The Fixer Upper

Last spring my husband started noticing the real estate market and its absurd pricing….

To be specific, he noticed our house was worth waaaaay more than it had been a year ago. I ignored his observations as we had just redone many things in our home, and it was precisely the way I wanted it. We replaced windows, roof, gutters, carpet, and added some wonderful wood flooring that I wanted for 15 years. We also painted the entire inside of the house. That’s right…my house was exactly where I wanted it to be. I assumed my wonderful hubbles was just pleased that the market was doing so well. Little did I know that his brain cogs were whirling with the prospect of selling our home and getting the cash. When he finally let me know that he was thinking along those lines, I laughed. Surely not! We had invested in our home. We were going to live here until we died (which to be honest, I was considering hastening along that process for him if he mentioned moving again). We hummed along in this manner for a few months, with him mentioning other houses for sale and me scoffing or ignoring. Then it happened… we had a sermon by our wise and erudite pastor on “praying for change.”

 Why?

WHY!?!?

I finally caved and said I was willing to drive by some of these properties that he had been waxing lyrical about for months.

            That afternoon we drove by an entirely unsuitable property in the country. Hubs didn’t want to live on a dirt road…so whew…. that one was out.  As I sat in my seat, feeling smug that we had just wasted our time looking, I randomly told Jeff to exit into a neighborhood in our city that we had never driven in.  As I was looking out of my now dusty window (thank you country road), I noticed a house that looked abandoned in a very well-kept neighborhood. It was overrun with brush and weeds and had notices on the door. I made the statement that I liked that house and that it looked like we could get it at a reasonable price because it looked abandoned. You see, I had made the observation to Hubbles that in order for selling our house at a premium to make sense, we needed to not buy another house at a premium. That’s just logical. He is a numbers guy (actuary to be exact), so he agreed. That’s when we decided to research that house and see if we could buy it.

            The next several months were spent researching and trying to get the house redeemed by the people who inherited it. They were not interested in dealing with the property anymore, so that was a nonstarter (and I don’t blame them), so we were at a dead-end until the VA who had the loan decided to put it on the market. Hubs was in contact with the people who were going to sell it for the VA the entire time, calling weekly to check in and see where the process was. When the 90 day redemption period was up, we decided to list our house ourselves (as we didn’t want it to sell too quickly) and see what happened because the house we wanted was supposed to go on the market “any day.”  We did sell our house to a lovely couple with 4 children (it was a 5 bed home-so perfect for them). They already lived in our neighborhood and were thrilled to find a house that accommodated them. They waited to list their home for a month or so to give the government some time to get off of their you-know-whats and list the property. They didn’t (shock-I know).  We went ahead and agreed on a date in early January for closing (which made the holiday a delight as we had to pack and move while our kids were home from college). To say I was stressed would be a massive understatement. We were packing all of our belongings and shipping them to a storage facility until we could find another place to live. Yeah, not stressful at all.

            We vacated our home in early January and moved some clothes and a few essentials (like my pellet ice maker) into a hotel for a week and then to an Airbnb apartment where we would be for several months. On the day we sold our house officially, within hours of closing, the house we wanted FINALLY went on the market! We toured it and when I walked in, I said to our realtor Sandy Johnson with Coldwell Banker (who was so helpful and wonderful throughout the process) that I thought it was better than it would be. To which she said “Really?!” in a shocked voice. I guess I am an optimist after all.  The house had copper pipe missing because of thieves, no power or heat so that it was colder inside than out, cracked tile, filthy carpet, holes in the walls where speakers were stolen, hideous giant mirrored walls, a crumbling roof, and some mold issues….

But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

Even with all of that, I could see the vision of what it could be…. We put in an offer but unbelievably there were others interested, so we had to put in our “best” offer by the next week and hope that it was “good enough” but not “too good.” We prayed about what to bid and then we waited….

We received the call a few days later that the house was ours!

After rejoicing that we would no longer be houseless, we realized just what we had done. We had purchased a huge fixer upper. There was no going back now. We were in for the ride.

I decided to chronicle the process because I like to see redemption in action and hope others like it too. I hope you enjoy reading about the process!