Offer Accepted!

"The seller accepted my offer!" The excitement I felt hearing those words was overwhelming. I knew this was the house for me and I would do anything to get it. Later I would find out that anything was actually a lot to do. I called up Pillar & Post for the home inspection, the same company that inspected the previous home that my offer was accepted for. They came out and did the process again for me, but this time found many things that needed attention. 

The gutters around the house were in need of repair or replacement. One such gutter in the rear of the house was hanging down and the inspector recommended replacing it. There was a hole in the side of the garage near the corner where it connects to the house. The inspector recommended fixing the hole before pest related damages occur, if they have not already. Some of the trim around the house was rotting away and recommended to replace. The same situation was found on some siding where the deck was connected to the house. Speaking of the deck, the inspector recommended destroying the deck and building from scratch because of how rotted it was. In a corner of a fascia board the inspector noted a large hole where squirrels were getting in at. He recommended hiring a pest control expert to resolve the issue I though to myself, "It's just some squirrels, I can take care of that." All of these I expected to find and all I had confidence I could fix, I would just need to set aside the time. 

And now for the inside of the house. I knew there was some work in there too, but nothing major that I was aware of. The basement had a hole in the ceiling from a pipe that had been and still was leaking. The inspector suspected that it just needed some insulation. The pipe was at a very awkward position to get to. The electrical panel contained a double tap, which is no big deal but should be resolved. The hot water tank was working, but near the end of life. The furnace, air conditioner, dryer and gas range worked. We even took the time to fill up the hot tub to see if that worked. We filled the water up past the jets with a hose that we found outside. The inspector turned on the hot tub and.... there was smoke. The motor of the hot tub appeared to be seized up. So we thought to just drain the hot tub through the drain attached to it. But wait.... that won't work unless we get the motor running. An hour later and many buckets it was finally almost emptied. We even tried to suction the water out but could not get a consistent flow. That was fun...

Upstairs the inspector pointed out a hole in the brick wall where a wood stove or something similar used to be. The guest bathroom was missing a shower head and the master bathroom had no ventilation fan resulting in some yellow forming on the ceiling. He went up to the attic and noted that there were visible squirrel nests with feces and urine. Some of the soffits were deteriorated and should be fixed for proper ventilation of the attic. The shingles on the roof were estimated to be around 10 years old and should have 5 to 10 years life left. Boy, that was a long list! But still nothing major was found. I was happy with the results. All these issues were things I could fix and the price was right. I confirmed the offer and scheduled Chase to perform an appraisal on the house.  I had to wait for the results before moving forward. There sure was a lot of waiting during the house buying process.

The Answer

It was a whole week of pestering my Realtor for an answer before he finally said he had one. The seller of the house had finally come to a decision. Before I get to the answer, let me remind you what the house was like. In my last post I said it looked like a castle, but really what I meant is it looked like a house from a fairy tale. It had three stories, a basement and an attached garage. The outside of the house was mainly brick with triangular peaks. The trim work along with the brick made the home look like it was from a fairy tale. Apparently I was not the only one that liked the house. I'm not sure if the seller expected to get the amount of offers they did, otherwise I'm sure the asking price would have been higher. After some struggle, the seller finally announce their decision of my offer on the house. 

And the answer is.....

No. I guess I was part of the close call and nearly had the best offer. By the sounds of it the person that outbid me made a cash offer, which means less paperwork for the seller and an easier process. This time I didn't let the decision stop me, I kept searching.

My search led me closer and closer to the lake. I even looked at a property across the street from a lake, Elizabeth Lake. Lucky for me I viewed the property right after work during rush hour. I could hear the sound of traffic echo through the house. I just couldn't handle the noise, even if the house was on two lots with a nice sized garage. I contemplated this house for the next day before telling my Realtor to refuel his car and find me some more homes. I knew we were getting closer to finding the one I truly wanted. I just had to be persistent.

The Search Goes On

After walking away from the house I almost bought it took me some time to get the motivation back. I began to think maybe it's not the time to buy a house. Finding the right house is too hard. Why am I doing this? After about four weeks of this I finally began searching again. The more I searched the more I learned. I discovered I wanted a basement, I wanted to be close to the water and I wanted an attached garage. Some houses were really close to what I wanted, but I had this gut feeling that something was missing.

After what felt like hundreds of house viewings I narrowed it down to two houses. The first house was in the city close to work. It had large rooms, a patio and a garage. The floor plan of the house was awkward and had only one story. The garage was in need of work, but at least it had one. I was close to putting in an offer, but I let my gut get in the way. I just knew it wasn't the one.

The next house the had me very interested was in a historical part of Pontiac, Michigan. Pontiac comes with a negative reputation, but this house was in the historical district placed directly at the end of a bike/running trail. The house was three stories tall!!! And it came with a garage and a basement! The structure of the house reminding me of a castle squished together. How awesome would it be to live in a castle?1? The heat of the house came from a boiler system that looked to be in rough shape and the foundation of the house appeared to be cracked and unstable. I called the home inspector to see if I could arrange to have only the foundation inspection for a lower rate and the use that rate to get the whole house inspected should it be determined safe. The inspector gave me the rates and I decided to go ahead and put an offer in. I thought the offer was competitive but it turns out the house was more popular than I expected and the seller and to take some time to decide. 

I patiently waited for a response.....

The House Hunt Begins

I have been working with my company since the summer after my sophomore year of college. I was hired on full time directly after graduation. The company was a 60 mile drive from my parents house and I could not drive that distance much more if I wanted to keep my sanity. So I decided to get an apartment in the area once I received my first salaried paycheck.

...

Eight months later I began to realize that the house market would be recovering soon. I already hated paying rent because I saw it as throwing away money with nothing in return. I decided to start looking at realtor.com for a house. Before I knew it I had a Realtor setting up viewings for me. I wasn't sure who was more motivated, the Realtor or me. The homes I was interested in were not what I expected, for loss of better words. I had a very low budget range (my father taught me to be cheap :-) ) and I knew I would be getting a fixer upper. I was okay with that because I wanted to make the house mine. I wanted to put my blood, sweat and tears into my house. The problem is I could only put down a 5% down payment. This limited me to homes that were livable with no major defects.

During the house hunt I came across houses that smelled entirely of cat piss, houses that appeared to contain a dead body in the basement freezer, houses that looked to be built by amateurs, the list goes on. By the time I finally found a house that didn't give me the creeps I was ready to jump right into purchasing it. The house I found was close to a lake and had a nice layout. I showed my family the house, but they did not approve. The problem was that it had no garage and a very small yard. I love to work outside and having no yard would have been very disappointing, but at the time I was so happy to find a decent house near lakes that I just wanted to move on with it. At his point I had already put an offer on the house, and it was accepted!! I rushed into a house inspection and was eager for the results. In the meantime I talked with family more. They turned my opinion around saying I could find something better. Being a young man part of me wanted to prove my family wrong. But the rest of me didn't want an "I told you so" situation. So, when I got the house inspection results I used it as an excuse to back out of my offer. There was no central AC and the furnace/water heater were at end of life, which I honestly didn't want to deal with.

I walked away...