I wasn't planning on blogging about this, but I need an outlet.
All by my lonesome, I was approved for a home loan. So I am trying to purchase a property that fits in with our lifestyle. Needs to have at least 3 bedrooms because of the kids. Must have the right kind of acreage for animals. Pretty much everything else is negotiable.
Not many houses in my price range in the area we want to live.
Went out with the real estate agent, whose driving was TERRIFYING. I think I was more anxious about that than dropping a large sum of money on a house. Even with her earpiece in she was swerving all over the road and missing turns. We vowed to do the driving next time.
On that first trip, we saw two houses that were stick built and a few manufactured homes. The bank will not fund manufactured homes so those were out. Out of the two stick built homes, one was scary. The carpet had been removed, exposing the animal urine stains on the plywood below. And there were at least 10 air fresheners around the house trying to cover the stench. It was slightly out of my price range and required too much work, including gutting the kitchen. The other house needed quite a bit of work but was on a BEAUTIFUL five acres. I decided to make an offer. I went in a little less than the asking price and asked the seller to pay for half of the repairs. Gave him two dayes to respond. At the end of day two, the sellers agent was not feeling confident but asked for another day for the seller to do a walk through with the contractor. Realizing that was probably a lost cause, I checked to see if there were any other properties listed that might be worth another look.
Found two. One was on a funny shaped 2.6 acres and I had not put it on my list because of the shape and it's vicinity to a major highway. We don't want to live somewhere that is noisy. Plus it has a large swath of land behind it that is a proposed highway that was bought in the 70's and nothing has happened since. But when we looked at it the house was really nice, no real work needed and it had a lovely red barn plus the price had dropped 10k just that afternoon. Oh, and it had a mother-in-law unit which could be used to help offset the mortgage! The 2nd house was on 1.43 acres and backed to a river. Had a lot of charm since it was built in 1903. The property was pretty well parked out with large trees, a grass field out back and several fruit trees. Needed some cosmetic work but was livable. However it had only one bathroom which is a major negative, especially since out of the 5 of us, 3 are girls and all of us vying for one bathroom when they become teens would NOT be good. I should have LOVED it. But it didn't capture me the way that the house on 2.6 acres did. After sleeping on it, I told my agent to put in an offer on the first one and make it pending a neighborhood review, so that I had time to do research about the proposed highway.
I spend hours on the phone and internet that day trying to figure out if there was any plan to do something with the proposed highway. Pretty much all anyone could say was that it might happen someday but there is no funding and it would be the 3rd phase of a 3 phase project which hasn't even had the first phase planned. And it would have to compete with other state projects for funding. I felt much better about possibly living there if there were no plans to develop it in the next 10-20 years.
I seem to have a pretty good sense of what will sell at what price. When I saw the place and the price, I knew it would go fast. And I was right. When I put in my offer there was already one. The seller's agent said that the seller was probably going to counter, which meant we still had time. So I signed an offer for the 2nd time in a week. This morning my agent called and said that the seller was asking for a multiple offer form. Basically they want me to up my offer, keep it the same or withdraw. So after much hemming and hawing I decided to up my offer by 3k. Now I wait....
The worst thing about this roller coaster is that today is the Friday before a 3 day weekend. Which means if the other buyer doesn't submit their paperwork in a timely manner and the seller doesn't respond quickly, I am looking at not knowing until next week. That is 4 days of anxiously waiting and trying not to get my hopes up. However if I don't get this house, there will be another one, but that's not to say I won't be disappointed and maybe shed a few tears. Someday I WILL realized my dream of having a mini-farm. Maybe not now, but it will happen.
~T
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