Drama

Well, I will spare you the drama, the highs the lows!  We almost lost this house.  There were six offers, and one was an all cash offer.  The previous owner needed about $75k to move into the assisted living facility, and though she wanted to sell the house to us, the cash offer was too much to pass up.

Our buyers agent, Kira (of the Dennison-Capen group, we highly recommend them for home sales and purchases) tried to work out a $75k escrow offer, but it was just too much to put that kind of money at risk with so many aspects of the sale (like the bank loan, appraisal) beyond our control.  So we were super disappointed and in the second position.

At this point, I mentally let the house go.  I thought there was no way we would get this house.  It is a great house at a somewhat reasonable price for the location and the house's condition.  Yes, it needs A LOT of work, but who could have seen the house and not realized that already.  So we began looking…again.  The whole house hunting thing was getting very old.

A few days later, I got a call from Kira, and it sounded like the first buyer was having second thoughts.  She said not to get our hopes up, but that the inspection had been done, and the buyers had not yet decided to move forward.  I still was not getting my hopes up.

A few more days later, and the phone rang, it was Kira, and she sounded excited!  The first buyer has pulled out, and the house was ours.  We got a copy of the original inspection, then hired our preferred independent inspector (it is always a good idea to hire an inspector that does not have a business relationship with any of the real estate agents involved, we recommend Nickelsen Home Inspection, Justin did a few home inspections for us during our search).

The rest of the transaction was pretty straightforward.  We did not find anything unexpected for a 101 year old home, and we knew about much of the deferred maintenance already.  Though after we saw the first buyers inspection report, I got a bit nervous.  It really wan't that bad, and I wondered why they had pulled out.  Had they realized that the house was a giant money pit?  What did they know that we didn't?  But I shook those feelings off, as I knew that this house was the one.

It certainly felt like this was meant to be after the first all cash buyer pulled out.  We got some concessions, so then it was just time to get the work done, and close the sale.  The appraisal was the final hurdle now.

This changes everything!

A typical Sunday morning, soccer was on at Grant Park, and it was a beautiful day.  The game was wrapping up, and an e-mail came in with a new listing.  No picture, but I already knew the house.  The day before a for sale sign had caught my eye driving home.  Since we had been looking for a new house since February, the for sale sign radar was dialed in.  The length of the search was taxing.  Could we find a place that was worth it?  I cruised by and saw what we had been looking for, and it was certainly promising, but a search of rmls turned up zilch.  There was a sign in the yard, but no trace of the house being listed.

I figured it was out of our price range and had already gone pending.  The sellers of another house had just contacted us to let us know they would "consider" our offer from two weeks earlier.  Apparently our offer was looking better after they didn't get any others.   But, low and behold, there was the house.  A few years earlier, we had dreamed up a massive remodel of our 49th Ave house to add the space we wanted.

But the cost and hassles involved where daunting.  And yet, there before my eyes, a house bearing a striking resemblance to my earlier dreams, just listing.  I rushed home, burst in the door, and proclaimed "This changes everything!"