Househunting SUCKS!!

[cedahlia]

We keep getting our hopes up, only to have them smashed down time and time again. We've been on a fruitless search for almost a year now, however we did get some good news this past week that we've been pre-approved for a higher amount than before. So that opened some more doors for our search efforts, which was great. But...

Yesterday we go to see a place in our newly found, higher price range that the seller's realtor described as "needs a little work." Fine, we can handle that. Mr. cedahlia is a carpenter, his dad's a stonemason, my dad and brother are plumbers, and a close friend is an elecrician. No problem in the fixing up department. In fact, that is what we expect to buy, given our modest price range for the area we're in. However, when you think "needs a little work" do you think you're going to go see a home where there is no light leading to the "partially finished basement" so you have to use flashlights to go down there? Okay, that's not that bad, but when you get down there, water is ALL OVER the floor and walls, apparently dripping from the ceiling. As you can imagine, the stench (smelling like a mixture of mold and animal urine) is particularly repellant. I mean, COME ON! You actually have the balls to show this house and ask 180K for it in this condition??? And this was not a repo home, folks. People (and several poor animals) were living there. Ugh!! In talking to the neighbor, we found out that he's called the health department on these people twice--not related to the basement--but for dumping trash and various mystery liquids in what used to be a small pond in the backyard. He said he could only imagine what the inside looked like. Well, I guess we should have walked right out after we encountered the numerous huge piles of dirty, smelly laundry left lying about. That's always a good thing to leave lying around when you go to show your house to potential buyers. :eyes: Oh well.

Anyway, we weren't too upset at that point because we were excited about seeing another house today. It was tiny, but we were already dreaming about how we could add on to it to make it nice. At least, we were until we got the phone call today from our agent. Apparently, this house's water supply is contaminated, so she said we don't even want to get into messing with that. Yay!! Crushed our dreams once again, dammit!

I'm trying to be optimistic, but we've been at this for so long now that I'm really getting discouraged. I actually feel depressed about the whole thing, which I wasn't going to let myself get, but I'm just so tired of getting all excited and then every time having it shot all to hell for some ridiculous reason. :-(

I do apologize about the long rant...I guess I just really needed to get that out. If anyone has any encouraging words, I'd appreciate them!

[Nikia]

1. I think that it's cool looking at houses

Unfortunately, we haven't even made a firm decision to buy a house since I still don't know whether I am going to get a different job in the near future. We live in rural Wisconsin so there isn't an abundance of companies that I would work for in the immediate area. We are still kicking ourselves about a house that we didn't buy though. We were seriously considering buying a large nice older (one of the oldest houses in town) home that was marked down from $109,900 to $89,900 after being on the market for months. Then we found that it had a rotted roof right before we were going to make an offer. Later, when we saw the selling agent at an open house, she said that it had been solfd for $89,900 with the seller replacing the entire roof. My point is that perhaps, you should see if the seller would be willing to either drop the price or fix the problem for you to buy the house of your dreams.

[Psst_Im_Not_Here]

2. Been there!

Househunting does suck. We've done it twice in the last 4 years (we move frequently). However, I'm a firm believer that the house chooses you. You will know when the "right one" comes along as soon as you walk in the door. An "I'm home" feeling. Don't worry, it will come! That one wasn't the one, and your house is out there. Chin up!

:hug:

[cedahlia]

3. Thank you!

My dad actually said almost the same thing..."when the right house comes along, it will all just click." So, I'm sucking it up and realizing, okay, those two (and the others we've been interested in) just weren't "the ones." It's almost like getting married, I guess. We'll really know when we've found our right one.

Thanks again for the hug and the encouraging words! :-)

[mzmolly]

4. WE looked for about a year with both of our homes, and when we

spotted the ones we bought, "we knew".

Looking for as long as you have will make the decision easier and you will have gained some knowlege in the process.

Hang in there, I bet this new loan amount will open new doors.

[fudge stripe cookays]

5. Yup!

There's a REASON why these other houses aren't working. The right one is not on the market. The minute it comes up, it'll be everything you want! It's all about timing!

Here's our story:

We actually CLOSED on a house we really liked, and the seller did not make it the day of closing. (?) He was up in Oklahoma City for some reason. We weren't really sure what was up. He was scheduled to go after us, which I thought was unusual.

Turned out, when the mortgage co lawyers went over all the paperwork, they discovered that there was a $20,000 judgment against the seller that had attached to the house! We almost ended up getting stuck with it!

Because the woman would not release the judgment against the seller, we pulled out of the deal at the last minute (Thursday afternoon). We were supposed to move in on Saturday!! EVERYTHING WE OWNED was in boxes!

So that next weekend, when we were supposed to be moving in, we went out looking at houses again. Plus, we were fed up with our realtor, so we shopped around on the internet to see what we could find. Saturday was unproductive. Sunday, we found a very enthusiastic lady out here in Rowlett who represented the sellers of one house, but asked if she could show us some other ones. "YES!" we desperately replied.

The LAST one she showed us was something that got thrown at her last minute by a friend of hers. It had just come on the market the DAY BEFORE. There was already an offer on it, but the guy said "Go ahead and bring em by."

And the minute we drove up, I fell in love. The interior only proved that it was everything we were looking for.

We had a budget of $110,000. They were asking $104,900, so we said we'd give them $105,000 to outbid the other folks automatically. And we still came in under budget! It was a win-win thing.

We LOVE this house.