The apartment situation has been a little crazy these past few days.
Through Housing Agent #1, we made an offer for the place on Beethovenstraat which was lower than the owner's asking price. After two days, the owner's agent told us they had knocked €50 off the asking price—and I was like, what the heck kind of tawad is €50? Still, we kicked our budget up a notch (the house is that nice), made a counter-offer, and waited.
And waited.
In the meantime, we viewed another apartment with Housing Agent #2 (a.k.a. The Blond Clive Owen). A ground-floor apartment near the Concertgebouw and Museumplein, it promised to be a contender, but turned out to be too big of an investment on our part—we'd have to spend for closets, curtains, a dryer, lighting fixtures and to clean up the garden. So much for that.
And still, we waited.
Marlon and I also decided on a back-up apartment should Beethovenstraat reject our offer. I haven't blogged about it since the pictures I took were crappy. But we saw it on our very first day of house-hunting, and it was the pick of that day. We just needed to get the final word from Beethovenstraat so we could make an offer on this other place before it got snapped up by someone else.
But still, we waited. And started to wonder why the owners were taking so long to evaluate our counter-offer.
Today Housing Agent #1 found out that the owner's agent was in talks with another prospective tenant about the same apartment! Instead of holding one-to-one negotiations with the first to make an offer, he had been playing us off each other without either of us knowing. After getting an offer from us, he would tell the owner, then run to the other party and get a counter offer, then make the owner decide.
This whole runaround not only prolonged the entire process, but drove up the rent (and the agent's commission)... in favor of the other "bidder". Marlon and I weren't expecting a bidding game, and we're certainly not funded to play one. Welcome to Expatland, where there will always be someone with a bigger relocation package/housing allowance/tax benefit than you.
So we gave up the bidding war to the other party, and for the second time in as many weeks, I'm crushed.
We now have a pending offer for the third choice on our list. I can only hope it's still on the market—we lost so time on this stupid waiting game—and that the negotiations are not as draining. We're only in the serviced apartment until Wednesday, so we have to close a deal on an apartment asap. Like tomorrow.
Through Housing Agent #1, we made an offer for the place on Beethovenstraat which was lower than the owner's asking price. After two days, the owner's agent told us they had knocked €50 off the asking price—and I was like, what the heck kind of tawad is €50? Still, we kicked our budget up a notch (the house is that nice), made a counter-offer, and waited.
And waited.
In the meantime, we viewed another apartment with Housing Agent #2 (a.k.a. The Blond Clive Owen). A ground-floor apartment near the Concertgebouw and Museumplein, it promised to be a contender, but turned out to be too big of an investment on our part—we'd have to spend for closets, curtains, a dryer, lighting fixtures and to clean up the garden. So much for that.
And still, we waited.
Marlon and I also decided on a back-up apartment should Beethovenstraat reject our offer. I haven't blogged about it since the pictures I took were crappy. But we saw it on our very first day of house-hunting, and it was the pick of that day. We just needed to get the final word from Beethovenstraat so we could make an offer on this other place before it got snapped up by someone else.
But still, we waited. And started to wonder why the owners were taking so long to evaluate our counter-offer.
Today Housing Agent #1 found out that the owner's agent was in talks with another prospective tenant about the same apartment! Instead of holding one-to-one negotiations with the first to make an offer, he had been playing us off each other without either of us knowing. After getting an offer from us, he would tell the owner, then run to the other party and get a counter offer, then make the owner decide.
This whole runaround not only prolonged the entire process, but drove up the rent (and the agent's commission)... in favor of the other "bidder". Marlon and I weren't expecting a bidding game, and we're certainly not funded to play one. Welcome to Expatland, where there will always be someone with a bigger relocation package/housing allowance/tax benefit than you.
So we gave up the bidding war to the other party, and for the second time in as many weeks, I'm crushed.
We now have a pending offer for the third choice on our list. I can only hope it's still on the market—we lost so time on this stupid waiting game—and that the negotiations are not as draining. We're only in the serviced apartment until Wednesday, so we have to close a deal on an apartment asap. Like tomorrow.
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