So.... We have decided to buy a house. It's actually been pretty easy, with a few hick ups here and there. We did the whole pre-qualifying, in the middle of the week. Then I started to try and find some houses to go look at. I looked online, at several really good sites. Found several that we really liked. Now being new to the whole home buying experience we had no idea what "short sales" were, and go figure almost all the houses we liked in this area were short saled. So we looked closer to our parents and found several that I was willing to walk through. Oh the joys of that. I had no idea what to expect, but it wasn't what I found.
House #1 was in the area I grew up, just down the block in fact. It was a nice looking house -- from the front. It was down right scary from the back and inside. It was decorated in the 50's or 60's and hasn't been done since. Including the appliances that they were leaving with the house. It had been empty for quite a while and was in sad shape. The carpets through out were that green shag carpet, stained in several places, I wasn't even sure the oven or range top (which were separate, the oven was in the wall which I was excited about until I saw it) would actually work they were so old. The basement was a big scary mess!! AND it had a BROILER in the basement instead of a furnace. I've never dealt with a boiler before. I'd rather not start now. For the condition the house was in, they wanted WAY WAY too much money. Now I know that you can talk them down, but with all the things we'd have to replace before we could move it, it was a big fat NO!
House #2 was a nice 4 bed, 2 bath with a huge yard-fully fenced- with a 2 car garage. Now we had appt's to see all these houses with our Realtor Kelly who is FABULOUS!! I just love her!! Anyway, we show up at this house to find out that the people renting some of the rooms were in various degrees of dress and being ready. ***CONFESSION*** I really liked the outside and upstairs of this house, but I was terrified by this house.
The lady who owns it was renting out single rooms, so there were 3 mini fridges, downstairs was so terrifying that I wanted out as soon as possible. They had set up a couple hot plates down there in a make shift laundry room and kitchen. The basement had a mother in law apt without the kitchen part. They had a closet that used to be the coal room, complete with a coal shoot opening outside, which they had made a bed in there and was renting it out as a bedroom. All the doors had dead bolts on the them and everywhere they could stuff a body, there was a body stuffed there. We had to knock on bedroom doors, ask to look inside, which we peeked in and left, and them we were asked if we wanted renters. UMMM.... NO WAY IN HELL!! We are looking for a house that we can move our family into, not to share our house. The downstairs bathroom made me laugh so hard, but given the condition the house was in, I'm not at all surprised. Right when you walked down the tiny steep steps, you walked into the huge laundry room/their mini kitchen. If you turned to your right, there were 2 bedrooms, a bathroom that just had a toilet and sink, and right out in the middle of the open area was a communal shower!!! You could see over the top, and under the door, it was that open. I was so amused that I seriously laughed for at least 5 minutes and then again when we were outside looking at the yard. I was almost 3000sq ft but felt so cramped and tiny because of how full it was.
House #3 I LOVED!!! But it was also partially unfinished. And more work than we wanted to take on. It was 6 bedrooms- I know we don't need that many rooms, but it was in our price range because it needed some work. The house had such history- I could tell- just when you walked in and looked around, you could feel it in the air. It was weird, it didn't feel bad at all, but just walking through the rooms it felt like I was trying to walk through water. My lungs were laboring like I had just spent 30 minutes exercising. I loved the layout of the house, the huge yard, mostly fenced. But it had only 1 working bathroom and one under construction. The original part of the house was built in 1864 and it had been added on to several times. And not very well in some places. Like I said, I loved it, but way too much work to make it comfortable for us to live there. Plus, it didn't have any air conditioning except a small window one and that meant that the 3 rooms upstairs were going to be hot in the summer and cold in the winter. We'll pass this time around.
Now house #4 was perfect! (It's also the house we put an offer on, I'm just sayin')
It is a 5 bedroom, 2 bath house with a full basement, a nice sized lot-fully fenced- and lots of great little things, like ... A gas fireplace in the family room downstairs, a storage room (we even talked them into leaving their upright freezer-bonus!!) My only complaint about the whole house, is the size of the bedrooms. They are pretty small. Though, it's hard to say for sure because they had all the rooms FULL of furniture. I must say that I love LoVe LOVE the kitchen. It isn't big, but it's just right. All new appliances and a gas stove which I am super happy about. They are leaving a swing in the back yard, and there is a fire pit back there and a nice big patio. I think we'll be spending a lot of time on the patio so I'm very happy.
House #5 was nice, a 4bed, 2 bath house even closer to our parents than the one we are trying to get. It had a newly remodeled kitchen, which was nice, but you could tell that they did the work their selves and in some places, not very well. The yard was smaller and I didn't like it as much. It just wasn't our house even with a nicer, bigger, newer kitchen. OK, nicer isn't really comparable because I liked the other kitchen better. It was brighter somehow. This one wasn't even clean. They had swept cereal under the cabinets which you could still see.
The owners of the house we are trying to get really know how to stage their house so that it was welcoming and bright and cheery and lovely.
We like house #4 so much that right after we got done looking at houses we followed our Realtor to her office (on a Saturday and my birthday to boot) put an offer on the house, and less than 3 hours later she called me to tell me that they had accepted our offer, happy birthday to me!!
We found out that someone else had put an offer on the house before us but their financing feel through, so we were able to snatch it up.
Now comes the stress... We are doing everything they want us to do. We got the inspection, we gave them our earnest money, and we were just waiting for the appraisal. When it came in, we had a slight problem. The house didn't appraise for what we offered them. It appraised for $8,000 less. Now the stress really begins to have fun. The sellers agent wants a review of the appraisal because she doesn't think that the guy was very thorough. And all this is happening while banks and offices are closed for the 4th of July holiday. We are starting to get close to our deadlines which is making me nervous. The sellers have already put another house under contract and have paid for their inspection as well. They want out. They said that if they can't get a review or if it doesn't change than they are willing to drop the price. Which is good for us, but I need to know ASAP- If we need to back out we need to do it before the middle of the month. We are less than 3 weeks from the day we are supposed to close. I've taken in our 30 day notice to the apartments, I want to start packing non-essentials so that I'm not rushing to pack last minute. And now, I'm like- do I keep going, do I wait for word from them or the bank!?!?
UGH!!! It's enough to knot my shoulders and make my tummy in knots. I'm actually better now than I was before. When I found out on Friday I was pretty nasty- I know it's hard to believe, but yes it's true. I was down right bi%!hy.
Ahhhh.... I feel better, having gotten that off my chest. When I find out for sure, I will post pics of my house!! :)
No comments:
Post a Comment