House Sale in a Historically Hot Market in a Historically Hot Climate

We finally closed on our house yesterday.  We have had it on the market since mid-September, and it has spent most of that time under contract.  But this historically hot housing market is not your parents' housing market.  In SE Florida, we have this hot housing market because of so many investors, and those investors are different from people who are buying a house where their families will live.

We had at least 5 contracts--I have lost count.  Two investors backed out of the contract because of concerns about flooding and the cost of flood insurance.  I was surprised at first--hadn't they thought about this aspect of the property before they made an offer?

We have come to realize that many investors make an offer first, and then do their research afterward.  It's all legal; there are spots in the contract where the buyer can back out for a variety of reasons.  An investor makes an offer so that nobody else has a chance, and then the investor tries to decide whether or not the property is worth the offer just made.  For those of us who are regular homeowners, it's exhausting.

I don't know if other real estate markets are similar right now.  I would guess that in the big cities, the market is investor driven.  I don't know if it's true in say, Columbia South Carolina or Salisbury, North Carolina, or any other medium size town in the U.S.

When we thought about putting the house on the market, we worried that we would sell the house quickly and have no place to live.  So we found a great deal on a condo to rent and moved and then put the house on the market.  I still think that plan made sense.  But I am now looking forward to having only one set of living expenses.

I keep waiting to feel some sort of elation now that we have finally made it to the finish line and actually sold the house.  We had so many hiccups along the way that I didn't let myself get my hopes up yesterday.  And the closing yesterday, which was scheduled for 2:30, took longer than I was expecting.  By the time it was done, I was more wrung out than elated.

Perhaps today, some elation will take the place of the exhaustion.