In April 2013, Tom Smith (owner of Summit Energy Solutions) found several homes for sale in Bridgton, Maine. One of them, a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 1716 sq ft home built circa 1900, got his and Dave Robinson’s (founder of GreenEarthEquities) attention. The house was foreclosed by Fannie Mae and put on the market at HomePath.com. The real estate market in this part of Maine is positioned for an upturn. A remodeled home offering both thermal comfort and low energy usage should be extremely attractive to potential buyers or renters. A discussion and quick calculation at a GreenEarthEquities webinar convinced everyone that this is worth pursuing.
Real estate deals are full of ups and downs. This case is no exception. While we were interested in the property, strangely it stayed on the market with no taker for over a month. Meanwhile, we completed our remodeling cost estimates and decided to make an offer on it. At the same time, HomePath cut the price by about 10%. That immediately generated a flurry of activities, including our bid.
An offer higher than ours was taken. But a mere two days later, we were told that the previous offer fell through. Apparently the higher offer contains enough uncertainties and contingencies that HomePlan wanted an alternative. One very important consideration by HomePath is speedy closing and we were able to meet that criterion. We revised our bid and it was promptly accepted.
Coming next: Property inspection
See also: Partnering With Green Hearted Companies
See also: Partnering With Green Hearted Companies and the entire From Foreclosure To Green Home series.