So, it’s been entirely too long since I’ve used this blog and I think I need a change in direction for it. Rather than discussions in the life of Mrs. P I think I’ll focus on the adventures of home ownership.
We recently hit the two year mark for owning our home and it hasn’t been without its challenges. Who knew having a home would take so much time, money, and back muscle! Maybe I should start this out with our experience from the very beginning: purchasing.
We had an amazing apartment in the city. It was big (1300 sq.ft.), right on the lake with a beautiful view of Belmont Harbor, and everything was included in our rent. We also had easy access to a dog beach to take Byron swimming often. The downside, we didn’t have a yard and we quickly discovered that even though our apartment was big, it wasn’t big enough for the two of us, all our things, and a hyper puppy. When it came close to our lease expiring we decided to start house hunting. Since we loved the area and Byron loved swimming so much we originally focused on condos in the city. There were many beautiful condos, but there were even more reasons to not purchase one. After a few weekends looking in the city we ventured into the burbs. This was a huge leap since we wanted nothing to do with the burbs and loved the convenience of being in the city.
I didn’t have much hope for our first weekend looking in the burbs. We knew what we really wanted and believed it was well out of our price range. Our agent sent some listings the week before to pick which ones we wanted to see and which ones we didn’t like. All the homes were pretty standard for new construction, but one really stuck out. I actually immediately rejected the listing because I knew there was no way it was in our price range. Our agent took us to the property any way… I was very frustrated when we pulled up! I knew we would love the house, but it would be too expensive and we would just be depressed when we looked at all the other homes. Little did I know, the price dropped drastically since I saw the listing and it was well within our price range (and the price range of many others)! As soon as we walked in the door we fell in love with the house. It was everything we had been looking for, minus the lack of a theater room ;-). It even backed to a pond for Byron to swim! We knew we had to act fast because something like that wasn’t going to last long and there were many people scheduled to look at the property that weekend. Fortunately for us, even though other bids came in with a higher offer, everyone had a home sale contingency but us. The property was a short sale and they had to sell quickly so we were their only option!
The short sale process was very quick for us. From the day we put in our offer it was 6-7 weeks to close. I understand that it doesn’t go that quick any more. Most people are waiting at list 6 months just for approval of their offer which doesn’t include everything that has to happen after that. Just because it was a quick process for us doesn’t mean it wasn’t the longest 6-7 weeks I had ever experienced. I don’t know if it was because of the homeowners we were working with or the fact that it was a short sale, I have a hard time believing all short sales are this way, but it was a challenge to not walk away from the deal at least once a week.
A little background: The homeowners (both in their 50’s) had two properties and both were built less than a year apart during the housing boom. Our house was used as a rental property that had been vacant for over a year. We assumed they were hoping to hold the property for a few years and then sell for a huge profit. Like everyone else, I’m sure they never expected the huge economic downturn and the bursting housing bubble. We sensed they were very bitter about the whole process. Every time we suggested something (like fixing a few problems we found in the inspection or supplying us with the garage door openers and plat) their agent came back saying something along the lines of “they are losing a lot of money on this deal, you should just be happy with what you are getting”. Being the first time going through this and not having agents that were very experienced with short sales, we didn’t really push issues further. Heck, we were getting a great deal!
On with the story, within a couple days we had a signed contract and were on our way to getting a home inspection and finalizing the lending. The inspection went pretty smooth. There were a few problems, nothing major and nothing we couldn’t easily fix ourselves. Our only request was to fix the kitchen sink. It was sagging because it was never properly installed and we didn’t want anything to break before we closed on the house! They agreed to fix the problem, but never did….surprise, surprise. Through the 5 days for attorney review the sellers came back to us and changed the contract saying that they weren’t including the fridge (which is a built-in so not easily removed) and they were also not including the microwave. They then offered us the opportunity to purchase the fridge for $3,000.00. This of course had to be under the table because if their lender found out they would have taken the money as part of the property sale. Don’t get me wrong, the fridge is great, but it was 6 years old, some things inside were broken, dents on the door, and the warranty had expired. We could have purchased a new fridge for $5,000. Damage free and with a full warranty! We ended up negotiating $1,500 for the fridge which seemed to be reasonable. I’m sure it would have cost them more to have the thing removed than that, but that way we didn’t need to purchase a fridge and it is still running great.
The rest of the process was just as bumpy. They claimed they had the old plat and would provide it to us, but never produced it. They also promised the garage door openers and keys for all the doors, which was also never produced. I swear, there was something new each week that changed or wasn’t going to be as agreed. When it came to just a couple of days before close the sellers called with more bad news. They just happened to forget to mention to the company holding their second mortgage that they had a selling agreement that was approved by their primary mortgage company. When they finally got around to telling them, they weren’t happy with the deal they were getting and were going to refuse to allow the deal to go through. It turned out to be a battle between the two mortgage holders that was only resolved because our real estate agent happened to know someone with the second mortgage company that fixed everything. It didn’t happen until the day we were supposed to close, but it was resolved and we were able to move to the next hurdle…cash at close. Because of the snafu with the mortgage holders the sellers couldn’t tell the title company any financial information and therefore we had no clue how much money we needed to bring to closing. Not only that, we didn’t find out until 2-3 hours before our rescheduled closing appointment that we were actually going to close!
We finally made it to the closing table and thought it would be without incident, but we were wrong. In most cases, this would be brushed off as nothing, but to us, this was a big deal because of everything that we had went through just to get to the closing table. We found out near the end of the process that our association dues were double what they told us (which was also included in the contract). Definitely not something that was going to break the bank, but something that was important information for budgeting and something that was part of our decision with all of the properties. Mr. P. was ready to walk away. I wasn’t ready to do that, but at the same time I didn’t really care. Like Mr. P. I was tired of all the games and wanted it all to be over. I especially wanted to give the sellers a piece of my mind. Luckily for all of us they weren’t there. I am confident Mr. P. would have gone off without hesitation and probably would have walked away from the table.
In the end, we got an amazing deal on an amazing property, but it was a very stressful process for us. In the future, I don’t know that we will ever consider a short sale home again. One thing I do know for sure is if anyone starts misrepresenting information and starts changing their mind after accepting our offer, we are walking away…no hesitation.
Recent comments