Posts Tagged ‘Buying a House’

Dear Karma, Thank you for being a bitch!

Saturday, March 21st, 2015

Before Sean and I bought this house we were under contract for another one that turned out to be an absolutely horrible overpriced piece of crap that would have made for a great bon fire.

The owners were very insistent that they couldn’t come down AT ALL in price. It was cheaper than the house we’re currently in, but it was also a much smaller house. What the house lacked in floor plan it made up for in acreage, so theoretically it would give us plenty of room to build off of in the future.  Anyhow, obviously that house didn’t happen for us – and here’s why:

The house was a pre-fab model that’s commonly found down here, it was purchased and placed on the property around 2005-2006 – so it’s not even 10 years old (keep that in mind).  During the inspection we learned the main pilings for the house were rotting away, there were some big erosion issues based on grading concerns from where the house sat below the main road (I think there was a good 60-70 degree angle on the DIRT driveway that you needed to climb in order to get to the street.  I wasn’t thrilled by that at all. Cosmetic kind of things are easy to fix, structural and you won’t budge on the price? Nope, don’t think so.

Another major area of concern was with the well water. When having it tested it quickly came back as highly contaminated (secondary proof by the fact that the water heater was rotting through the floor), and the septic had some issues as well, probably having something to do with contamination and lack of upkeep. There were holes in the fireplace, the roof needed to be completely replaced, and the shed at the back of the property was just a junk pile of scrap wood and rotting beams. The carpets were missing in spots, all of the doors had some kind of holes in them from someone who clearly went on a violent rampage at some point in time.  They managed to hide a lot of these issues with older photos of the home so we weren’t 100% sure as to what we were walking into on the “Let’s take a look day” but we knew with a little elbow grease as well as new carpets and doors the place could be pretty decent. Inspection proved otherwise, however, and needless to say, we were leaving that contract with the quickness.

Since Sean is currently taking a quick ride to pick up dinner, this house popped into my head and I went on the search for the listing to see if it ever actually sold.  Turns out, it didn’t. It was just completely taken off the market.  The owners wouldn’t budge for us, they claimed they would fix areas that would cost them tens of thousands of dollars to address (knowing they had no money) and we in return continued to do everything we could to leave the contract, which included a massive loop-hole in their “Nah, we’ll do this for you” plan. Refusing to fix structural issues and have ALL pipes in the house replaced AND have the house connected to public water were our “outs” for the contract. Every answer was “We don’t have the money, the mortgage is more than we’re selling for” yada yada.  The house was borderline foreclosure.  So you can imagine my surprise when I came across the listing and saw the pricing history. They’ve been attempting to sell this house for 2 years. Since we left the contract for them to shove up their asses they’ve dropped their listing by $30,000 (within the last 15 months).  I find this amusing considering it’s the number we were initially looking for that they refused to come down to due to financial matters. The listing now shows that the house is officially off the market.

Now, the realtor is known for doing some shady shit. She’ll let a lot of things slide in the case of just working on getting the house sold. We’d dealt with her previously for other listings and while she’s very well known in the area, there’s just no way we were going to be utilizing her services for OUR home purchase after the crap that she’s pulled.  She’s good at offering previous inspections in order to save some money for future buyers (mainly because contracts have fallen through in the past on the house.. gee wonder why?), but I doubt she’d ever be able to have her customers cough up a receipt proving things were taken care of.  She also knew we had the pre-approval from the bank since she’d dealt with us on another house so I’m damn sure that played a role in her client not budging on this house.

So per the listing, and the fact that there’s no transfer history on it ANYWHERE… I just have to say that karma’s a big ‘ol bitch and I’m amused as all holy hell. The owners and their realtor were too cocky for their own good and now the house is going to continue to sit there and rack up money and cave into the rotting property.  They were pretty close to being behind on their mortgage a year and a half ago, it’ll more than likely wind up going into foreclosure and being put up for auction.  Whomever is dumb enough to buy it better consider bulldozing it and getting a new pre-fab and putting it in it’s place. There’s absolutely nothing that can be salvaged. I think the only saving grace to the house was the massive pool off the back deck but even that looked like someone backed into it with a pick-up truck or something. They also were dumb enough to not even bother covering the damn thing so who knows what was down at the bottom of the murky water.

Doing a history search on the house (when we were buying) notes quite a bit of police activity. They claim previous ‘tenants’ had had some run-ins with some not so good people so that that prompted them to put in a security system.  This could have explained the holes in the doors and broken glass here and there. That was a big red flag for me considering all of the logged reports against the house were for domestic violence within THEIR family (not tenants), a ‘brush fire’ and then some illegal dealings with running a business off the property and there being some zoning issues (that was a town based report).

There was absolutely nothing LEGAL about this house and honestly minus the fact that the one we’re currently in has it’s faults – there’s no way in hell I’d be happy in that hell hole. Now after 2 years their realtor appears to have given up on them, the house is still sitting there rotting away on it’s pilings, the water is more than likely still contaminated and they won’t see a damn dime.

HA!

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Surprise…. surprise…

Thursday, March 13th, 2014

We didn’t close yesterday, shocking I know. We were advised at the closing table that documentation was missing from one of the co-signers and then it turned into a mad dash to get everyone on the phone.  We had to make sure paperwork was notarized, and they wanted a copy faxed to them so we could attempt to close the same afternoon, however the faxes never went through so in the process of that not working the co-signer ran to the FedEx store to have the paperwork overnighted down.  They wanted the fax just to start the process, but they required the physical copy because of the seal.

So, co-signer paid the $30 to have it delivered before noon 3/13.  Due to the wind-storms that flew through the north east last night, the plane didn’t take off until after Midnight and was some-how re-routed from New York down to Memphis, TN.  The document (per the tracking info) was then DRIVEN to Baltimore, MD and has been sitting there ever since. We got in touch with a rep at FedEx and they noted that due to the winds it was delayed last night, and unfortunately due to the winds today it’s delayed until tomorrow.  The rep said that it would be there by Noon on 12/14, lets just hope that’s the case.

So everyone is still all over the place, thankfully the owner/realtor gave us until Monday to get this all finalized (per her addendum to the contract). They sellers already signed over what they could, at this point they’re just waiting on the check, and due to their scheduling conflicts this week they’ve also given power of attorney to the lawyer so that she can represent them for this signing when we actually can finalize everything.

Utility wise, everything is on in our names but they still hold the note on the house until the check is handed over to them. I’m hoping nothing happens at the house between now and signing, but we should be ok.  Sean and I are both at the end of our ropes, we’re sick of this entire process and just want it to end.  Hopefully we’ll have everything settled by tomorrow.  I just want the keys, I just want to get in there and clean the place up and start our lives.

It’s just way too damn frustrating to deal with anymore.

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Figured it would go that way…

Wednesday, March 12th, 2014

As predicted, yesterday was a crap shoot.  While the house itself was primarily empty, there were still a few bits and pieces that needed to be removed. It was fine, but they had two freaking weeks to do it – what was the hold up?  The house itself is FILTHY, I don’t know how much bleach it’s going to take me to get it clean, but I’m fairly confident that I’m going to need to waste the money on Stanley steamer, the owners didn’t even care enough to attempt to pick up the dog piss all over the carpets.  I can’t afford to have the floors redone right now so I’m gonna have to have them steam cleaned twice just to make me even remotely comfortable with walking around the house.  I’m pretty convinced I’ll be wearing sneakers 24/7 until the carpeting is replaced.  My concern initially is to just get the house scrubbed down so we can start moving our stuff in.

As for the termites? While the inspector said that there’s no evidence of ACTIVE termites, there’s no evidence that anything was treated for the one trail that was found. So what does this mean? Since they saw it they have to treat it and since that was the only freaking company we could get to come out yesterday, we’re now stuck spending $1800 to get the house treated since we had absolutely no time to shop around for a lower number that would both treat the house and satisfy the bank that everything was taken care of. I felt like we were put on the spot last minute and of course the owner of the house didn’t help because she’s a CUNT with a mouth. It came very close to her being a CUNT with no teeth in her mouth with her freaking attitude problem.  I don’t use that term very often, but there are people in this world who are deserving of the title and if you ever met her you’d agree.  She overheard the last part of a conversation about how it would take three hours to treat the house, convinced herself that it would be happening right then and there and started shooting her mouth off.  She also made it very freaking clear that if we couldn’t have the house completely treated by noon today then we’d be breaking contract and they’d put the house back on the market and we don’t get our money.

#1 – Shut the fuck up.  #2 – You’ll have the lawsuit of the century because it’s not US holding up your precious transaction to pay off the brand new car you’ve got sitting in the driveway, it’s the bank.

I’ve never, in my freaking life, wanted to beat the living shit out of a pregnant woman but if I didn’t walk away when I did, it was going to happen. I don’t give a shit that you’re hormonal, your fucking house THAT I DONT EVEN OWN YET has already cost me almost $3,000 so kiss my fucking ass.

If they decide to pull ANY shit today and something happens they’re going to court. It was not my responsibility to treat your house for termites, and it sure as shit wasn’t my responsibility to hand you a full list of everything WRONG with the house so your DICKWAD of a husband can half-ass fix it to put it back on the market.

Her bi-polar disorder clicked in at one point and after she was done fake crying on the steps she looked up at Sean and I and was like “This hasn’t been easy on you, has it?” ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME???? YOUR FUCKED UP REDNECK FAMILY IS THE REASON THIS HAS BEEN A COMPLETE SHIT SHOW!  I’m trying my hardest to not flip my lid and keep myself calm until 4pm this afternoon, that’s when we’re closing. I’ll keep my fucking mouth shut for the hour it needs to be shut for and if ANY of these fucking people say two words to me I’ll explode. The keys will be in MY hand, they’ll have their check – either fuck off or fucking try me…. I dare you.

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We’re almost there!!

Tuesday, March 11th, 2014

It’s been a constant up and down, and I know I’ve bitched about it quite a bit but there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  We’re closing on Wednesday 3/12 at 4pm.  I’m excited, but not to the point where I’m jumping up and down.  I’m so over this entire process that I just want my keys and the current owners to fuck off and then I can just work on making it OUR home.

We’re doing the final walk through today (3/11), it’s odd to do it the day before the closing, but we’re obligated to get another pest inspection (per banks request) and since we need to be there for that we’re just going to get that over with today.  They supposedly turned the electric back on, but we’re still not sure as to whether or not the water is on in the home. This is an area where I’m a little freaked out based on the fact that we’ve had such cold weather in a home with no heat that even with an enclosed basement there’s still the issue of having some type of a pipe blow up.  Even though I’m sure there’s some law telling us not to, if the water isn’t on in the home today I’m going to locate the main at the back of the house and turn it on.  They were morons for shutting everything down in the first place, if a pipe bursts it’s on them.

Our other focus is the attic, we know that there were a few leaks and it’s an area we need to address almost immediately, but since we had the house inspected more and more shingles have come off of the roof, leaving other areas exposed. We have every intent of redoing the roof, or just patching until we can afford the complete gut job that it really needs. I just want to make sure that more and more water hasn’t shown up to the point that there’s discoloration on the ceilings. Nipping it in the bud ASAP is our only option.

Everything else is minor cosmetic shit, and primarily stuff that would just need to be cleaned / painted. Thankfully, for the most part, the house is white so I don’t really have to worry about throwing paint on the walls right away. My focus is just getting all of the cleaning supplies together so I can get in there and do my thing. I probably won’t be thrilled about being a homeowner until everything is in and settled.  We have furniture to purchase, cleaning supplies to purchase, we’ve already got a good chunk of the kitchen necessities already purchased. I figured when I get over to the discount stores to start stocking up on cleaning supplies, I’ll pick up a few plates/cups/bowls to hold us over until I can get up to NY to pick up the rest of my belongings.  It’s just going to be a LONG drawn out process but by this time next month I’ll be able to sit down and really just take it all in.

We’ll be in the house long before then, but it’s going to be complete chaos until we can get everything put away and organized. Thankfully we’ve got so little to start with that it won’t take long to get everything to the spots it needs to go. I think the most complicated aspects of moving, for us, is based solely on electronics. Laptops, Desktops, iMacs, TV’s, Game Consoles…. which is primarily everything in Sean’s office.   I’m worried that my desk won’t survive the move, but that’s because the top isn’t really secured to the base. This could mean that moving it around would be easier since I’ll have the drawers out and the top off of it, but I hope it can be properly re-secured when we get it into the house. I don’t need the 27″ iMac falling through to the floor, that’s just too much damn money to have to shell out when it can go to more important places – like the roof.

Sean and I have done some shopping around, and have found some furniture that we’re interested in but it seems that wherever we go we wind up finding something for cheaper.  I found a couch in Furniture & More that I thought would be perfect for the Living Room, it was $499, I could get it with a queen sleeper for $699. Now, I know that seems really inexpensive for a couch but you have to remember with the huge den in the back of the house we don’t have the need for a sofa that’s going to get a lot of wear and tear. With that said, I was happy when I found a couch in Big Lots (of all places) for $360 that was both comfortable but in a color tone that I actually liked. I didn’t have to customize a damn thing and as long as I’ve got a uHaul I could just take it home.  I downright refuse to purchase any type of Sofa from a thrift shop, even though a good chunk of my furniture will be purchased from one. There are just certain things that you can wash and disinfect, and then there’s other things – like a couch – that just can’t fit into the washing machine to make it worth it for me.  BUT that’s the only thing I’m buying NEW so my being picky about it won’t ultimately kill our wallets in the end.

So yea… we’re FINALLY closing on this thing and there’s A LOT to do. I haven’t really been sleeping very well, but I think the stress is playing a part in that. I woke up around 5am, couldn’t bring myself to get out of bed until 7am and now 3 hours later I’m still going through emails and everything on my computer just to keep my brain functioning.  I’m gonna hop in the shower and head out to run some errands, we’re meeting with the pest control company around 4pm at the house so anything that I wanted to accomplish today will have to be done by 3:30. Good thing it’s not very much… I still wish I’d had enough drive to leave the house before 10am though.. I was oddly enough in the mood for breakfast from McDonalds today. Nutri-Grain just didn’t fill that void, but at least there’s something in my stomach to get me moving.

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