Marlow Harris of 360 Digest forwarded me this great example of the kind of story you won’t be seeing anymore in the coming years.
We were to present our offer the next evening as one of 10 offers (!). I told my realtor that I’d rather pay too much for the house than lose it. We debated how far over list price we needed to go to win the bidding war. We decided on a strategy to just go in with a blank check and I went to the store to buy little pink running shoes for the soon-to-be-born baby girl as a sweetener to the deal.
We gave them a signed contract with the amount line left blank and told the sellers to fill in whatever amount it would take to get the house.
That story happened in 2003. It’s hard to believe that the madness lasted as long as it did, but at least it is finally coming to an end.
(Eric, Redfin blog, 05.11.2006)