Saga of the house — Part I
I’m buying a house. I found the house while driving around potential neighborhoods and checking prices. This neighborhood seemed reasonably priced. This house proved hard to research.
I called the agent listed on the sign. I left a message. 5 voicemail tags later, I still didn’t get to talk to her. I gave up and called my possible buyer’s agent (a real go-getter). She went and got. Turns out the house is no longer listed (active) and is being foreclosed on! “Key is under the mat, go have a look,” said the mystery agent. So we did.
The house is HUGE. It’s at least 50% larger than our current house. And it’s much more solid. And it’s relatively isolated away from the urban sprawl that has reached my own neighborhood.
And it’s near a wonderful lake.
And it has a running creek in the backyard. Hell, the creek practically is the backyard!
My agent hated it. Before we walked in she was pointing out safety hazards (5 foot drop off the driveway to the creekyard.) Inside she kept saying “No, this does nothing for me.” Yikes!
It was sorta plain inside, and it needs some updating/fixing. But it’s HUGE. And it has a great creek. And it’s HUGE!
Well, she whisked us out of there in about 15 minutes and we went on to explore a house her builder-friend is building. We spent waaaay too much time there, she thought it was wonderful, we thought it was too small.
After she took us back home, we grabbed the kids and drove back out to the foreclosure. It got dark on us (no electricity out there) so we explored with flashlights and took pictures with a flash. Results are here.
We’ve been back about 6 times. I’ve brought several of my construction-knowledgeable friends and family there. Everyone likes it so far, except my agent.
Time to do some research. I dug around the county deed office. I found out what liens there are, I thought. And I found the owners.
I looked the owners’ name up online and found — Bankruptcy! Makes sense. So I dug some more, this time in the Pacer Federal Bankruptcy Online Database. Way cool! Every court document filed in the case is there for seven cents a page.
Four hours of reading and digging later (long, sad tale of a failed business and personal ruin) I found the house mentioned. It’s supposed to be listed for sale for 120 days and then go to foreclosure. Doing the math — Hey! It’s two weeks into the foreclosure period!
I panicked.
I wrote all my industry friends and asked how to buy a house out of foreclosure. (All I could tell is that you have to show up on the courthouse steps and buy it at auction in cash.) I got some really good advice (thanks, guys!) and eventually got in touch with the court trustee to see if she could tell me the status of the house (no one else could). She did. The status is: she will sell it to me! Yay!
I am waiting to hear back her final price (she’s adding up all the numbers she has to meet to get the judge to accept my offer). But I’m pretty sure it will meet my requirements and I’ll buy it.
In the meantime, I have to get the power, water and gas turned back on so I can get an inspection done. I have to get a thorough title search done, and I need to make sure the house is lien-free when I get it.
The waiting is the worst part.