This has been in the works for a looong fucking time, but I finally managed to close today!
I posted a bit about this place when I first looked at it, ran in to slightly elevated radon levels, and later when I was having trouble finding a bank to finance it. I first looked at it in early August and made an offer around mi-August. My original closing date was supposed to be Sept. 18. It only took 3 months longer to get here. :rolleyes:
So the story goes, I was randomly checking Zillow to see if anything with a shop had been listed recently. This property popped up. It was way out of my (comfortable) price range but I tend to look at those types of listings just to drool. Reading the listing, I found it was not only a house with a shop, but it was actually two houses on separate parcels and a shop....and 15 acres. About 25 minutes from my old house. I called me realtor and told him to check it out and see how overpriced he thought it was. He talked to the listing agent and found out they never had it appraised and just kind of guessed at the number. I still didn't think they'd come down to where I wanted to be, but he offered to open it up for me to check it out. The first thing we noticed as we started walking around were notes saying "everything here is included with the sale" - all the furniture and piles of antiques in the main house - the tractor, mowers, lawn equipment, and tools in the shop - and all the furniture and stuff in the 2nd house. It started to look a little less overpriced than I originally thought. My realtor was out of town the next few days and the seller's agent offered to open it up if I wanted to take another look. I jumped on that, mostly because I wanted to fish for the whole story on the deal. Not only did I meet the agent, but the owner was also there....pretty rare to talk to either of them as a buyer. After talking to my realtor again, I told him to float a number by them that I assumed was slightly low ball - $100k less than asking price. I expected them to come back at least $50k higher. Nope - an hour later I get a call "they'll take it, but they won't come down any more for inspection or appraisal". WTF?
So blah....it took almost 2 months to get the appraisal. Several appraiser flaked and then the one that finally did show up kept missing deadline after deadline to turn the report in. I started calling the appraisal company myself and got to the point of screaming at them because they were likely going to cost me the house and everything I'd spent to date. I even filed a complaint with the state appraisal board. I don't know if any of that helped, but I did finally get the report 2 days later. Then a few days after that I get the news from the bank that the underwriters won't approve it because it's "too unique". I was nearly convinced I was going to have to walk away until I stumbled across two different portfolio lenders. Both were willing to use the appraisal that I already had and both had it and the property pre-approved by the underwriters. I went with the one that had better rates and an overall better plan to get me where I need to be. He got it done in 4 weeks.
And here I am today. Just signed my life away. I didn't sell my old house yet so now I get to scramble to get a bunch of shit moved out so I can get it listed and pay off the extra mortgage I took on the new place!
So here's the main house. The foundation/walls were built in 1810 as a mule barn for the 1800+ acre farm that used to be there. It was converted to the house in 1989. The most recent PO bought it in '08 and built the shop, 2nd house and did a bunch of other improvements.
Front shot. The house is a "berm home" - partially built in to the hill so the rear actually at ground level at the 2nd floor. That also makes it super efficient for heating/cooling.
Entrance/sun room:
Main living area (some of this furniture needs to go!)
Opposite direction:
Master bedroom - the stairs lead to a loft and door to ground level at the back of the house.
Master bath. This room is the weirdest as the back wall is where the original ramp the that they walked the mules down. Kind of weird, unusable space....currently storage.
Replacing the vanity and counters/sinks will be one of my first projects.
Looking down from the loft:
There are two other bedrooms. Nothing super special about them and I don't have good pics.
More to come....
I posted a bit about this place when I first looked at it, ran in to slightly elevated radon levels, and later when I was having trouble finding a bank to finance it. I first looked at it in early August and made an offer around mi-August. My original closing date was supposed to be Sept. 18. It only took 3 months longer to get here. :rolleyes:
So the story goes, I was randomly checking Zillow to see if anything with a shop had been listed recently. This property popped up. It was way out of my (comfortable) price range but I tend to look at those types of listings just to drool. Reading the listing, I found it was not only a house with a shop, but it was actually two houses on separate parcels and a shop....and 15 acres. About 25 minutes from my old house. I called me realtor and told him to check it out and see how overpriced he thought it was. He talked to the listing agent and found out they never had it appraised and just kind of guessed at the number. I still didn't think they'd come down to where I wanted to be, but he offered to open it up for me to check it out. The first thing we noticed as we started walking around were notes saying "everything here is included with the sale" - all the furniture and piles of antiques in the main house - the tractor, mowers, lawn equipment, and tools in the shop - and all the furniture and stuff in the 2nd house. It started to look a little less overpriced than I originally thought. My realtor was out of town the next few days and the seller's agent offered to open it up if I wanted to take another look. I jumped on that, mostly because I wanted to fish for the whole story on the deal. Not only did I meet the agent, but the owner was also there....pretty rare to talk to either of them as a buyer. After talking to my realtor again, I told him to float a number by them that I assumed was slightly low ball - $100k less than asking price. I expected them to come back at least $50k higher. Nope - an hour later I get a call "they'll take it, but they won't come down any more for inspection or appraisal". WTF?
So blah....it took almost 2 months to get the appraisal. Several appraiser flaked and then the one that finally did show up kept missing deadline after deadline to turn the report in. I started calling the appraisal company myself and got to the point of screaming at them because they were likely going to cost me the house and everything I'd spent to date. I even filed a complaint with the state appraisal board. I don't know if any of that helped, but I did finally get the report 2 days later. Then a few days after that I get the news from the bank that the underwriters won't approve it because it's "too unique". I was nearly convinced I was going to have to walk away until I stumbled across two different portfolio lenders. Both were willing to use the appraisal that I already had and both had it and the property pre-approved by the underwriters. I went with the one that had better rates and an overall better plan to get me where I need to be. He got it done in 4 weeks.
And here I am today. Just signed my life away. I didn't sell my old house yet so now I get to scramble to get a bunch of shit moved out so I can get it listed and pay off the extra mortgage I took on the new place!
So here's the main house. The foundation/walls were built in 1810 as a mule barn for the 1800+ acre farm that used to be there. It was converted to the house in 1989. The most recent PO bought it in '08 and built the shop, 2nd house and did a bunch of other improvements.
Front shot. The house is a "berm home" - partially built in to the hill so the rear actually at ground level at the 2nd floor. That also makes it super efficient for heating/cooling.
Entrance/sun room:
Main living area (some of this furniture needs to go!)
Opposite direction:
Master bedroom - the stairs lead to a loft and door to ground level at the back of the house.
Master bath. This room is the weirdest as the back wall is where the original ramp the that they walked the mules down. Kind of weird, unusable space....currently storage.
Replacing the vanity and counters/sinks will be one of my first projects.
Looking down from the loft:
There are two other bedrooms. Nothing super special about them and I don't have good pics.
More to come....
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