Last week we had a semi-successful inspection on a house that we’re attempting to purchase. Which means that we’re mere weeks from being homeowners. (Crazy.)
We’re pretty excited about it, as this has been a less-than-fun process thus far. Why? This house marks the fifth house we’ve put an offer on, and the third we’ve been under contract for.
That’s right. Five offers. Three contracts. Which means we had two unsuccessful offers and two previous unsuccessful contracts. Not fun.
The two unsuccessful offers were the result of very inflexible sellers not coming to terms with the current value of their homes. (I mean, the market’s starting to get better, but let’s be realistic here. One seller wouldn’t come down on their asking price at all.)
The first house we were under contract for we were pretty excited about. It was a very nice little gut rehab with amazing finishes. But apparently nice finishes on a gut rehab should have been a warning to us. We were so naive.
Our inspector let us down easy, calling the house a “failed rehab” – or as he unaffectionately called it, a “Lindsay Lohan.”
The second house we were under contract for was an estate sale in a really great location. We called it our “project house,” because the previous homeowners had not left it in the best condition. But we thought it was manageable from what we could see, and trusted our inspector to flag what we couldn’t see. The price was great, so we thought we could put some money in it right away and put our mark on it. We thought we could make it our own.
But we didn’t get that far. Our attorney flagged to us right away that the taxes listed on the place were not accurate in the slightest. They were actually double what the listing said, due to many exemptions and a “senior freeze” on the taxes that the previous owners were enjoying. Needless to say, this brought the monthly payments way out of our comfort zone.
We tried renegotiating the price due to this new revelation, but we couldn’t come to another agreement. Another contract – and another few weeks – down the drain.
It should be noted here that this was around the same time we found out that our current landlords were going to be inflexible with us on our lease. We had hoped that they would go month-to-month with us for a little while on good faith – and the fact that we have been very good tenants for three years. But no. We were going to be homeless as of June 1.
Then finally – just in the nick of time – a couple of weeks ago we stumbled across this unassuming little house. It was in a decent location, and had almost everything we were looking for. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but no house is. But it felt like us.
And now here we are, past inspection. The furthest down the road we’ve ever been. And it’s starting to appropriately feel real. The Gardners are about to take a big life step.
We’re about to finally be homeowners. And I’m semi-freaking out.
How did you handle the transition to homeownership? Was your experience this crazy, or was it especially bad for us?
[Photo via ~Brenda-Starr~]
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
You’ve been very unlucky, this is all ridiculous. We bid on the first thing we saw and met in the middle after only one counter-offer with no problems at all afterwards. I realize that this was probably very lucky, but reality is probably somewhere between our two experiences.
Yeah, that’s the impression I’ve got as well. Oh, well – on to closing!
Sounds like a labor-intensive process! That’s a road my wife and I will probably be heading down in the next year or two ourselves and are already researching how to go about it the best way possible. Hopefully this process wraps up for you all here soon.
Best of luck. Here’s hoping it’s not as complicated for you as it was for me.
PS, I found out that someone in our office knows you in a non-digital way.
Oh really? Small world! Although I think I may know who you’re talking about.
Yeah, we discovered the connection by talking about… wait for it… Pinterest.
We had issues with the seller’s realtor. Our realtor thought they were asking a bit much and asked them to bring it down about five grand. They agreed on the condition that we pay closing. We didn’t have money for that, so we offered to raise the price by $1500 if they would pay closing. Their stupid realtor countered that with an offer of the additional money but we still pay closing. Really? She thought we were just gonna give them $1500 out of the goodness of our hearts? Anyhoo, we got the house for $3500 off the original price and didn’t pay closing. Incidentally, ask the seller to pay closing if you haven’t. Worse thing they cam do is say no, and most sellers do pay closing anyway.
Yeah, we definitely negotiated that upfront, and are now splitting the closing costs.