Today has been a crazy day! I had a dentist appointment and then my first ever trainer appointment. I ran home and could barely walk up the stairs after the workout my trainer Johnny put me through. I changed and printed out the list of houses our Realtor was setting up for us to see.
1. The Fire house - even though it was posted on Thursday, the sellers had already accepted an offer
2. 1/2 price house - multiple offers were already on it. They wouldn't accept any offers contingent on an inspection.
3. The drop house - sellers already accepted an offer
4. The Garage Harp house - okay to see.
3 others she suggested we see:
4. Yucky town
5. She suggested we see a $130k house
6. The Traffic Town House -
Mike nixed the Yucky town one and we all agreed to meet at the Traffic town House. The house was cool. it was a neat setup and would be a fun project. The problem - it was on a busy busy road. The other problem... it is in the town that we do not like driving too. We've already eliminated this town multiple times. It just feels really remote and there always seems to be traffic getting there. As much as the house was okay and maybe it would be in our price range, when we did the math of putting 20k worth of work in it, we'd maybe break even selling the house. There wasn't instant equity. It also would be hard to sell because of it's location and proximity to the busy road - the seller had it on the market for almost a year. So, the farther we drove away from the house, the more it became a definitely NO.
House #2 that we saw - the $130k house. This house had brand new carpet. It had the "ugliest countertops [Mike] has ever seen" They were a fake blue marble. The house was surprisingly okay. The garage was a fake. It may have had a garage door in the front, but the room had been turned into a large family room. That was very nice! There was only 1 bathroom with the laundry room as part of it. But, the biggest negative for that house was it's fenced backyard backed up to the library. AND we weren't in the best part of that town. I wasn't opposed to the library that much at first but the more we saw that the entrance was right next door and saw the traffic flow, the less we liked it. It was an "okay" option.
House #3 - this is the only house from our original list - after driving by 20+ houses that we were going to see. This is the Garage Harp house. The house is mid-century and has a lot of the original character. It is a deferred maintenance house but it wasn't completely stripped since it wasn't a Foreclosed/bank owned home. It actually felt like a really solid house. It felt really good. The Master Bedroom is huge. Actually, the square footage isn't taking in account a closed in sun-room between the house and garage. And the very tall basement - there's room for a great family room and a full size bedroom with a closet and window is down there. The Kitchen is kind of galley like - but walls could be knocked out either way to make it a large great kitchen. The yard is pretty good. There is even a fenced in area. This house felt great. The house also has a new roof - that's huge to me. It was clean and old. It has ugly green awnings over all the windows. But it's a great house. the garage was huge! There's still some furniture and personal items in that house since it's an estate sale. I'm not sure if he had family or what. The sale has to go through Oregon. We decided right then that we wanted to make an offer. I am not up to losing another house. So.... this is how we made our offer "strong".
1. We offered asking price
2. We stated that we would dispose of any items left in the home - thus not requiring the estate management team to empty it or do anything else to the house.
3. We added an escalation clause. We will pay $3000 over the highest offer up to a certain amount.
In some ways the asking price is fair based on comps. Comps are actually all over the place - they range from 60k to 230k. The more we talked with our Realtor, the more we feel that once this house is fixed up with a nice kitchen, updated lighting and flooring... it will definitely be worth 230k itself. We have instant equity in this house! The garage could be made part of the house and we have room to add another garage. It's got "charlie" areas - meaning we have ways to have space for my dog but also keep other zones allergy-free for Mike.
And here's the funny kicker - the house ends in 8. The street is an even number. the zip code is an even number. So is it a sign?
We sent our offer in this morning - first thing. Now, we have to wait a couple days for Oregon to respond. Pray that this is the house! As my parents said after I said, "we found an awesome house" - they said, "We've heard that before..." But they were supportive after that comment... it was a fair comment. But I really would like this house. It's in our budget! It's got the projects we can do to make it a great house. it's got character.
Oh - I am already really invested in this house....Last night I was analyzing and looking at the aerial view via Bing, the google maps satellite and street views. As Mike said, " you've only had your heart broken 3 other times...." so I'm hoping that I don't get a broken heart from emotionally investing in this house. At the same time, we gave this house our strongest offer. We can only go as far as we went.
Best of news in the next post? I hope so!
