Real Estate can be HELL !!
Come, read further and hear my Story.
* The Adventure began September 1996 *
Anyvale, California
January,29,1997
The home pictured above is one of many I have made offers on and lost. The listed price was $375,000. With 16 offers, I came in second, it sold in 4 days for $440,000. The real estate market in this valley should be relabeled as "UNREAL Estate". It's a sellers market and the buyers are on a feeding frenzy. A prime example is the sale of my own home. I have a great real estate agent, and we have been with her since November when we first put our home on the market, for the second time. ( Our first agent was another sad story ) Back then the market was slow and after a few weeks we took it off for the holidays. Then a few weeks ago we found a home that Joni and I just loved, so we put our house back on the market. In four days we had over 300 people through our home, at all hours. When we began accepting offers we had 6. Sold it, and bought our dream home the next day. That night our buyers backed out, and we lost our dream home. The next day we sold it again.
Selling a home is easy, buying one is another story. I call this my real estate hell. Homes are selling so fast, at ridiculous prices, that we need to look daily. At the end of February we have a rent back for two months. Those two months will cost us what our house payments were for an entire year, and after that we will be homeless. Needless to say, we are panicked. So we keep on looking and looking and looking.
February 1, 1997
What is with people these days. We have been in this real estate hell for over 5 months now. In November we threw one buyer out of our house, minutes before finishing the signing of the contracts. We conceded to all of of their demands, and believe me they were demanding. In fact the person was so rude and demeaning that we opened the door, said that we didn't need their business, and told them to leave. The next buyer said that they were very sincere and wanted the house, we completed the contracts, and they backed out the next day. Now our current buyers are getting weird on us.
Our current buyers bought the house as is. This was after after they fully studied the inspection book. ( We had the house inspected in September, and it came out that the house is in very good shape. There are problems but they are minor ) Then they came in with there own inspectors, and now have submitted a list of repairs that they want us to do. They even said the repairs were minor. We came back at them and said that if they were so minor then they could fix them themselves; were not fixing anything. They knew what they were getting and bought it as is. Anyway if these people back out, so be it. Got to go now and look at open houses. Wish us luck.
February 2, 1997 ( update 2/7 )
Lost another house last night. Made an offer, $10,000 under the asking price, about 6:00 P.M. . At 10:00 we were awakened by a phone call stating that our offer was a strong one, but would we be willing to up it to the asking price. I said no at that point, wanting to sleep on it, and make a decision in the morning. This morning we received a call at 9:30 saying the sellers had accepted another offer. This house had been on the market for two days.
We looked at the house for 15 minutes. It is beginning to seem that you have to make a decision, on where your going to live for the next 15 years, in that amount of time. I spend more time in the hardware store buying fertilizer, and it smells better than this real estate market.
February 4, 1997
I am about ready to lose my sanity, the latest episode. Got a call from our agent last night. She found a listing, on the real estate MLS computer, that came on at 8:30 P.M. We got in our car and drove around in a rainstorm, getting lost trying to find it. We finally found it, seeing the home from the outside, liked it and contacted our agent to look at it further in the morning. We met our agent at the house, this morning at 10:30. After viewing the home, we really liked it and made an offer. Well it turns out the house sold last night. Someone drove by and bought it without even looking at the inside. How can a person compete, or even make a decent offer and decision in a REAL ESTATE MARKET GONE MAD. My agent can't even believe what is going on and neither can we.
The ethics of this business has me seriously worried. What does a person need to do to get a decent home. This adventure is starting to upset our life, with the stress and uncertainty. But we must go on, the escrow on our home closes in the beginning of March. Pray for us, we need all the help we can get.
February 6, 1997
Slow the past couple of days. Only one drive by, nice house but not one to shoot for. It had the neighborhood dump across the street. We haven't given up on the house we made an offer for on 2/4/97. Our agent is keeping an eye on it in case the previous offer falls through. She wants us to get it. If not, she already is going out of her way to possibly find another with a similar floor plan. We've seen enough houses with her and she knows what we want. Then again, you all that have been following this saga may not know what were looking for. If you see a 4 bedroom house with a fireplace, family room, at least two full bathrooms, space for my two small trailers, dogs, parrot and a real garage; PLEASE let us know where it is.
February 7, 1997
Well , it's Friday, time to think about this weekends open houses. Our agent has her own open house this Saturday, so were on our own. I'm sure we will get a list of what is available and wander the valley looking. I will probably gear up like I did last weekend, riding around on my Honda trail 90 with my cell phone. In this market you must be in constant communication, ready to move, at a moments notice. My agent is mailing out fliers and checking the computer, multiple times a day, for new available listings. Were looking at anything that meets our search criteria, day and night.
Our buyers are still with us. Contingencies seem to have been lifted, but the appraisers are coming through today. It would be interesting to see what they think this house is worth in this market. From all the homes I have seen in the past 6 months, I feel it is worth the $300,000 it sold for, as is. We'll see what 20 years of improvements is worth today, considering I only paid $39,000 for it in the beginning.
Update for 2/2/97: Found out that the house that we made an offer on, and slept on it, had it's previous offer fall through. It was back on the market for 3 days before it sold again. We were willing to up our offer, but no one came back and let us know. Joni found out when calling the same agent on another house in the paper. Another case of " you snooze, you lose ".
February 8, 1997
Lost another offer today. Only bid the asking price, Oh well. Looked at 5 houses today, nothing available we liked. Did drive by a possible one that will be coming on the market soon. Our agent is going to try and get us in to preview it before it is listed by her. There seem to be more houses out there to fish for, and we seem to be able to get them on the hook. Now if we could just seem to land one.
February 10, 1997
Another weekend of real estate aerobics over with. Got lots of exercise looking for and looking at open houses. When we first went on the market in September, there seemed to be an open house sign on every major intersection. Now, on the weekends, you can drive for miles before seeing one. When you do find one, it looks like a garage sale that has just opened. Lots of people, many of them I can recognize from previous open houses. Were not alone in this Alien Marketplace.
February 12, 1997
Its a real estate desert out there. The homes that are selling are like oasis', but they are few and far in-between. As with all oasis' some contain good water and some contain bad water. For my experiences I can say " there is an awful lot of bad water out there ". I feel as if I were the man crawling across the desert floor, crying out in a raspy voice, " A Home .. .. .. a home .. .. .. a home ".
We are lost in the desert. As we crawl along, the vultures are beginning to circle. We have seen no homes go on the market in days. As we look forward, it is hard to see with the hot sun of the desert glaring down upon us. But we will regain our bearings, we will move on, in search of the good water. A Home .. a home .. a home .. a home . . . . . . .
February 18,1997
Took a vacation from house hunting this past weekend. Went to the original "Jaeger Acres", in the wilderness near Redding, to enjoy nature in an area where there aren't any houses to sell. Even out in the wilderness I couldn't get away from the real estate game. I ran into a couple that was looking to buy the property across the creek from my cabin. They seemed to be more interested in buying access to the creek for gold panning than in building a cabin, thank goodness.
There is a little bit of heaven, even in hell. Someone took the sold sign off our house and we were approached by one of the builders that are working our neighborhood. They are buying houses for up to $240,000, tearing them down and rebuilding new homes. These homes are selling for $600,000 +. Anyway we told him it was sold, and the selling price. He said our house sold for more than any home he has seen in our neighborhood. That made us feel good. I'm also glad that our home wasn't bought just to tear down.
February 19, 1997
Last night we made an offer on the best home we have seen so far, and it was accepted and the paperwork is signed. WE HAVE A HOME ! At this point you would think our Hell is over. We thought that anyway. The home was everything we wanted, or so we thought. The newest problem that developed today is the school districts. It seems the dividing line between the districts is our fence, literally, and were on the wrong side of the fence. We were hoping to keep our children in the same schools, but that may not be possible. As the school district put it, " Rules is rules ". It's sad that a neighborhood could be divided this way. Our children will be forced to attend a different school than the children that live next door. At this point it is hard for me to keep my language polite. As I have heard said, "Life is not always fair". Ain't that the !*%~#`*^! truth !!!!!!
February 29,1997
I have been writing this page for over a month now. I know it is full of clichés and I am getting tired of them. I also am getting tired of this "real estate hell", but it just won't go away. I know I have heard the saying somewhere, " it ain't over until it's over ". Well it isn't over. The buyer's agent has been inspecting this old house to death. Now the contractors are swarming in on the problems we refused to fix. I conceded in letting them fix some minor electrical problems and an issue with the water heater, before the escrow closes next week. They also have done some termite repair work on the exterior of the garage, but have to come back again to finish when the garage is cleared on the inside.
Tonight was the last straw with the buying agent. She called, and left a message, saying that contractors would be in tomorrow to fix a cracked window and to repair cracks in the driveway and garage floor cement, plus other repairs in the future. Well I have a one car garage that has never seen a car in it. Now it is packed to the rafters with boxes and stuff as we get ready to move. We have a two months rent back ( I can hardly wait to see how our new landlords will be ) and are nowhere ready to clear out the garage, especially with one days notice. I contacted my agent and told her to call the buyers agent and cancel all repairs and leave us alone until we move out. I also said to tell the other agent not to call us anymore, all contact from now on will be through our agent. If I see this other agent again before we move out, I might just lose it. It looks like it's going to be a long two months. On the upside, though, everything seems to be going smoothly with the home we are buying. We shall see as time goes by.
As of July 08, 2002 we have 16 days until we move in to our new home.
It's been quite awhile since I have done an update, and you may ask "Is the Hell over", I think not. A lot of minor annoyances have been going on in the background, and now they are getting ready to peak soon. The biggest growing problem is the termite damage on our new home. It seems when the termite work was done there was some damage under the master bathroom shower. Now I hear the shower pan is leaking under the house. The sellers are claiming that the termite work caused the problem and now are taking them to small claims court. The total damage is about $2,200 to fix the problem and they are delaying the repairs. With about two weeks to go I'm getting a bit concerned. Every little problem, with our new house, seems to be a major one for our sellers, at least that is the impression I am getting. At least they had the chimney that was wobbling rebuilt. I hope they used cement.
As far as our old house is concerned, it knows that were moving soon. It is trying to get it's last digs in before we leave. Last week the washer pump went out with a full load and we were forced to the Laundromat a couple of times while waiting for parts. Last night I had to reset our main circuit breaker and it went out. I said the hell with it, I'll call for a repair in the morning and went and got the Coleman lanterns. The positive side of these breakdowns is that they are covered by our buyers home warranty coverage and we don't have to pay. We'll see how everything else goes as the countdown continues.
April 25, 1997
Six days to go and things are sort of getting better. The master bathroom shower has been repaired, so I have been told. The sellers met with my real estate agent, the termite company, and the tile company. I'm not sure if they all crawled under the house to view the damage, but they all met and resolved the problem.
The sellers continue to be a minor annoyance. When we first met they were more than willing to show us and explain all of the features of the house, such as the security system and the solar heating, when they passed us the keys on the final walkthrough. Now I hear that they don't want to be present at the walkthrough, even though they will still be in the area. So I won't be able to pick their brain, and learn about our new home. Maybe they are in their own " Real Estate Hell ". They just don't want to talk to us. Oh well, I'm a technician, I'll just learn as I go.
June 23, 1997
Having been in our new house for almost two months now, I can say that we love it and are quite comfortable. It hasn't been without problems though. I am writing this as a warning to others; CHECK EVERYTHING YOURSELF. I hadn't bought a house for over 20 years and took it for granted that the inspections checked most everything and the home warranty insurance covered everything; WRONG.
Here is the story. Last week we tried to use the self cleaning feature of our electric oven, it didn't work. I figured no problem the warranty will cover getting it fixed. So we get a repairman to come out to fix it. Upon opening the electronics area it was apparent that there had been an electrical fire at some time. The area was burned and there were charred wires cut and capped. After troubleshooting for over an hour they came to the realization that the clock mechanism was the wrong one, ( that accounts for the lengthy troubleshooting at $$$$$ per hour ) it was simply a case of a previous lousy repair job and could not be fixed. Since this was a pre-existing condition it was not covered by the warranty. Had it burned up on us it would have been covered. Oh well. And to think I laughed when the first thing our buyer, of our previous home, did during the walkthrough was flush the toilets.
I'll keep you updated here on my Website. You all come back now, ya hear.
Last revised: July 08, 2002