FOR SALE BY OWNER!
This is the background on our story......it will be a little long, since it has been a year's process....
Our house has been on the market for over a year now, we receive calls weekly asking the price, square footage, room layout, but only 3 out of the hundreds of calls have wanted to schedule a showing of the home. Many people are looking to rent or to buy on Land Contract, neither of which we were interested in doing.
The first person who set up a showing never showed up, I was a little disappointed, but hey at least our house was spotless! The second showing wasn't till months later in September 2012, it happened to be a girl I went to school with she contacted me via Facebook and we set up a date and time. They came looked at the house, from what we could tell they wanted it, (they were even asking about us leaving the curtains!) We heard back from them a short while later that their realtor said our appraisal was way lower (about $15K) than what we were asking for the house. A home at the end of our neighborhood was in foreclosure (for the second time since we have lived here), the couple bought that home for about 1/2 of our asking price.
The third showing was on January 20th, 2013. I received a call on Sunday afternoon from a woman asking to see our house, we schedule for the next evening and I went home and cleaned. This is the third showing in a year, so I always get a little excited and nervous at the same time, this time I was less worried about the house being spotless, it hadn't helped the first two times, I picked up & cleaned the house, and I was trying to mentally prepare for another no show or we want to buy it today, you have 30 days to get out.
Monday morning I wake up to a very sick little girl, I had to stay home with her so I could get her into the doctor to see if we could get some medicine. We made it to the doctor, and my mom came to get her, so I could go into work I had a deadline and it needed to be completed by the end of the afternoon. I got to work, finished my project, left at 5:00 on the dot to get home to show the house.
The people showed up right on time at 6:00 my husband and I showed them around the house, (tour lasting maybe 15 minutes) asked them if they had any questions, they asked a few, and then they offered us our FULL ASKING PRICE! (if we would pay closing).
My husband and I just looked at each other, we didn't know what to say! We asked that we set up a meeting with a local realtor that was going to write up the paperwork for us, before we could accept paying full closing costs (not knowing how much they would be). We set up the meeting for the following Monday at 6:30.
Now we are in full panic mode, where are we going to LIVE? Our family is expanding in August, we have been looking for land for as long as our house has been for sale, now what?
My husband mentions to a woman he works with that we are looking for 2 acres to build on, she tells him her Church might be willing to sell a couple acres of their land. (Fingers crossed) They have a meeting after Church the following Sunday and offer us 2 Acres! Yes!!! We have hope!
The following Monday rolls around (January 28th) we have a meeting with the realtor, we fill out our portion of the paperwork, we ask him a few questions, he also agrees to write up the land for us when we are ready to sign papers for that. The buyers arrive at the meeting, we go through all the paperwork with them, through a translator, at this point I am even a little confused, they sign the paperwork! The buyer has been pre-approved for the loan, but they are getting an USDA loan, which can take months! At first it is relief because we know the soonest they will buy is the middle of April, and then we will have our 30 days after closing to get out, making it Mid May. Bad news is we won't be able to start anything with our new house until we know it is sold.
In the meantime we decided that we are going to purchase the land no matter what happens now because eventually our home will sell and then we will have a place to build.
Since I have worked at Commodore Homes for 5 years full time (almost ten years all together), we have discussed buying a Modular home from them and placing it on a basement. For the past 5 years I have been picking out floor plans, specific options, kitchen details, etc. Now it is crunch time, time to decide what floor plan will best suit our needs and our budget. I began by picking out my favorite kitchen, made sure the master bath was a nice size (without wasted space but to still have the spa like feel), a huge master bedroom closet, and some great living space. I created a custom floor plan, sent it to the factory to have an ink drawing created from it. I worked with the draftsman on questions he had, I got the ink back the next day. I loved it! It was exactly what was in my head! I started showing the floor plan around, everyone has comments (as usual)- it started to become discouraging. I mean it was my house they weren't going to live there. At this time I also contacted a Commodore retailer that I had worked with many times prior with his custom homes. I asked him about pricing for certain things, basement, garage, driveway, setup, hvac, all things that I know about but have no clue the price of these things. A basement is EXPENSIVE! (even when not finished yet). This is getting a little scary, can we really afford this?
My husband has taken the lead on the land situation while I am in charge of the house. He schedules for a soil sample of the land. February 4th the soil sampler comes out checks the soil, and suggest not to build here. He believes that the land is too sloped and a septic system would be very difficult to install here and very expensive. Also soil came back as clay, (which we are told = higher costs). Soil Sampler didn't charge us for the sample since he doesn't suggest building here.
The land surveyor that my husband contacted said he would be back in touch, never called back.
This is now getting to be a lot discouraging! Are we crazy? A large building in town is being torn down and no one knows what is going to happen with this land, my husband thinks this would be a great spot to build (it is not even a block from our current house). The owner of the land is from Oregon, and he is not sure what they will do with the land yet. Another waiting game.
I am trying to stay positive, at 14 weeks pregnant this is a little hard. Not knowing where our new baby will come home to after the hospital makes me a little uneasy. I should also say that our plans our to stay at my parents house until our house is complete, so its not like we have no where to go. However the sentimental part of me would like to bring the baby home to our own house.
This is starting to become more of a headache that what we thought!
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