(insert appropriate happy dance here)
After brief but intense negotiations, I ducked under my own agent's recommendation ("take the counter") and made a yet lower offer, and the sellers accepted it! And it's a price I'm extremely happy with. What's even better, I had several conversations with the loan officer today (I'm pre-approved, so financing is going to be no problem - just the technicality of going in and signing the papers), and the scenario we worked out keeps the payments amazingly low ... in a very affordable range with a nice buffer every month.
So we got a house three times the size of mine, for a very affordable payment. I couldn't be happier.
I never did get a picture of the front of the house, so I borrowed this one from the real estate website. Here it is!
It's a beautiful Cape Cod like none I've ever seen - the upstairs is more like a second story than a glorified attic - with a partial stone front. Where, you may ask, does this house fit all that room? Yeah, it's a mystery. But it's there. It's a TARDIS.
There has to be a couple flies in the ointment, though. The jerk who was supposed to buy my house for cash, which fact he told me several times, as recently as two weeks ago ... well, just as I was finding out yesterday that my counter-offer on this house was accepted, he decided he didn't want to buy my house anymore. I was devastated, as if I had to buy the new house, and maintain the mortgage on the old house while trying to sell it in this market, it was going to make things very, very, very difficult.
I kind of wigged out about it, and talked to my boss about it (my boss and this guy are life-long friends), and he also agreed that it was wrong - the guy made verbal assurances he would buy my house, which verbal assurances I acted upon when buying this house - for him to back out then was extremely bad form. So he told me he'd talk to the guy.
He talked to him this morning, and then came in and told me that the guy was, in fact, going to go ahead and buy the house. My boss said he told him he needed to honor his commitments, or he'd be screwing me over badly, and that was unacceptable behavior.
So far so good, except the guy wasn't happy about it. The next thing I know, at 3:00 when I was home for lunch, he shows up at my door with a real estate agent, wanting to bring her in to go through the house (with no warning), and list it. Since he was 'forced' to buy the house even though he no longer wanted it, his plan was to put it on the market and sell it as soon as possible.
Apparently before I'd even moved out, or he'd bothered to pay me for it.
I don't know enough insulting swear words to describe this guy. Maybe a real sailor would. An Italian or Greek one, perhaps.
It's the most asinine situation I've ever seen. And I get into some asinine ones.
I haven't decided what I'm going to do about this yet. (Well, in the short term, I refused to let him or the real estate agent in). I'm treading a fine line. On the one hand, they have me a bit over a barrel in that I don't want to skunk the deal, I need him to buy my house. But on the other hand, I don't need him to buy my house so badly that I'm going to let him walk all over me and abuse my rights. I mean, yeah, I'd be in a bad place if I get stuck with two mortgages. But it's not the end of the world (yet anyway). Since I did get the low payments on the new house, I can carry two mortgages (and can get the loan even with two mortgages; already checked that). So it wouldn't ruin buying the new house, it would just leave us very tight on cash every month. I could rent the house while I try to sell it. I could try several scenarios. I would come up with something.
But I'm not going to be trampled all over by a spoiled, rich, rust-belt-town-slum-lord who thinks he can walk all over the 'ignorant little girl' who doesn't have money to toss around like grass clippings. Why do I say this? Because the guy, and his whole family, are freaking loaded. He buys and sells real estate, like, all the time. Big real estate - he routinely deals in six figures. He owns blocks of commercial real estate on the local 'retail strip'. He was just bragging to me about buying a $400,000 building for only $130,000 last week. And he's giving me grief about a $30,000 house? Schmuck doesn't begin to convey the flavor.
So there. I'm done for now. Dinner's ready.
Oh, and Wren - welcome to the blog! I don't know if you've ever made it over here before. And no, it did NOT have a pool. After talking to you, I was routinely refusing to even look at houses that had pools. We'll put in an inflatable wading pool and call it done.
You need to come down for the housewarming ... we'll supply the rum and Guinness at our new bar - with fireplace!
So we got a house three times the size of mine, for a very affordable payment. I couldn't be happier.
I never did get a picture of the front of the house, so I borrowed this one from the real estate website. Here it is!
It's a beautiful Cape Cod like none I've ever seen - the upstairs is more like a second story than a glorified attic - with a partial stone front. Where, you may ask, does this house fit all that room? Yeah, it's a mystery. But it's there. It's a TARDIS.
There has to be a couple flies in the ointment, though. The jerk who was supposed to buy my house for cash, which fact he told me several times, as recently as two weeks ago ... well, just as I was finding out yesterday that my counter-offer on this house was accepted, he decided he didn't want to buy my house anymore. I was devastated, as if I had to buy the new house, and maintain the mortgage on the old house while trying to sell it in this market, it was going to make things very, very, very difficult.
I kind of wigged out about it, and talked to my boss about it (my boss and this guy are life-long friends), and he also agreed that it was wrong - the guy made verbal assurances he would buy my house, which verbal assurances I acted upon when buying this house - for him to back out then was extremely bad form. So he told me he'd talk to the guy.
He talked to him this morning, and then came in and told me that the guy was, in fact, going to go ahead and buy the house. My boss said he told him he needed to honor his commitments, or he'd be screwing me over badly, and that was unacceptable behavior.
So far so good, except the guy wasn't happy about it. The next thing I know, at 3:00 when I was home for lunch, he shows up at my door with a real estate agent, wanting to bring her in to go through the house (with no warning), and list it. Since he was 'forced' to buy the house even though he no longer wanted it, his plan was to put it on the market and sell it as soon as possible.
Apparently before I'd even moved out, or he'd bothered to pay me for it.
I don't know enough insulting swear words to describe this guy. Maybe a real sailor would. An Italian or Greek one, perhaps.
It's the most asinine situation I've ever seen. And I get into some asinine ones.
I haven't decided what I'm going to do about this yet. (Well, in the short term, I refused to let him or the real estate agent in). I'm treading a fine line. On the one hand, they have me a bit over a barrel in that I don't want to skunk the deal, I need him to buy my house. But on the other hand, I don't need him to buy my house so badly that I'm going to let him walk all over me and abuse my rights. I mean, yeah, I'd be in a bad place if I get stuck with two mortgages. But it's not the end of the world (yet anyway). Since I did get the low payments on the new house, I can carry two mortgages (and can get the loan even with two mortgages; already checked that). So it wouldn't ruin buying the new house, it would just leave us very tight on cash every month. I could rent the house while I try to sell it. I could try several scenarios. I would come up with something.
But I'm not going to be trampled all over by a spoiled, rich, rust-belt-town-slum-lord who thinks he can walk all over the 'ignorant little girl' who doesn't have money to toss around like grass clippings. Why do I say this? Because the guy, and his whole family, are freaking loaded. He buys and sells real estate, like, all the time. Big real estate - he routinely deals in six figures. He owns blocks of commercial real estate on the local 'retail strip'. He was just bragging to me about buying a $400,000 building for only $130,000 last week. And he's giving me grief about a $30,000 house? Schmuck doesn't begin to convey the flavor.
So there. I'm done for now. Dinner's ready.
Oh, and Wren - welcome to the blog! I don't know if you've ever made it over here before. And no, it did NOT have a pool. After talking to you, I was routinely refusing to even look at houses that had pools. We'll put in an inflatable wading pool and call it done.
You need to come down for the housewarming ... we'll supply the rum and Guinness at our new bar - with fireplace!
2 comments:
YOU GOT IT!!!!
Well of course I'm coming for the house warming. Silly goose. The house looks HUGE, well, ya know, compared to what we live in. Keep me posted on developements!
WOOOOHOOOO!!!!
Congrats, pretty lady!!!
And, thank you - who would have thought I would find someone to do that with me?
Oh, and the Red Drev did give me a bit of an idea on where......wow, y'alls gittin closer to this here suthern boy.
Rhys
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