decisions, decisions, decisions

Homegrown Tomatoes · February 01, 2009, 12:30:31 PM

Hmmm. Well. We've just spent the past two days out house hunting/land hunting and I'm more confused than ever. The only houses I ever saw that I REALLY liked were the two we made offers on that didn't work out because of the sellers. However, everything I've looked at in the past two days was something that we could really live with. Just not sure now where we need to try to offer next.

On Friday, the kids and I packed up at 11:00 in the morning and didn't get back from shopping until somewhere around 6:30 in the evening, and there were two possibilities that day. Then, we left yesterday morning at 8:30 with DH and looked until around the same time or a little later, and came home with five more possibilities. The favorite land was 40 A with two double wides on it. One was in great shape, the other was in good shape. They were smaller double wides, not the HUGE ones you see these days. Had a third site where there had been a house, which would be the perfect building site at the top of the hill with a view that went for miles in every direction and caught all the good, sweet wind. There were two septics, and one well that serves all three houses. The well is 240 feet deep with good, cold clean water. The building site up on the top of the hill is where the second septic hookup is, but on septic serves both the lower two houses. There was also a 2-stall horse barn with waterers in each stall (not that I have horses, but I reckon a cow could drink out of it just fine.) It was about 4-5 miles of decent dirt/gravel road, and about a 30-40 minute commute for DH. Oh, and it has a storm cellar. It was a good mix of pasture and woods, and it has a cemetary on it that dates back to Indian Territory, so the only easement is an access easement for the historical society. Oh, and it had a good sized pond. The road frontage of the property is narrow, but it goes about a half mile back from the road.

The second most interesting place was only ten acres, but the house is a real house and a little roomier for our family (we wouldn't feel like sardines, at least.) Has a HUGE barn. Unfortunately, most of it is THICKLY wooded, and there isn't a heck of a lot of room for anything to graze. Also, it is not fenced, so we'd have to clear woods in order to even get a fence in. I liked the house. I liked the old lady who lived there. And, it would be a house that we'd end up modifying, probably not building from the ground up since there is a decent existing house. It is 30 minutes from the front door of that house to the front door of DH's company... so not bad. And only 1/4 mile of dirt roads, and part of the property fronts on historic Rte. 66.

The house I liked best was built by a very young Mennonite couple. They couldn't have been much over 20 years old, yet it was a gorgeous, comfortable, sturdy, and well-thought-out little house. Unfortunately, it was only 5 acres, and one of those acres was across the road and down a hill. The other four were mostly heavily wooded, though the yard around the house had plenty of sunshine for a huge garden. I think the land is just too small on it, but it would be my pick if we were only looking at the house.

We looked at other places that were all good, too, though they varied from 5-13 acres. My first choice would be the 40 acres with the two mobiles on it, and then hope we could sell the mobile that the current owner's son and daughter-in-law are living in, live in the one higher up on the side of the hill until we can build up at the top of the hill on the other home site.... I am thinking that the mobile home that we would sell is probably worth at least $35-40K (we'd sell it to move.) I'm not sure of the value of those things...

But it is a good clean little house, with a nice floorplan... it has just been smoked in and would need to have some new flooring and paint, which could be done. It is cute as a button, as far as mobile homes go.

Oh, and another reason the 40A is nice... it is across the county line and the taxes are half what any of the other properties are. So, decisions, decisions, decisions... Any thoughts on what you'd do?

The third place is the

muldoon · February 01, 2009, 01:13:50 PM

I think going after the place with the most options and best deal makes the most sense.

QuoteHowever, everything I've looked at in the past two days was something that we could really live with.

That could be great news because it will leave you in a great position to look at it as a business decision which it is. To me, the 40 acres sounds like it gives you the most options. You also may have the option of renting one of those trailers out. Sounds like most of the water work is out of the way, turn key. taxes half price would be a huge win too, calculate that out a few years and see how much you could save.

But.. since your not in love with it, lowball them a bit. worst they can say is no... and your not in love with it anyway so if they say no it's not a big deal. You may find a place you like with a price you love

February 01, 2009, 02:11:26 PM

That's kind of what I am hoping, Muldoon. The lady that owns the 40 A is 70 years old and her husband died not too long ago. She likes to ride her horses, but she's decided that at 70, she should be on a smaller place and more visible in case she falls off or has trouble while she's out riding. She is looking closer to where she still works as an ESL teacher, and I'd say she's pretty motivated to sell. They've had a few offers, but nobody has been able to come up with the money for it because it is hard to finance rural land. I think it should be a fairly easy place for us to get financing. The only thing that worries me about it is the pricing... I've been watching this property for a long time... It started out at $280K (GROSSLY OVERPRICED!!!) and then it has been all over the place since then. When I finally decided I wanted to go see it, it was at $180K. The next day, she changed the price again to $198K. I can't figure out why she's changing it so randomly and so drastically. It is overpriced at $198K, by far. I was thinking on offering about $160K. Maybe go up to $175K... at the most. A pretty 40A property we really loved sold at $175K, and it was on better roads and closer to the turnpike, fully fenced, and had 3 stocked ponds, a swimming pool, and a nice shop. I don't know. Hopefully it'll all work out and SOON!!! We have 28 days until we are homeless!!

muldoon · February 02, 2009, 02:34:16 AM

Michelle,

I know you dont want to take advantage of a 70 year old lady. That would be horrible and even as cheap as I am it's not something I would be up for either.

That being said, if a comparable piece (maybe even slightly better) went for 175k, you cant even realistically consider going more than that. She is all over the place in price because she has no idea what its worth. to some extent noboby has any idea what any assets are worth these days and that a big part of the underlying problems as the macro level. What is clear is the direction, down. Prices are falling for motivated sellers becuase there still are more sellers than there are qualified buyers.

Do you think she would be offended at 150k, with room to move up to 170k?

keep telling yourself that she probably bought it for 2500 back in the day 3 decades ago and that she is coming out like a rose...

Homegrown Tomatoes · February 02, 2009, 04:33:12 PM

Well, again we are hitting bumps in the road. Lenders aren't willing to loan on ANYTHING over 20 acres, unless you do a land loan, and then you have to pay 50% down and it can't have any structures that are liveable. If we buy something with manufactured or mobiles on it, the interest rates (at best) are around 6.75% because they are mobiles and even though our credit is perfect, mobiles are considered high risk of default.

So, we are making the offer instead on our second favorite property, which we can have paid off free and clear in a few years. It isn't great right now, but it will be. And, there are things I like a lot better about it. (Location, for instance... I went out this morning and drove from the front door of DH's company to the front door of that house and it took me 24 minutes. There's only about 1/4 mile of dirt roads, too, so that's good for DH's car.) So, guess that is what we need to do.

February 02, 2009, 09:58:22 PM

Process of elimination helping to make a decision I see. That will work then you can make it as you wish.

Homegrown Tomatoes · February 02, 2009, 10:43:12 PM

Well, got darn near to firing our realtor tonight as she didn't want to send an offer for what we want to offer on the place. She kept trying to drive the price up and was griping about her commission and our offering price. I told her that if they didn't like it, they could always counter, but that we'd be stupid to give our very best offer first when in this economy, we could most likely get it for less. I guess that there is "only" a 5% commission on this house, which means that her share would only be 2.5%, so then she turns around and is trying to get us to offer more because she thinks because of the commission that they must not be able to afford to come down any.

I thought, yeah, right, you're just wanting more money out of the deal. What we offered is decent, and we're willing to come up some, but we also want to see if they're willing to come down some. That's how this process works. She kind of basically acted insulted and embarrassed to make the offer, but the way I see it, it isn't her job to tell us what to offer. It is her job to present the offer. I thought about saying, "Well, if this one doesn't work out, we'll just skip straight to the short sale on the cabin." That would have got a fire going underneath her, because if she's whining about her commission on this house, I can only imagine how mad she'd be if we picked that one!! So, we'll see.

sparks · February 02, 2009, 11:18:17 PM

Same thing happened to me about seven years ago Home Grown. My realtor called and said she'd heard there might be a counter proposal. When I queried as to how she knew that, I got one of those
'I can't divuldge that information' lines of crap. And she wanted me to up the price by 5K.

I stuck to my guns and got the place for ten thousand less than she wanted me to bid.

Greed.....greed.....greed

sparks

Homegrown Tomatoes · February 03, 2009, 12:23:38 PM

Sparks, that is exactly what it is... I am often amazed by her greed and her blatant hunger for more money. The woman lives alone in a 3300 sq. ft. mansion in a fancy-schmancy neighborhood. She lives on Starbucks and Olive Garden and the mightily overpriced German restaurant. She owns a photography studio, is a realtor, gets oil money in her mailbox regularly, and sells Aflac. Every person she talks to is another connection to be used for business purposes. She is good at finding property, and she'll fight for us if someone else is being unreasonable, BUT that aside, her morals and values are appalling, yet she thinks of herself with the highest regard. She even told me one time that her favorite song is that old song about, "I want money, lots and lots of money!" I'll be glad when the whole real estate transaction stuff is done. She wants me to go give her business card to the lady with the 40 acres because "ethically" she can't as long as her listing is with the other agent, but she wants the listing because she says that the other realtor doesn't "know what he's doing" and there's "no reason that that place shouldn't be subdivided and sold." Even when we were out house hunting last weekend, we stopped at a local BBQ joint for lunch. There were three guys sitting at a table, and we were waiting on a table, so they invited us to sit with them, and she dominated the conversation for the whole meal with name-dropping and networking. (They were in the land development business.) The guys looked somewhat uncomfortable though they were extremely polite, and I was embarrassed by her flirting with them... they were all married, and only one of them was remotely close to her age; the other two were younger than DH and me.

February 04, 2009, 03:43:26 PM

Woohoo!! Got the counter offer today and it is only $2K more than we offered, which is a good price on this place. Looks like we may have someplace to move to after all. However, the lady's son said that he wasn't sure he could get her moved by the end of the month (she is 86 and will be moving across the state to be closer to family.) So, we may have to let our stuff sit on a moving truck or in storage for a few days, but their realtor was going to try to work on them about the timing issue and see if they could possibly store some of her stuff in the garage and go ahead and move her out by the end of the month!) Anyway, it looks promising. I may be mistaken, but I think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

river place · February 04, 2009, 05:00:14 PM

Gald to hear things are looking up. The nice thing about the second property is that down the road you may find more land come up for sale that's close by. Plus in this business climate getting a loan on a house is very much easier than a mobile home as you found out.

Oh and if a realtor representing me didn't want to make an offer I would fire them on the spot and document in a letter or email the reason for termination the business relationship.

peternap · February 04, 2009, 06:27:23 PM

Quote from: Homegrown Tomatoes on February 04, 2009, 03:43:26 PM
Woohoo!! Got the counter offer today and it is only $2K more than we offered, which is a good price on this place. .

glenn kangiser · February 04, 2009, 11:15:16 PM

Great, Homey

Sassy · February 04, 2009, 11:49:45 PM

Hallelujah!

February 05, 2009, 08:47:19 AM

I have to admit, I spent most of yesterday evening gloating a little that our instinct on the offer was right, and cracking up over the 45 minutes our realtor spent trying to convince us we were wrong. She was hilarious when she called... she kept saying, "I just can't believe they came down that much... I never expected it. I just can't believe he came down that much."

So I said, a little too smugly, "Negotiation's not your strong point, eh?"

Thankfully, after spending a year with this woman house hunting/land hunting, she can put up with me harrassing her a bit.

spiralsands · February 05, 2009, 12:14:30 PM

You know, if you really find a property you like but because of the banking crash the banks are skittish about giving a mortgage, you can always ask the seller to carry the mortgage. Just an idea. My sister did that because her credit was bad after her divorce. Also, some owners look for that steady income. You might even be able to negotiate a better interest rate.

Frances

Mike 870 · February 05, 2009, 03:45:33 PM

Congrats on finding your land. I can't imagine how exciting it must be.

Homegrown Tomatoes · February 05, 2009, 04:05:48 PM

Good thing on this one is we have no problem financing it whatsoever because it is a smaller acreage with a decent existing house. It is all going to work out. I'm not head-over-heels for this place, but at the same time, I'm not at all opposed to it either.

glenn kangiser · February 06, 2009, 02:19:55 AM

That's great - it's a place to get started.

Homegrown Tomatoes · February 07, 2009, 10:45:36 AM

The inspection is Monday. We are starting to get a bit excited about it. However, I don't think it will be real to me until we turn the key in the door for the first time... with the trouble we've had with real estate deals in the past year I am still not sure it is real. We're driving out this morning to find the corner posts so that we can tell a little better where the boundaries are. There are some grapevines in the yard, and what appears to be a few fruit trees, though I probably won't be able to tell if they are fruit bearing trees or ornamentals until a little later. With the warm weather we are having, I am really itching to get into the dirt and get a garden in. That will probably take first priority before unpacking or anything else. I am a strong believer in planting your fields first and then building your house.

Closing is set for three weeks from yesterday. Three weeks isn't much time I already packed up two or three rooms of our house and a lot of stuff we can live without....
We're packing up more this afternoon.

Oh, and day before yesterday, I got a call from our rental managers and they were claiming that we were obligated to stay for six more months at an exorbitant rent (more than $200/mo more than we are already paying) because we hadn't given them a 30 day written notice that we were moving out (DH told them in person LAST month when he paid rent that we'd be moving out by the end of February when our lease was up, and the secretary told him that she'd make note of it and that would be considered our written notice.) I about lost it on the lady who called. After she got it straightened out in her mind that we were absolutely under no obligation legally, she apologized, and then I turned around and fired off an additional email telling them AGAIN that we are moving out. After we move out, I intend to write an online review of the rental company in hopes of keeping other people from renting from them.