I couldn’t sleep at all Wednesday night after seeing the house in Castillon-la-Bataille! 

I google mapped my way around the streets, taking stock of all the shops and restaurants. I learned about the town and got excited to see they’re involving the community to gather ideas for improvement (design thinking!). I found a swimming beach area down the river and a winery that blends grapes from local winemakers into an extraordinary table wine. I even found a stock photo with the house in it! 

Ralph calls this obsessing, I call it information gathering. Tomato, tomahhhhto. 

We had to wake up early to drive to the airport in Toulouse. While we packed, we talked about our options. We’d already decided to put in an offer, but what exactly?

The evening before, I built a spreadsheet to understand the full costs (notaire’s fees, currency exchange, US taxes on retirement distributions) at various purchase prices. The agent had mentioned that there might be some room for negotiation, so I wanted to see the exact numbers. 

The thing about negotiation is that it’s a delicate dance. Offer too little, and you may offend the seller. Offer in a respectable range and there may be a little volleying back and forth. Or…you can offer the full asking price. And there’s something to that because in France, you cannot offer above the asking price, so technically, making a full-price offer obligates the seller to sell the house to you.

However…we put a full-price offer on that other house by Sancerre, and somehow that did not go through. We’ve shared the story with a few realtors on this journey, and most agreed that it was shocking. For backstory, the seller of that house and the agent were friends. The agent had an exclusive listing agreement. Therefore, the agent had an obligation to share our offer with the seller, and she did. Two days later, she informed us that a neighbor had entered into a deal with the seller and the seller decided to sell to them instead.

Three possibilities:

• We got screwed
• Maybe mentioning a mortgage made the full-price offer contingent and not a done deal
• Or, both we and the agent got screwed when the seller made a side deal with the neighbor 

I don’t know why they couldn’t have worked that out before putting the house on the market. It certainly would have spared us some heartbreak! But, this hard-won knowledge factored into our decision. We couldn’t bear the thought of someone else outbidding us so we emailed the agent with a full-price offer as we drove to the airport. Eeek!

Now we wait…and wait…because the agent wants to share our offer with the seller on Monday when she returns from the UK. We trust her judgment on doing this in person, but the suspense is agonizing!