My son Rufus has told me a million times, “fall in love with the deal, not the house.” Now he understands, even without children of his own yet, how difficult it is raising a parent in this day and age.
I don’t know if words can adequately describe the emotional roller coaster I’ve been on since falling in love with both a house and property last January, 2009. My girl Bobbi and I, on a total lark, drove up from Piermont, NY where she resides to look at a listing for an 1870’s Colonial, complete with an adjoining servants’ cottage and carriage barn on 7-plus rolling acres in Southbury, CT. Why not? I had high hopes of paying for it in cash having just invested $5 on a lottery ticket. It should also be noted that our servants were especially ecstatic at the prospect of finally having their own quarters after enduring several grueling months in Bobbi’s quaint one bedroom rental. Oh yes, and did I mention the horse and carriage squatting on her neighbor’s lawn that were beginning to seriously grate on their good graces?
Anyway, why not have a look-see?
After driving through the estate and realizing that perhaps we were a bit out of our element, we drove a mile and a half to another listing that had caught my eye on a mere 2.7 acres for considerably less than the previous 1.5M property.
We missed the tiny driveway our first time by, then turned around and drove in, winding down along a wooded grove, then up a fairly steep incline to an old white ‘wood and stone’ house sitting majestically out in the open. It stood there at the top of the property line that overlooked a cascading tree-lined lawn, down to a silvery sparkling pond. Oh my, this did not look anything like the other properties we’d seen scattered about in these suburban neighborhoods, and all listing in the same price range. I have always told people whom I’ve shared my dream-home aspirations with, my number one prerequisite is a place where I can pee off the back porch and not alarm (as in be seen by) my neighbors. OK, I didn’t notice a back porch but this would certainly do.
I had some modest savings and a dwindling 401K like everybody else, but again, why not give it a try? Bobbi was on board and together maybe we could make this work. I put a pdf attachment in our February ATS mailer soliciting advance funds for barter, along with a picture of the place, and hoped it wouldn’t sell before we could make an offer. In the meantime, lots of support poured in, both moral and financial, just as the seller lowered his asking price by 20K. Aha, he really wants to unload it - advantage buyer!
We made an immediate offer well below his asking price because of all the work it needed (roof, kitchen, bathroom, windows) and also composed a letter telling the seller how much we loved the house, quirks and all, and that we would honor his uncle’s spirit (the previous owner) who was also an artist-type like us, by restoring it to it’s former beauty. It must have made quite an impression because he responded with an emphatic NO.
OK, now what to do? Our mortgage broker had gotten our hopes up about a possible 30-year HUD loan with 3.5% down and 3.5% interest which would include up to 80K for repairs. It sounded too good to be true and of course it was, so after that fell through he did figure out a way for us to make another bid with reasonable expectations of not foreclosing in the too near future.
It was time to play hardball and we did by upping our offer 30K. Bingo! 9pm that night we got a call from our realtor, “you got it, congratulations!” Lots of screams and jumping around and a bottle of wine later when it gradually regressed into, OMG, what have we done? I am told this is called buyer’s remorse. Can we really pull this off? What about the failing economy? What if I get sick or Neal quits, what if… Then I remembered, I had read it the morning before on my green lemon ginger Yogi tea bag tag. “Act, don’t react.” That’s it, we’re going to take this leap of faith!
But wait, next day, after we stumbled over to Staples to fax in our second signed contract with a few appropriate date changes (at $1.50 per page), we were informed by our realtor as she sped off to a weekend wedding that another buyer had outbid us. WTF? So after it finally sunk in, we called the agency for an explanation assuming the seller had signed off on our offer the night before. The “official listing agent” (not ours) answered the phone and suggested we up our offer. Apparently this is totally unethical, illegal and unscrupulous (imagine that in real estate dealings), at least that’s what I was told by everyone who knows about these things. We didn’t budge out of principal and besides, we couldn’t anyway and still make this work for us.
Enter our realtor, Monday morning, just back from her wedding. “Guess what, that offer fell though and he wants to sell you the house again at your price.” We really didn’t know what to say, except, are you sure? I called my friend Barry again, a professional home inspector, to set up another appointment.
Maybe it was because we were filled with such doubt and trepidation during all of this that the Universe responded in kind? That afternoon our realtor called. We were told the seller had officially signed off on another offer for only a few thousand more than ours, without giving us a chance to make a counter offer. This was the second time we were told our offer was accepted in a four-day span only to have it rescinded. Was there backstabbing between the two in-house brokers? Besides ours, were there really any offers made other than the last one accepted by the heartless seller? We’ll never know.
Our broker apologized to us for the way we were jerked around. Even though it’s tempting, we’re not going to file a complaint because we believe in instant karma (thank you JL). How can you not, after witnessing VP Cheney wheeling around in his wheelchair during the inauguration? And who knows regarding this and that, maybe the best is yet to come?
Do stay tuned.
