What to do on a weekend when you don't have to look at a million houses.

This weekend was our first in many weekends where we weren't dealing with housing stuff. It was nice.

On Saturday, our long awaited weekend with Jason and Nicki visiting came. We haven't really seen them at all since Drew's wedding, and we have had this on our calendar forever. I am happy we had nice weather and were able to spend sometime with them, Drew, Jen and their GB friends.




We went to the Sprecher tour and had a nice time afterwards just hanging out by their campsite.

Sunday came and went without much interesting. John had to get up, pack and head over to the airport to catch a flight to California for work. He got to spend A LOT of time in the wonderful Milwaukee airport because all the storms in the area and out east delayed his flight. He is scheduled to come back on Thursday...

A Turn-around in the House Drama Also known as “ we are in es-c-row”**

So, if you are keeping up with the drama that is “Marmets need a house in Milwaukee”, last we left of we had a very sad call from our realtor Sunday night regarding a house we had put an offer in.

Every night at 1am, we get a new listing from our realtor of what went on the market in the past 24 hours. Although we really want a house, that email would remain unread until 7:30, when I would open it and look through the houses.

On Monday, I got to work around 7:30 and opened the email. I wasn’t really expecting too much to have come on the market- remember Milwaukee had hardcore rain almost all weekend. 5 houses had come onto the market. I looked through them and noticed that one of them was only a block north of the house we had the battle over the day before. I called our realtor, and asked if we could get into the house. She said, what about after work tonight? So we met her at the house at 6:00.

We were actually a little early, so we got out and wondered around the house before Colleen got there. The front is cute, with trees and a basketball hoop. We wondered around the side and noticed that there was some really nice landscaping that had been done- nice perennials. Having spent a small fortune on plants at our old house, I appreciate having nothing to do with that in the future.

We get around to the back of the house, and there is a huge deck, and a hot tub on the deck. We are impressed with the yard. Our realtor comes as we are walking around the other side, and we go into the house. The first thing I notice is it is clean. REALLY REALLY clean. Not a I cleaned for this open house clean, but a I keep my house open house clean all the time and then I cleaned again after that.

It’s a nice house- the paint colors aren’t something we would choose ourselves, but its done well, and clean. We walk through- its spotless, it’s a decent space, and has just about everything we are looking for. Despite the monsoon Milwaukee had over the last 3 days or so, the basement is totally dry. We spend an hour there, and then tell our agent, I think we may want to make an offer on this one. She says she’ll draw up the paperwork and get it to us tomorrow.

Monday night, I don’t sleep at all. I am tossing and turning. I am wide awake. I am worried that this house is going to turn out just like the last one. Tuesday, I get up. I am tired. I go to work and look through the email of new houses. They all suck. Big time. This reinvigorates me- I want that house we looked at last night. I call our agent and say- Lets get the offer in. She tells us that they have 3 more showings set up for the next 24 hours. John drives over to my office, and we meet her there and we sign the offer. It’s a good offer, but it is less than asking. Its also been on the market for 48 hours. I am nervous. John goes back to work, and we wait.

At 8:00, we get a call- the sellers have accepted our offer as is! No renegotiating, no counter- just signed it! We close on the house on July 31!

We have an inspection next week, and I will take my camera along and get some pictures up. There are some pictures online, but they aren’t so great. For once, the house actually looks better in person that in the pictures (instead of the opposite, which we saw a lot of before.)

http://www.shorewest.com/vp/ListingServlet?SITE=SHOREW&ScreenID=LISTING_DETAIL_P&EXCEEDLIMIT=null&totalFound=0&cd_MLS=1097141

** Please don’t write me and tell me we don’t have escrow in Wisconsin. I know that. It is an obscure reference to an episode of “the Gilmore Girls”

Our latest house Failure

So, we finally found a house that we liked. Last week, we put in an offer. The offer was about 94% of purchase price. We figured he would counter us and we would end up somewhere in the middle. Nothing out of the ordinary besides that- the offer had a financing contingency, an inspection contingency, a radon test contingency, and a well test contingency.

There was a broken window in the house when we looked at it, so we asked him to repair that. There was also a door that leads to no where. Our realtor asked him about it, and he said, oh, I plan to put a 3X3stoop in. So we included that in out offer. The appliances he put into the house are very very bad, but he flips houses for a living. Our realtor asked him if he could use those in another house, and give us credit for them, since we would replace them. He said sure.

We also asked him to get a land survey done at his expense. Reason being, that one hasn’t been done since the 50s and the village where this house is requires a survey to be done to do any concrete work. Since he has put a new patio in back and plans on pouring this stoop (which would be visible from the road) we thought it was important so the village wouldn’t require it of us.

Finally, our offer included that he needed to get final permits from the village for occupancy prior to close.

We put that offer in last week and waited. And waited some more. We didn’t hear from him. Finally he called our realtor and said, the offer isn’t enough. I want X for the house. X was 4k under asking price- or 99%.

John and I talked about it, and decided that it was worth it to us to have the house, and put an offer in that was X. We didn’t do a new offer, we just did an amendment. All we changed was that we changed the price to X, and since that didn’t include the appliance discount (since he was taking them), we asked him to give us a 2k credit at closing for that.

So we brave the rainstorms in Milwaukee yesterday to drop off this offer. We drop it off at his place. Its what he wanted, so while we are nervous but happy because why wouldn’t we get the house?

So we wait again. Our realtor calls around 5:30. We figure, that hes getting back to us so fast since its exactly what he wanted. She calls and says:

The owner/flipper left a message. Hes very angry in it. He says he doesn’t want to deal with you anymore. He says it obvious you don’t appreciate the craftsmanship he has put into his house.

So after a bit of talk, I ask her to call him back and apologize. That we gave him that offer (the 99% offer) because he said that’s what he wanted, and try to figure out whats going on.

So we wait and she calls us back:
He said we are bad people. He doesn’t want to deal with us. We have way too many contingencies (financing, inspection, radon test, etc?). We put these things like the window in and we are obviously very picky. (yeah, why should a seller replace a broken window?- and I mean the GLASS is broken in it). Our realtor was on the phone with him for 15 minutes. He was ranting. His wife was yelling in the background. He actually said we were bad people.

So, today we are very sad. I never expected that a person selling a house would say he wanted X, we give it to him, and somehow that makes us bad people. I was a house that we really liked, in a location we really liked, but I guess we will have to find something else.

After looking at 50 houses, and only finding 1 possibility, its probably going to take us a long long time to get a house =(.

Housing

Looking for a new house sucks.

I am so sick of looking at other people's nasty houses. I mean come on people- if you know someone is coming to look at your house, someone who you are asking to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for your house- get a broom out, buy some windex and get to work. Put your laundry away, don't make me have to step over things and if you play hockey don't stick all your dirty stuff into each closet of your house- heres a hint-- that makes the whole house smell like BO.

Sorry Bucky and Roary- it looks like you guys are going to have to stay at Jen and Shaun's kitty hotel a little longer!