no delays or issues. We had to stay positive or we had no choice. This kept coming up between my wife and I many times, we had to convince each other multiple time that our decision is still valid.
We then went through inspections, negotiations of fixing broken things, and much more between our agent, lawyers, buyer, seller, and everyone in the middle. Although were excited our home was offered almost full price, we were not happy about inspection negotiations and price add-ons. Any way all that concluded, we packed our bags, shot many videos with our kids, and my older son (6 yrs.), still feels like the house we are selling is his love and that he will miss his house forever. Mommy needed to step into this situation. We started with a conservative number of boxes, ended up buying double the boxes – totally underestimated what one could collect in 6 years. Called several places to book movers, it was super complicated with COVID regulations, finally found a company that did it. Had to go with no insurance option which costed me a broken treadmill (still trying to get this fixed). My wife and I decided on some renovation work (crazy 4-5 weeks, write-up in progress), and we decided to stay at our in-laws for the 4 weeks. Staying at in-laws was good, but more fun for the kids especially as they get pampered.
We closed on our home on May 27th, which was a moment of mixed feelings given COVID. At the end we made it, we moved in our kids had a fantastic rest of the summer and fall. We are happy we decided to move during the pandemic, luckily with a large backyard we didn’t feel the effects of staying home and indoor.
Writer : Buyer and Seller of a home
Location : NJ, USA