Finally His Idea

So yesterday we went to see a house our Realtor actually found for us and thought we

would like. It was in Middleborough. We got there at 5 and due at 5:30. We saw a man and a woman standing outside the home so we drove by. When we did get there our agent was a few minutes late. But he didn't have the golden key this time. I guess the agent was suppose to meet us there at 5:30 and didn't. He called her cell and her office and we waited for 45 minutes until she called back and gave him the lock box code. My husband said she probably wants to sell the house herself and get full commission. When we got inside it needed work. Why don't they post that on the sites? I get the sites the realtors see so it makes absolutely no sense to me.

There was one bathroom and one of the walls was a bookcase and was not attached to the rest of the wall so you could see straight through the bathroom. One of the floors was plywood. There were only two bedrooms even though I believe it said three. You needed to walk through one bedroom to get to another and in that bedroom there was another weird bookcase covering a large closet. I was told by the neighbor "Ruth" that there were 5 children living there. I wonder if one of them slept in the closet. That would have been a fire hazard. Plus the fact that the smoke detector kept beeping that it needed a battery.

Of course the yard was almost an acre and flat and beautiful. There was also a barn on the property and a shed. But the shed was attached to the house and actually looked like a room from outside. Which is dumb because it means you have to pay taxes on it and it is counted as living space I guess. The driveway was short and came right up to the house. So you could look out your bedroom window and it would seem like the car was in the house.I gave our realtor a check so we could put a bid on it. Lots of people were looking at it and it was only on the market for 1 day. Then on our way home our realtor calls and says the house realtor called the owners and they won't pay to have the septic checked so she wanted to know if we were willing to do it. So we would be paying $500 for something we might not even get because my husband does not want to buy a house that we have to fix or replace the septic. On the internet it just said "not done" and they do it when the get an offer. Today when I checked it said "septic is buyer's responsibility"! Why can't they find that out in the first place????  So I guess we don't get that house either. And it was a short sale, which is fine, but only on its first day. They can take up to a year to finalize and by that time we could have found the perfect house and lived there for months.

Now my husband wants to check out the Sutton area. But as I was looking online this morning, I found a house in Stoughton and Avon that I want to check out. Fingers grossed we find something within the month.

Problems Of A Low Approval

THE PROBLEMS OF A LOW APPROVAL

So last night we went to see two houses in Plymouth. The first one we went to was on a semi busy road. We passed the house because it was blocked by a fence and had a small area to enter the driveway. When we turned the car around the driveway was angled the other way. It was so short and steep that I got vertigo. At the end of the driveway was a set of stairs that we almost ran into. We had an even harder time backing out of the driveway. We actually burned rubber. It must have been a short sale, (my Realtor thought it was, but wasn't sure????) There were broken windows taped with duct tape and the front part of the roof had plywood down and some tar paper. I was surprised it wasn't leaking. The front door and basement doors were unlocked. The house had clothes and toys all over the floor. My Realtor kept saying, "It may be a short sale, but they shouldn't keep their house like this." And my reply to that was, "They're losing their home and maybe they always live like this. I know people that live in worse." I can look past clutter and mess and see potential. The home was really nice. Two full baths upstairs and a half bath on the first floor.When we looked out the second story windows you felt like you lived in a tree house, which sounds romantic and all, but it really means that the backyard was so steep we couldn't even walk through it. Then on the other side of the fence was a dirt road and homes.So I would say NO to the first house.

The second one we saw was a little hard to find. FYI, when an address has an R after the number it usually means Rear. Well this was very rear. Off the main road we went for half a mile on a dirt road and came out to a beautiful view from the top of the hill of a very large pond. Evergreens going all the way down the hill. Then we looked to our left and saw the house. It was a large cabin. Inside there was mold everywhere on the walls. The large pine planks on the floors and some of the walls were actually very nice. The stairway down to the first floor was very well made. The mold smell and the tiny worn out kitchen was too much to take. The back windows were coming off and the roof needed to be redone. But the view...! Please don't ever be distracted by a view. Also, this property had 1.58 acres and was so peaceful and beautiful. The thought had crossed my mind to buy it, tear it down, reuse the beautiful wood planks and rebuild. Then reality struck and I realized that for $179,000 I could not afford any of that nonsense.So now we were suppose to see two tonight, and one or two on Friday. I asked our Realtor about that and he tells me, "Oh, I could only get one for Wednesday so maybe we can switch to Thursday and I'm busy on Friday so we can't see any. How about Saturday?" Of course I said okay, because what else can I do? He still has the magic key. The real reason I think he said he was busy Friday is because it's too far for him to drive on a weeknight. I'm fine with that, but not fine with thinking up excuses and not telling me the truth. All I ever want from anyone is the truth.

Realtors And All We Need To Know

REALTORS AND ALL WE NEED TO KNOWSo tonight we are going to look at three houses in the Plymouth area. I’m not sure we want to live in that area because in the summer there is a lot of traffic on the highway and my darling husband takes the highway to work. But if the house and yard are magnificent (for our price range), we might go.  It is good for our Realtor because he is from the area and won’t have to drive far like we’ve been having him do. Why do I feel bad about that? He will get paid when we find our home. It’s a major decision we have to make and here I am worrying about how far our Realtor has to drive to show us a house with his magic key. What is wrong with me?

We are still waiting for our $1,000 check that we gave him weeks ago when we put a bid on our “dream house” that someone else will soon be living in. He told us that he asked his boss for it and he still didn’t get it from him. Something about it being cashed (which it wasn’t). Hopefully we will get it tonight or else we will not be able to put it down on another “dream house”.There are so many rules and things you must go through to get a house. I have been searching the internet and finding things that our Realtor didn’t tell us. Maybe he thought we already knew? Like needing 5% down when you go for the purchase and sales agreement signing. That is when they will finally take the house off the market. Then at the closing you can put down the rest of your money. Problem is, we are getting our money from someplace that needs a signed purchase and sales before they will give it to us. And getting a loan for it is against the law and loan fraud. Which our Realtor says is okay to do since we are paying it off right away. Well, I DON’T THINK SO! Imagine trying to explain that to the judge?

I am also trying to make my own bug spray because we are going to an area where a lady just died of EEE. I don’t like chemicals and don’t like dying even more. One of the houses is on a pond (which my DH does not like, but also, does not know). I try to show him the online posts, but he can’t get into it. So when we go to these houses, he always says, “why didn’t you tell me _____?” And I laugh.

Tomorrow is another day and another set of houses. So after seeing seven houses this week, we might just find what we want.

House Hunting 101

House hunting is a very stressful thing. The most important thing to do is get a really good Realtor. Well, so far we haven’t done that. And we’ve had two of them. One would only show us homes that she wanted to see and would forget to meet us at our designated appointments. The next one, is a very nice person, but seems to be doing it to just have something to do to fill their time. Writing wrong addresses and putting email names instead of real names on legal papers does not seem appropriate.I did a lot of research about finding the right Realtor, and yet I still went with someone just because they seemed nice.

They say the average person finds their home in a few weeks. Well, we have been looking for over a month and have not seen very many homes. I know we must cut down our very broad area that we are searching in, but that is difficult. Every time I pick a place I want to see, it seems to have a problem or an offer. So far we have made one offer and it was overbid by someone else.I advise anyone looking for a home to educate themself and not depend upon the “professionals”.

I thought my Realtor would say, “hey, I found some homes that would be perfect for you”. Instead I give him a list of towns and he sends an automatic list daily to my email. Well, somedays I don’t get any. So I have two others sending me lists as well. I must sift through the criteria I want because I only get the price and town. No other criteria is filtered. I must check the crime rate, square footage and acreage. I must also make sure it has a basement, passed Title V and is not a Fannie Mae or HomePath house because I do not qualify for those. Then we drive by to make sure we like the area. And only then do we give the list to the Realtor who has the special golden key that gets us into the property.It is all so much work, that I think I deserve part of the 2.5-5% commission that my Realtor is getting. I think it is to pay for his gas when he brings us to these homes because I can’t seem to find anything else he is doing. We also will be getting a lawyer to check the documents at closing. So the only thing we need the Realtor for is his usefulness at getting keys.Hope this rant will open the eyes of some people looking for a home. The only thing we have going for us right now is, we are not selling, just buying.