Everything That Seems Phoney Ain't Always Phoney

When I went to buy my house, just as I was making one of my final offers, out of the blue some mysterious "other prospective buyers" also made an offer. Apparently from what I had heard there had been no serious offers on the house for the last 4 months that it had been listed. All of a sudden now that I was making an offer these other people were offering and what was more, they were offering more than me. However, the owner's real estate agent assured me that since I had offered first that they would let me have a chance to raise my offer up a couple of thousand and still get the house. The really strange thing about all this is that even with my higher offer, the other offer was still higher but they wanted to sell the house to me. My theory is that because I was acting independent of a real estate agent - I was just buying it without an agent, the owner's didn't have to give part of the sale price as a commission to my agent and so even though I was offering less he would get more money out of the deal. It was a real stroke of luck that I didn't have a real estate agent. I'm not saying that it always works out that well, but it sure did for me. Oh I almost forgot, the other people that made an offer on the house showed up wanted to look at the place one last time, I guess in case I changed my mind. They pulled up in a little red truck just as I was up on the roof with the house inspector. They told me they were the other people that had made an offer on the house. I wish I would have talked to them, but I was busy up on the roof and just never bothered to go down and chat with them. They just drove off never to be seen or heard from again. Who knows, maybe I could have resold the house to them for more... I don't know. I guess I'm glad I didn't though, I kind of like this place.