Hi Everyone,
We've finished negotiations about the price reduction on the building. There was a little back and forth but not as much as I expected. Thanks to the fast work of Diarmuid MacNiell and Jon Fitzgibbon, we had estimates for a total of roughly $115,000 of repair work. Specifically; repairing the retaining wall in the backyard, sorting out the funky framing in the basement, doing a soft-story retrofit, and replacing the roof.
The negotiation was pretty fast since two of those items we knew about going in (the roof and the soft-story). It would be pretty disingenuous to say that we hadn't considered those costs when we made our offer and so we started asking for $70,000 off. With a little back-and-forth, we settled for $41,000 off the agreed price. Since the two things we didn't know about going in (the basement and the retaining wall) were estimated at at total of $42,000, I think we did pretty well. I might have been happier with an extra thousand dollars but, when we're doing a two-million-plus dollar deal, $1000 is kind of small change. I didn't think it was worth fighting over.
So, excluding closing costs, the final price was $2,259,000. And that feels really darn good. It also means we've got a bit of a surplus since we were aiming for a $100,000 repairs budget and now we've got $141,000. I think that the best plan is to get the repairs done and then see where we stand. I expect that I'll use the surplus to pay off some loans early but we'll see how things shake out once the hammers hit the nails.
The most exciting thing is that all the contingencies have been removed as of this evening. Since those are the only ways out of the deal for both the buyer and the seller, with them taken care of it's just a matter of finishing the escrow period and then were done. Translation -- there isn't any work left to do (other than lots of planning) and it's very unlikely that anything is going to happen at this point to derail the deal.
I'm going to be talking with the seller to see if we can close sooner. There isn't an advantage to taking a longer time and, the sooner it's closed, the sooner we can get in there and start working. I'll probably need to give the seller more time to get his stuff out of the place (since it's reasonable to figure that he planned on being out based on the original closing date) but that won't stop us from tearing out ivy, cleaning up the basement, getting measurements taken and plans drawn up.
It's all coming together very nicely.
Which is good; because I'm on a plane tomorrow at 7 am for San Antonio and the World Fantasy Convention. I'll be back in town Monday night and back at work on Tuesday. If you're going to the convention, make sure you let me know and I'll get you an invitation to our Sponsors' Scotch tasting on Saturday afternoon at 3:00 pm.
Since I'll be at the convention and running around quite a bit, please forgive me if I'm less responsive than usual to email. Scott Cox is coming along and so he'll be a bit slow in the email department as well.
Thank you all for everything you've done for Borderlands over the years. Day after tomorrow will be exactly 20 years to the day since I opened the shop's doors in Hayes Valley. It's been a hell of a trip and I'm looking forward to the next 20 years with unbridled hope and excitement. At the beginning of 2015, I never imagined that we'd all be here and doing this.
All Best,
Alan
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