Last week, as planned, we found our second "future" house. This house is much bigger, and is also a foreclosure. That's two for two for picking a house that's a pain in the ass. We put in our bid on Wednesday, and on Friday afternoon, there was a call for our "Highest and Best Offer". The house is currently being held by a law firm. Not sure if that's better than a bank-auction setup as per our previous bid. We can't see what other people will bid, or if there are any other people bidding at all. So what do you do when you have one shot? In addition, the house is being sold as is. There is no way of knowing what needs to be done to get the house structurally sound and up to code, if anything at all. How far can you push your budget, and how much is too much when you're going in blind? The deadline to make the offer was today at noon, so I'm hoping we'll find out who won this evening or tomorrow. Yes, I said "who won", because this is a game and I don't like to lose. In the meantime, here are some sites that I've found helpful in the situation: Know the Odds When it Comes to Bidding Situations
Today is our fifth outing with our realtor. We've had to seriously think about what we want in our house, since our 60-day notice for vacating our apartment will be due at the end of next week.
Are we being too picky? I want to say that we are the right amount of discerning. We've seen a handful of homes that would be perfect, if it was just going to be the two of us. It is our first house, and we are looking at least 5 years ahead. What will we need to accommodate the amount of people we have, either visiting, crashing, or entertaining? Will my mother move in? Will it be sooner rather than later? If we have one kid? We've been told that we will probably only live in this house for the next 5-8 years. If we bite the budget, and pick something on the higher end, will we be more likely to stay there longer? Is it worth the escalated price and do we even want to think about resale values? As our deadline approaches, we are getting more and more concerned. There are more questions than homes available on the market, especially in our budget. We have five houses on the docket for this afternoon, and one is looking to be our second bid. It's for sale, and not a foreclosure. But, I have a feeling competition might be much bigger factor.
I just got the call that the bank accepted another offer on the house. We shall fondly refer to it as House #1. Dying on the inside… We went right back into search mode, and found two houses in the same subdivision: Another foreclosure in our home-improvement budget, and another listed for rent/sale that is just in our ready-to-move budget. I've been told twice now that it wasn't meant to be, and that the house wasn't worth the escalated price. I feel like I've just been dumped before Valentine's Day. It's okay, there are many other houses in the sea…
Since we did not look at houses last weekend, we scheduled an appointment for yesterday. After reviewing our options, we decided to broaden our search once again. This time, we started looking in the Roswell area. I'll call that our hard limit as far as living that far from Atlanta metro.
We spent last weekend driving around Roswell, seeing what was around and what neighborhoods we could see ourselves living in. We were strangely comfortable with the area, even though we'd sworn for years that we could never live that far OTP. As luck would have it, yesterday we found it. THE house. I don't want to jinx it, so I won't post any pictures until we are approved. The house is a foreclosure, so not only do we have to get approval from our bank, but also approval from the bank with the holding. Our realtor says this might be a bit of a hassle, but leave it to us to pick the house that will be a pain in the ass… And, along with a foreclosure house, comes all the wonderful things that we have to fix/replace. Every room needs to be repainted. All of the floors and carpet need to be replaced. There are holes in the wall, the kitchen is missing appliances. It manages to be just scary enough.
However, this leaves us with some great options. We can pick the hardwood and carpet we want. We can pick the exact appliances we like, then rework the kitchen in our style. I also have ideas for built-in bookshelves, new fixtures, and paint colors. The basement is even private enough that my mom can move in as soon as she'd like. And, it's big enough that she has her own living room and bathroom. It's the perfect combination of everything we want, yet in a condition that we can work with and afford. Fingers crossed that everything goes in our favor. Please don't take my house… :)
