Selling our home

Posted in Personal by Christina

THIS has been a roller coaster. Holy. Moly.

So, if you’ve been following along, you know that we’ve recently purchased a new home. And were selling our current house. When we went into this process, we put a lot of thought into how we wanted to handle buying and selling at the same time. This was a first for us. We’d both bought and sold houses before, but never simultaneously.

At the time that we decided to seriously start looking for a new home, the market here in good ole’ DFW was really hot and very, very competitive. We knew that if we listed our house before finding another, the chances of us selling way before finding something that we truly loved was high. We were very picky about what we wanted in a new home and decided that we weren’t settling on ANYTHING. This would hopefully be our last move (ever), and we figured that it might literally take us years to find exactly what we wanted. Thus, if our house sold fast, we could potentially be homeless for an undetermined length of time. So, we opted to house-hunt, then if we found a home that we couldn’t live without, we’d list our house. Even if it meant getting pre-approved for less by doing so. After speaking with our realtor about it, it was a done deal. He agreed that if we could do it that way, we should.

So, we searched for a house. And after about nine months, we found THE ONE. We put in an offer and after dealing with a bit of competition, our bid was accepted. Once we’d gone through the inspection process, and knew we were sticking with our contract, we listed our house. I was all nerves. What if it didn’t sell fast? Did we want to be stuck with two mortgages?! OMGOMGOMG. Saint Joey, as he is now known, put up with me beautifully (albeit with several deep-patience-breaths worked in there).

Fortunately, our realtor had given us sound advice. Within two days of listing, we had 4 showings which yielded 2 offers. We were absolutely over the moon! Picture me screeching and doing elaborate happy-dances while Joey sat calmly nearby, telling me that he’d be more outwardly excited if I wasn’t hogging all the energy. I do that sometimes. It happens.

After discussing our options, we took one of the offers, signed the contract, and thought we were good to go. That is, until they bailed. Ugh. Turns out, the buyer of their house had terminated his contract, and because our contract was contingent on that, they had to terminate ours. UGH.UGH. So, we figured, okay… We’ll take the second offer. Our realtor contacted the realtor of the other couple who’d submitted an offer to see if they were still interested. But they had literally signed a contract on another listing earlier that morning. UGH.UGH.UGH!!!

So, here we were with two offers and no takers. Now, I know I shouldn’t have been complaining at this point. We’ve had several friends who had their homes on the market for months at a time. My hats off to you, friends. Seriously. Keeping a home show-ready is legit. I can’t imagine having to do it for months. But alas, I’m a stresser. I can’t help it. It just is. And the fact that I’m a stresser was compounded by the fact that I wasn’t sleeping. Insomnia makes everything more dramatic. I was truly afraid that we’d missed the boat by choosing the wrong offer the first time around.

That next weekend, we had 9 showings, yielding three more offers. One was a good offer, but was contingent on the sale of their home. The second was a total low-ball offer. And the third, oh, the third. The.sweetest.people.ever. I actually got to meet them because their realtor had trouble getting into the house. I had to return home to let them in. They were an adorable young couple who were accompanied by her mother. They seemed so grateful that I had allowed them to view the house as late as I did (it was nearly 8pm by the time I was able to get home). They put in a great offer the very next morning. And it was not contingent (thankgoodness). They also included a note telling us about themselves and how much they loved the house and hoped we’d choose them. They were engaged to be married and starting out their lives together. This would be their first home if we chose them. They even included a picture of themselves. It was so stinkin’ cute. And we were sold. (Note to buyers: Include a personalized note with your offer. It works.)

We adjusted some of the finer points on the contract and accepted their offer.

The home inspection went well since the house was so new. We had some minor things to fix, but fortunately, it was all stuff we could do ourselves. And then came the appraisal. At this point, we’d just closed on our new home and were itching to pack and move. But, we needed to keep our home show-ready until the appraisal results were in. So, we packed up the closets and anything hidden in the meantime. Being the impatient person I am… This was hard. I just wanted to pack everything. Like, now.

And then we got the results of the appraisal. (Cue the sad foreshadowing music)

The thing about appraisals is, they’re luck of the draw. Most appraisers are good and want deals to happen, but then a few crazies enter the mix. And we got one. Even though other houses in our neighborhood – houses without wood floors, crown molding, granite countertops, backyard landscaping, extended patio, etc. – had been selling at or above our sales price, our appraiser deemed that our home did not make value. And not just by a little bit. By $9000. That’s a HUGE amount considering that our price point wasn’t super high to begin with. Everyone was shocked. Our realtor, their realtor, us, them. Everyone. Everyone felt that our sales price was fair. Everyone but the appraiser. And unfortunately, he had the say-so on the loan amount that the bank would award the buyers. Basically, his stating that our home was valued at $9000 less than the sales price meant that the bank would now give our buyers $9000 less money for their loan.

Thus, if we still wanted our contracted sales price, the buyers would have to make up the difference in cash. Which they didn’t have. So, here we were. Owners of two houses. Finding out that our appraiser had royally screwed us over. #badday

Our realtor spoke with the appraiser, simply to find out the appraiser’s motivation for valuing our house so low. He pointed out why our house was worth the sale price, (ie: the MANY available comps and the fact that our house had all the bells and whistles (where the others didn’t)). But, it didn’t matter. I just couldn’t believe that there was black and white data available to clearly back our sales price, but instead of choosing to use that information, the appraiser chose to screw over perfectly good people instead. Most of us involved in the transaction would lose out based on the appraisal report.

At this point, our realtor informed us that our options were (1) drop the price, (2) end the contract, put the house back on the market, and hope for a better appraiser next time, (3) hope that the buyers could offer us SOMETHING… Meet us in the middle. Just SOMETHING so that we wouldn’t lose money (as we would at the appraised value after closing costs and fees). He talked to their realtor and we waited. It was absolute torture.

In the end, all parties ended up contributing something to make the deal happen. The buyers added money, both of our realtors gave up part of their commissions, and we ended up sacrificing over $4000 in sales price thanks to our shoddy appraiser. All of these factors basically added up to is splitting the difference between our sales and appraised prices. Ugh. Better than the appraised price, obviously, but still… UGH!!! That $4000 would’ve gone a long way towards the improvements needed at the new place. All because of one ~~turd~~ person. You can probably guess that the non-sleeping-issue continued for me throughout this entire process. It was pretty exhausting.

In any case, everything else went okay and we closed on Wednesday. Thus, I’m happy to say that we are the owners of two homes no mo’. (Hallelujah!) So, now all of our stuff is officially at the new house, though I refuse to say that we’re “moved in” until we’re able to actually enter rooms without doing the moving-box-shuffle and/or complete any given task without a “wait, where did we pack that?”. So, this weekend we will be unpacking fools. And then the real fun begins…. (Mischievously rubs hands together)

18Sep2014

So, um, we bought a new house!

Posted in Personal by Christina

Yeeeeaaahhhh. Ive got a confession… I’ve totally been holding out on you.

Ya see, there’s a reason why I’ve been focusing on all the organization in our house lately…. We’ve been house-hunting. And I’ve been trying to get our home show-ready in case we found something. Sorry I wasn’t more forthcoming. I’m a highly superstitious person who must knock-on-wood and cross my fingers at everything, and I had this idea in my head that if I spilled the beans, I’d jinx the deal. Some may be with me on this, and some may shake their heads at this notion, but it’s just me. It’s how I am.

Although we’ve loved our home, we’ve been wanting a more central location for some time now. And we’ve been on a casual lookout for The One. We currently live towards the northwestern edge of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, but have wanted to move somewhere between Dallas and Fort Worth for a while. This area is just so much more accessible. Not only to family and friends, but to both cities and the other areas in between (plus, it’ll cut our commutes to work in half). Obviously, the main reason for making a move was being closer to family, though. After we lost my brother, this became especially important to us.

Joey and I started searching for a house a while ago (VERY casually in December, and then more seriously towards the beginning of the summer), but just never found anything that suited our needs.

In searching for a new home, our must-have list looked a little something like this:

1. Character (from the 1950s to 70s preferably) – Fixer uppers welcome
2. 4 bedrooms
3. Around 2500 sq feet
4. A private backyard (at least a quarter acre lot)
5. With TREES (I may have lived another life in a forest)
6. In an established, well-kept neighborhood with minimal thru-traffic

We looked and looked… But nothing.

Then, out of nowhere, a few weeks ago our realtor contacted us about a new listing that had popped up in our all-time favorite neighborhood. It’s a sweet area of 1970’s homes with curvy streets, lots of trees, and where every home looks different (which is kind of a novelty in this area). We’d discovered the neighborhood months before and from the second we drove into it, we knew. It was perfect for us. And the location couldn’t have been better. It was ten minutes from both my parents’ house and my aunt and uncle’s house, a straight shot to Joey’s parents’, and an easy drive to work.

So, we let our realtor know our preference for the area and began stalking the neighborhood. Every time a listing popped up within our budget, we were on it. Over the course of several months, we looked at several homes in the neighborhood, all of which were TRUE fixer-uppers with original 70’s everything. Paneling, popcorn ceilings, original appliances, shag carpet in the bathrooms (WhyWHY???!), etc. This seemed par for the course as far as the homes within our budget in this particular neighborhood. Anything updated was way out of our price range. And that was fine. We were okay with that. It was all about the bones of the house and the neighborhood to us. So, imagine our surprise when we walked into this new listing and saw this…

(Please note: I hurriedly snapped a few pics during our final walk-through, so the sellers were in the midst of packing. I’ll take proper “before” pics once we gain possession and’ll give ya’ll a more thorough tour then.)

Beautiful slate floors, new baseboards, freshly painted walls in gorgeous colors, NO POPCORN CEILINGS. Score! But even with all of those updates, the home still possessed the character that we were looking for… Vaulted ceilings with center beam, built-ins in most of the rooms, the original 1970’s fireplace, etc. I was almost disappointed when we first walked in because it was so lovely… Where was my project?? As we walked though the house we checked off all of our must-haves (4 bedroom, 2500 sq feet, private yard with over a quarter acre, good layout) plus it had tons of natural light.

AAAAAAAANNND…

BAM! POOL.

We weren’t even looking for that. Total bonus! My favorite, though, was the covered patio that felt like it was an extension of the living room. See how you can see it through the windows? I wish this was a better picture so you could really appreciate it, but at least you get the gist…

And here it is outside….

I instantly pictured Christmas parties with twinkle lights strung overhead beneath the covered patio. (Not to mention New Years parties, pool parties, and birthday parties. Oh my.). It felt like HOME.

And I found my projects. There are definitely some areas needing updating, most notably the kitchen…

And master bath….

It’s hard to tell from the picture, but that marble is actually a 1970’s purple tone in person… which apparently goes with the brown shower tiles? Oh well, at least the space is carpetless. Fortunately, both rooms are clean and usable, so we can live with them for a while as we decide what exactly we want to do reno-wise. Plus, there are other things that we’d like to tweak. We’d love to change out the beige carpet in the living and dining spaces for deeper-toned wood or wood tile. The built-ins in the living room will get a coat of paint, etc. Then, there are some energy-efficiency things we’d like to address like changing out the original single-paned bedroom windows for energy-efficient versions, adding an attic fan to help with the bills, adding insulation in the attic, etc.

We’d also like to make some changes to the exterior. Of course, you know my passion for character, so the goal is to basically update the home while maintaining the integrity of its 1970’s roots. Ill be outlining the details in another post, but I’ll just say that a paint job and new roof (maybe in a richer brown color?) are definitely in this guy’s future at some point…

And this courtyard leading to the front door is gonna be all kinds of fun to jazz up! I’m picturing a nice, streamlined mid-century style door and sidelights sometime down the road. And definitely lots of fun small tweaks in the meantime..

As far as sealing the deal went, we were the very first showing and had an offer in later that day. The way houses were selling, you really didn’t have time to sit on them. If you liked, you offered. A few hours later, we heard from our realtor and were totally bummed to discover that they’d received a second offer. And they wanted everybody to turn in their best offers by noon the following day. Joey and I just looked at each other and sighed. We figured it wasn’t meant to be since we’d pretty much given our best offer the first time around. In the end, we decided to tweak our offer ever so slightly (like small) and send that along with a sad plea that “We love your house and will treat it like a member of our family if you pick us!”. Then, we crossed our fingers and waited. So, imagine our surprise when they accepted. We were CRAZY excited.

The inspection on the home went pretty well. Mainly, a bunch of smaller issues that you’d expect from a 40 year old home, but nothing terrible. No structural issues, thankfully. We’ve definitely got a long to-do list in store, but it’s nothing that we aren’t willing to take on. It was funny, because being in the home for the inspection was such a confirmation to me that we were making the right choice. I seriously didn’t want to leave. If I’d been given the option, I would’ve curled up on the seller’s couch with a book and called it a day. That feeling that this was “home” was so ridiculously strong.

And, today… we closed. We signed the paperwork and got ‘er done. Woo-hoo!

Needless to say… We’re totally stoked!! This house is a completely new challenge for us because 1. We’ve never owned a stucco home (we’ve always had brick which is almost no maintenance). 2. We’ve never owned a pool. 3. We’ve never owned an older home. But, hey, that’s okay! We’re quick learners. And we’re motivated. I was cracking up because after we signed the contract, after nine years of knowing Joey, I’ve walked into the living room on several occasions only to discover HGTV on the tube… AND I WASNT THE ONE WHO TURNED IT ON!!! Heehee! He said he wanted to learn stuff. Gotta love it.

Gosh, I just can’t wait to get started! Decorating is going to be so FUN in this place! I feel like our current furnishings are going to go swimmingly in this 1970’s gem. (Excitement!). My little blog here is gonna have a BOATLOAD of new material in the months/years to come as we make this beaut our own.

So, if you’re wondering why I’ve been a less frequent blogger as of late, this is why. We’ve been buying and selling houses, which is so stinkin’ exhausting. I’m just glad that we’re in the home stretch (sortof). Ill have a separate post about the sale of our current house once everything (Fingerscrossed! Knockonwood!) is finalized. We’re currently under contract, so keep your fingers (and toes, and arms, and legs) crossed that everything goes well and the sale of our house goes through (pleasepleaseplease). We’re in the throes of packing currently and will be moving over the next few weeks, so things may be a little slow up in here for a bit longer. But, I’ll be back. And I’ll keep y’all updated as best as I can! Send speedy packing and happy closing thoughts our way!!

P.S. If you’re looking for a realtor in the DFW area, we highly recommend Rob Wright with the Amy Wright Group for Remax Heritage III. He’s been fantastic!