Page 47 of The Fifth Avenue Apartment

“I’m heading back to the office now. I’ll email the offer paperwork to you immediately so you can DocuSign it and then I’ll present the offer to the buyer.”

When Sophie got back to the office, she pulled the offer together, emailed it off to her buyers and as soon as she received the signed copy back, she called her seller.

“I have good news,” Sophie said excitedly. “We have a second offer, and they are also paying cash and have offered the full asking price. What would you like to do?”

“That is great news. I actually didn’t think it would happen this fast,” Renee said. “What are my options?”

“You could accept one of these offers, or we could tell them both to put their best offer forward and give them a chance to improve their offers.”

Renee thought about that for a moment. “I don’t think I want to do that. The first offer was quite a bit below the asking price. And the second offer is exactly what I asked for. It doesn’t feel right to ask them to improve their offer. They might decide not to offer at all, right?”

“That is possible, yes. They did tell me they didn’t want to go above the asking price.”

“I don’t blame them. Please tell them that I happily accept their offer.” They discussed the building’s co-op approval process and set a closing date about ninety days out.

When they hung up, Sophie took a deep breath. She was thrilled at the first sale, and a double sale at that since she had both the buyer and the seller. She still had to get over the co-op approval hurdle first, though.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Sophie was dying to share her big news, but the office was pretty much empty—other than the on-call agent, who she didn’t know well enough. Everyone, including Rick was out with clients.

So, she had to wait until she got home a little after six. The rest of her afternoon had been hectic, too, as she’d had two more showings with her new clients. Those had gone well, but they both had a few more set up over the next few days. Sophie didn’t get the sense that things would move as quickly with either of them, but she was still happy to show them as many listings as they wanted to see.

When she walked into her apartment, she was tired. It had been a long day, but a good one. She was on a bit of a high and was tempted to call her mother but decided to wait until the deal actually closed.

“Did you get another offer?” Caroline asked as soon as Sophie walked in. Tessa was sprawled across the living room sofa, filing her nails. She looked curious to hear Sophie’s news, too.

Sophie joined Caroline at the kitchen island and sat on a stool next to her. “I did. My buyers made a full-priced offer, and the seller took it. I’m still kind of in shock.”

“Congratulations!!! That is so awesome. Your first sale is a double, that is incredible. I’m so happy for you.” Caroline gave her a big hug.

Tessa congratulated her too. “Nice job. Hopefully yours will clear the co-op board,” she said. She grinned though and added, “I’m sure they will. Mine was a weird situation.”

“I think we need to celebrate. Do we have any champagne?” Caroline asked. She looked in the refrigerator. “We are out of everything.” She closed the door and turned around. “We could go out. Let’s go to that little Italian place that your Aunt Penny used to go to all the time. That feels appropriate. I think she’d want us to. And I’m sure they have champagne.”

Tessa stood and walked over to them. “That works for me. We don’t really have anything here to eat.”

So, they walked a few blocks to the Italian restaurant and Caroline proudly bragged to Tony and Richard that Sophie just made her first sale.

“Congratulations!” Tony gave Sophie a big hug. “Your aunt would be so proud. You must celebrate,” he said.

Once they were seated, he sent three glasses of champagne over on the house. They toasted to Sophie’s sale and had a delicious dinner. And over dinner they talked about work, as usual.

“Do you have anything else going on?” Caroline asked.

“I’m working with two new buyers and am showing them properties this week. We’re not close on anything though.” Sophie thought about mentioning her meeting with Emily, but it hadn’t happened yet, they were meeting tomorrow at ten, and she didn’t want to jinx anything. She still couldn’t believe it was real that she might have a buyer that could spend up to twenty million.

“What about you, Tessa? Any luck on finding another buyer for your big listing?” Caroline asked.

Tessa took a sip of wine and set her wine glass down. “Not yet. I’m working my butt off on it. Calling everyone I can think of, former clients, other brokers, and asking who they might know. And we have some new ads for it. Those can be hit or miss. The clock is ticking…I’m down to three weeks now.”

Caroline smiled encouragingly. “If anyone can pull this off, you can.”

“Thanks. I do have some other stuff pending, but nothing close, yet. What about you?”

“I might be getting a new listing in later this week. I’m not sure yet on the price, but it might be my biggest one yet. It’s on Fifth Avenue.”

Tessa looked intrigued. “No kidding? If you do an open house maybe you’ll find some new buyers that might be good for my listing, too.”

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