Closed!

Finally!  We closed on the sale of our duplex yesterday afternoon.  Since we have to look at it every day, living next door as we do, this will be a huge load off our minds.  It’s gone!  It’s not ours anymore!  Hurray!  Down to one mortgage!

The market in Minneapolis is slow, very slow.  The duplex market has ground to a halt.  It is so slow that "average time on the market" is a meaningless metric right now.  A few weeks ago the best way of characterizing our neighborhood was like this:

Duplexes on the market:  51

Sales of duplexes pending:  0

And then, miracle of miracles, the second number ticked up from 0 to 1, and we were the chosen ones!  Yes, us!  I mean, our duplex was. 

We attributed this miracle to (1) Mark’s laborious refinishing and repainting over several months, which surely must have set it apart from others, (2) our realtor’s aggressive marketing of the duplex among Spanish-speaking realtors, as our area is very close to a vibrant district of predominantly Spanish-speaking businesses, (3) the offer of a thousand dollar bonus to the realtor of the buyer and also that we would pay closing costs.

Who was this foolish person who was willing to buy our duplex at the asking price in a buyer’s market without any haggling? 

He was Adrian, a Mexican-born man about our age, friendly and very halting in his English.  His realtor translated for him as we worked (I listened with interest to see if I could understand any of the Spanish, but mostly what I caught her telling him, as she pointed to documents, was:  Su nombre aqui.  Y aqui.  Y aqui.  Y aqui.  A closing is not a very interesting thing to listen to) And then, after we had been sitting across the table from him for about an hour, our realtor, making small talk, asked his realtor, "So when is Adrian going to move in?"

She replied, "Well, he will take his time, because he lives next door."

At first, confusion.  No, you’re mixed up.  WE live next door.   But no!  It is the neighbor on the other side!

The first thought that occurred to Mark was this:  Man, I could have saved us about eight thousand dollars if you’d have just knocked on my door.

The first thought that occurred to me was this:  Oh my God.  You’re the nice guy who indicated "don’t worry about it" after I collided with your parked car last year and ran a big scratch all up the driver’s side.

I had to explain that last bit to Mark later, when he wanted to know why I looked excessively embarrassed.  I think I will make an extra-special effort not to hit the man’s car again.