I first took a job with Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company in 2003. Ever since I first moved down here, I've been renting an apartment. Part of that decision is based on Lockheed's reputation for hiring and firing employees at will as the contracts come and go. Another part is the fact that I have a pretty nice apartment in a pretty nice complex. But after awhile, I got tired of paying rent without getting anything back, and I got tired of not being able to pursue certain hobbies.
It's that last fact that makes this story complicated. Among other things, I am a ham radio operator (callsign K5MGY). There are certain things that you can and can't do in a small area, and the can't do's outnumber the can do's. The biggest can't do is: put up a decent antenna system. A body needs some open space to do that.
So, with the rent issue in mind with the ham radio situation in the second seat, I decided it might be time to find a house.
Nathan and I talked at length about his block, the pricing of the houses, property values, and so forth. One night, after we had dropped a new TV off at his house, I stopped and had him get the number of the realtor off the signs. Being an engineer, I wasn't happy with just a phone number and one source of info, so I started looking up all the tax records and property appraisals for the area. There was a lot of good info to be had, and it wasn't hard to get to. All of the houses were within my price range, all were new construction (or close to it), and all were ready to be moved in to at any time. With all that info, I took the next step.
I had never called a realtor before, but it wasn't hard. All I had to say was that I was interested, and all of a sudden, I had an appointment to go look at the houses.
One of the houses I was familiar with. Nathan and Susan have the exact same floor plan. It's a good floor plan, and I fancied having a house that was nearly identical to one that I already liked. It was a two story, 4 2.5 2 that was listed for $150K. This was the house I was fairly certain I wanted, but I didn't want to jump until I had seen the others.
The third was a smaller, one story. On the surface I really wasn't interested in it. My thinking was that I would have a better setup to run a dipole antenna from the second story down to the yard, and I knew that would be an issue with the one story. But when we went through the one story, I started to rethink my plan. The one story was a 3 2 2, and it was very attractive, more so than I thought. The last house was another two story, also a 4 2.5 2. It was by far the largest (2700 sq feet), the most costly, but it had never been used.
The first three houses on that we looked at were the builder's model houses. These houses were shown to potential buyers for other houses in the subdivision. As such they were advertised with upgrades that they originally wouldn't have had. The trick is that, while nobody had lived there, the houses had been used as offices, and were therefore lived in. All in all the trip produced some good info, and made me think quite a bit more about my selection.
I had originally intended to buy a two story to accommodate my radio work. In my thinking, it offered the most possibility for a ham dipole or long wire antenna. But there were two things that I hadn't taken into consideration. First, the utilities in a two story would probably be twice or more the utilities of a one story. Second, the one story I saw looked like it would definitely be workable. I decided to get more info on the house, and look at it again.
The next day, Nathan and I went to go see the house. The realtor brought a little extra muscle with her to see if she could get me to make an offer, so I'm guessing. Nathan and I went through the house with a fine-toothed comb, and we shook out some things that I hadn't seen last time. We started rapid-firing question after question at the realtor, and some of them she really couldn't answer. One of them had to do with the covenants and deed restrictions. Needless to say, I didn't make an offer without this info.
At the same time I was talking with my financial company, I also talked with some of my colleagues at the office. It turns out that the husband of one of my friends is also a realtor. She gave me his card, and I called him. He was either away or busy, so I left a message, thinking that he would be my third/second guy. I ended up talking to three different realtors about these properties.
R3 had seen enough, so we moved on to one of four nearby potential houses that he had found. All were previously-owned homes; there were no new homes. House number one was very well maintained. The yard needed to be done, but it honestly looked better than the model house that we had just looked at. Inside the house was immaculate. There was very little wear showing on the walls, and everything was very clean. R3 and I skirted the caged dogs (one of which wasn't willing to let us go without barking his head off) and looked at the rest of the house. Only in one room did we see any issues: the laundry room at one time had some extra shelving put in, and the holes from the screws hadn't been repaired. The only other down side I saw was in the back yard: I could see the building where I work every day. The house was right next to the parking lot! Having taken our notes, we moved on to house number two.
House number two was a bust. We drove up to the address, only to find that the house had been listed incorrectly. It was a two-story house without a "For Sale" sign in the front yard. Not really sure what happened, we scratched house two and proceeded to house three.
House number three was an interesting experience, to say the least. When we pulled up in front of the house, there was a noticeable change in the neighborhood. The yards weren't as nice. Trash and recycling bids were left out in the open. Down the street, some guy had a bunch of railroad ties sitting out by the side of his house. In the yard of house three was the "For Sale" sign, but attached to the bottom was another sign that read, "Or Lease." R3 said that was a sign of desperation from the owner. Unimpressed, we went inside.
The inside of house three was equally as unimpressive. Whoever had the house previously had not taken care of it. There were small places in the ceiling that needed to be patched. The kitchen was not as up to date and needed cleaning. The backyard had some sort of a hill in in the middle of it as well as a nasty old unkempt, barren rose bush along the back fence. On one side of the house we saw some wire hanging out that had been cut, and on the other side we found that the fence was being held up by rubber bungee cords. The rest of the house was much the same. Cracks had been poorly painted over. There was a foundation leveling issue in the utility room. The whole house just had an air of "unkemptness". But, all that being said, it could all be repaired. On the up side, it was probably the closest to where I work than any other house that I had looked at. With more notes and a few pictures, we proceeded to house four.
House four was an interesting experience. The neighborhood went back to what we had been seeing at the previous houses, and the yard was nicely maintained. Getting in to the house was a small adventure. The owner had left a newly copied key for realtors to use, and it was difficult to fit into the lock. Finally in, we were confronted with a house that was occupied by a decidedly growing family. Every wall was covered with art or knickknacks or other such wall art. There were kids' toys everywhere, and there was a baby gate in the hallway.
Notwithstanding all of the wall coverings, the house seemed to be fairly well maintained, just not as well as the house one. What struck us was the amount of stuff this family had. Every cabinet was full. Every bit of free space was occupied with something. We therefore had a very difficult time seeing the whole house. The backyard had a bonus: it had a covered patio. It also had a dog that we were not expecting, and not knowing if it was a friendly dog or not, we opted not to go outside. The garage was likewise full of stuff, but we found more bonuses. Some cabinets and a workbench had been added. With our tour for the afternoon complete, we returned to square one, compared notes, talked for a bit concerning next steps, and wished each other a good weekend.
R2's call surprised me. For a person trying to make a little money or a sale, she started out a little strangely. She basically told me that because I had talked to R1, she may not get paid, and wondered why I had involved her in the first place. I explained my misgivings about R1's perceived connection with the builder, and the fact that I was looking for outside counsel. After my explanation, she seemed much more cooperative, and we set up a meeting to go through the houses that I had seen on Saturday. She also told me that she'd call R1, and I knew the game was up. I was afraid of how it would end.
Not five minutes after hanging up with R2, I got a call from R1. She was quite put out with me. She proceeded to tell me that she wouldn't get paid unless SHE sold the house, and by my not telling her, she had wasted her time with me. I explained, hopefully politely, that I wanted some external opinions, that I appreciated her help, and by no means had she wasted her time. We parted company at that point, me feeling only slightly bad (after all, we're talking about my monty), but her feeling, I'm quite sure, incensed.
The way I disposed of R1 was not the way I would have preferred, but once I was committed, there really wasn't much I could do. But I still had two realtors on the string, and I was about to go talk to R3's mentor.
R3 sang the praises of his boss; "If anyone knows how to make an offer, he does" said R3. Before we finished our tour on Saturday, he made an appointment to speak to his mentor and boss. After my phone calls with R1 and R2 on Monday, I found myself on my way to R3's establishment. And here something interesting happened. We had just sit down and started to talk, when my cell phone rang. The person on the other end was the partner of R1, whom Nathan and I had met during visit 2. R1's partner knew that R1 had burned her bridges a little too quickly, and was trying to do damage control. I was trying to get off the phone with her, and R3 and Mentor were looking on amusedly. Finally I was able to get off the phone, and Mentor and I started talking.
Mentor and I went over a lot. We covered contracts, loans, option periods, values, price per square foot, and some of his methods of looking at numbers and making determinations. What I wanted to know most was: What should I offer? That turned out to be more complicated question than I knew, but after a lot of explanation, I still didn't have it in hand. Mentor had worked some numbers, and what I saw was two numbers. One number was the price of one of the houses I was looking at, the other was what an offer could be, but the offer was more than the asking price. Mentor had answered the question that I asked, but what I really wanted to know what: How much is the house? After working through a little more thought process, I finally got the answer to both questions, and realized that both were necessary for a good grasp on what pricing should be.
Finally understanding those two pieces of information really got me into a much better understanding. That, combined with the price per square foot average of the area really armed me for making what I thought would be a decent offer. As I was leaving, I told him about the situation with R2, that I wasn't married to her, especially considering the phone calls of the morning, and that I would be in touch. He thanked me for leveling with him, and I went back to work, my head reeling from all the numbers and decisions.
Back over at the houses, we went through them one more time. R2 changed my mind about the model house. Even though it needed work, she was convinced we could get the builder to fix just about everything. What we did see she didn't think was a big deal for that reason. I asked her to look in to the apparent water damage to the ceiling of the garage. Having been through this house four times now, I thought we had gotten just about everything, so we made short work of the inspection.
R2 and I made short work of the other three houses in fact. House one (all houses referred to in visit three referred to the same for visit four) was still a viable option. She liked it and concurred that it would be definite possibility. House four, with which I was fairly impressed, she was dubious about. R2 wasn't as afraid of the dog in the back yard, so we went out to inspect it. What we found gave me a little pause. The cover for the patio really didn't match the house, but that wasn't really a deal breaker. It was the deck that the current tenants were building. And yes, the people living there were tenants, not the owners. That made me even dubious to the point of nearly rejecting it out of hand, but I didn't want to reject anything at this point. Back where we started, we talked for a bit along the same lines that R3 and I had, and we decided to do some more research along our lines of interest before we left the area for the night.
But even without the deed restrictions I had a little niggling thought in the back of my mind that said, "This isn't it. It isn't the time, and this is a mistake." I'd had this thought for quite some time; nearly as long as I'd been seriously considering moving into the area I was looking in to. Mentor told me that I was going through buyer's remorse ahead of time, but that didn't really feel like the right emotion. There was just something in my gut that kept saying NO!
With that thought in mind, I called R3 the next day. I told him that I had the deed restrictions, that they didn't look good, and that I probably wasn't interested. He told me that I should call the city of Fort Worth to see what, if anything, I could do, and to call him with what I found out. Truth be told, I just wanted to quit at this point, and I had no intention of proceeding.
Knowing that I had stopped, I decided to have a little fun. I called R2 and told her about the deed restrictions. Getting deed restrictions removed is a difficult process to say the least, but I wanted to try a little experiment. I asked her if it was possible to make an offer dependent on removing the restrictions. She was kinda shocked, but she told me she'd look into it. That done, I decided to sit back and see what would happen.
My mind was churning so much that I couldn't even sleep that night. I thought and thought, rationalized, ran scenarios, did sums, explored numbers, prayed, did everything but sleep. Several times I got out of bed. I tried to read or watch some TV. I surfed the web a bit. Yet every time I went back to bed I couldn't sleep. Finally, about four-ish in the morning, I decided that I had made a big mistake, and I should make an offer on the first house. That thought now solidified, I resolved to call R2 and tell her I was ready to make an offer.
Several hours later, but still in the morning, I called R2, and directed her to find out if the model house was still available, and if it was indeed water damage in the garage. R2 was a little taken aback--after all, I had just a couple of days previously indicated that I was no longer interested in the area. She bounced back quickly, and got the phones working. A few hours later, she called with the news. The house was available, and the builder assured her that there was no water damage in the garage. In fact, the builder wanted to meet us at the house tonight to get all the paperwork in order.
Now it was my turn to be a little shocked--I had anticipated meeting the next day, Friday, which was my day off, but the builder wanted to get it all done tonight. Moreover, the builder wanted to close on the house in less than seven days! R2 balked at that. "No house can be closed on in seven days." she said. We set up a time for the two of us to meet before meeting with the builder to go over our notes and straighten out any last minute details.
That evening R2 and I met at a nearby coffee shop. R2 had a list of everything we found that needed to be fixed. The list was considerable. The garage needed a new ceiling, trim, and a garage door opener. The trim on the outside of the house in the backyard needed to be fixed in places and replaced in others. The kitchen needed trim work and a couple of cabinet doors refinished. The bathrooms needed doors. A fence had yet to be constructed between this model house and the model next door. I had a few additions to add to the list. I wanted them to mount the ceiling fans we found in the garage in the two remaining bedrooms. The builder had strung up a bunch of computer networking cable, and I wanted that removed. There were a couple of flagpoles in the front yard that needed to come down. Finally, parts of the house needed paint. We finalized our list, and formulated a number that we felt was a good, fair offer. After that we jetted over to the house.
We didn't have long to wait at the house. When we parked, the builder's representative was waiting for us. We all shook hands and proceeded to go in. The key safe had been changed, so we couldn't get in initially. R2 made a few phone calls and got the combo, and we made it in. Representative, R2 and I then carried out our little inspection.
Representative had no problems with what we were asking for. She agreed with most of it straight away. When Representative saw the garage ceiling, she was fairly aghast. According to Representative, the builder had their offices in the garage, and when they pulled out their offices, their contractor did a quickie patch job. But the patch job was unacceptable as performed, even for her. The only thing we ran into resistance on was the ceiling fans, but Representative wasn't prepared to make that a sore point. We all assembled back in the kitchen to go over our offer.
The offer we made was right in the middle of the price range for the price per square foot was in the surrounding neighborhood. But it wasn't good enough for Representative. Our offer was $1,000 below what Builder wanted to sell the house for. I did a little quick thinking and a couple of mental calculations, and decided that I could swing the new offer, even though it was on the higher end of what I was willing to pay. Representative said that it was a good offer, and Builder would agree.
With the agreement made, we proceeded to fill out the paperwork. There is almost as much paperwork in making an offer as there is in signing a lease on an apartment. Which, I suppose, is logical, given that an offer and a lease are both contracts. There were only two hitches. The first involved R2's commission. It has been left a 0%, but it should have been 3%. Both R2 and Representative fixed it, initialed it, and we went on. The other hitch involved the good-faith payment. R2 had forgotten to tell me to bring my checkbook. We did a little talking, and Representative told me that she would be there at 8:00 in the morning, showing the house next door, and I could bring the check at that time. Everything settled and the deal made, we went off for the evening, the next step being bringing a check to Representative the next morning.
I stepped down to Nathan and Susan's house, which is just a few houses down from the one I just bought, to tell them the news. They congratulated me and offered me a bite to eat, but I was so excited and anxious that I couldn't eat. Instead, they offered me a little wine, which I gratefully accepted. After a couple of glasses, I was feeling much better. Thoroughly exhausted, I decided to leave for home. They congratulated me again, and we were all, I believe, looking forward to living on the same block.
When I got to my new house, there was an interesting surprise. Representative was not there, and neither was Builder. One of the two had sent their office girl to meet me and get the check. OG seemed very nice, and we talked about this and that for a bit. Finally, I gave her my check, and she left. The only thing I couldn't help noticing was that none of the houses were being shown. At the time, I didn't think anything of it. I went on about my business, making plans for my anticipated relocation.
For a few hours, I was really excited. I started planning where my office was going to be, where I'd put my furniture, and even how I'd set up my radios. Holidays were played out in my mind in an instant, and I was absolutely overjoyed at the thought of having a place of my own to which I could invite family and friends. All that came crashing down with a single phone call.
OG from Builder called me in the early afternoon. Very reluctantly, and on the verge of tears (or so I fancied), she told me that there was an error on the paperwork that I had signed. Builder wasn't going to honor the price that Representative had said he would the previous night. OG offered to meet me anytime, anywhere to provide me with a new contract to sign. I was absolutely furious! How could something like this happen? I told OG that there was no way I would make a move without consulting R2, and that one or the other of us would be in touch.
If I'd had a real phone, I would have slammed it down in disgust. As it was, I was using my cell phone, so all I could do was angrily punch the disconnect button. I tried calling R2 on my home phone, but I couldn't get through to her, so I sent her a panicked email, and resolved to wait for her to respond. My resolve didn't hold more than ten minutes, and I called her again, this time on my cell phone. R2 answered this time. The conversation did not go well.
R2 told me that OG had called her earlier, and given her the same story: that Builder wasn't going to honor the price Representative had said he would. R2 was herself quite put out. She felt that Builder wasn't behaving correctly, and he should honor what Representative agreed to. R2 had consulted with her manager, and Manager had agreed with R2. But what really got me was what she told me next. R2 told OG not to call me until R2 had consulted with her management and responded to Builder. As it was, Builder had tried to bypass R2 and get at me directly. R2 told me that she would make some calls and see what she could do.
About half an hour or so later, R2 called me and told me that Builder had decided to honor Representative's price. What a difference half an hour makes. While I was waiting for R2 to call me back, my mind ran through a lot of different scenarios. What really got to me, though, was the dishonesty. My friends and family know that when I deal with a person or an organization, I insist on being dealt with honestly. In the past, I had walked away from other deals for smaller issues than this. What, then, should I do? I asked R2 if I could have 24 hours to think it over. She agreed that that was the best thing to do, so I entered into one of the biggest embattled decision-making processes I've ever been in.
I also heard the same from my friend Dave. I called him at work, something I've only done once before. When either of us has something big enough or urgent enough, we'll call each other anytime, anywhere, and he patiently heard me out. His response was just as quick as my dad's. "No, I wouldn't do it if it were me," he said. With that answer of no, I was two-thirds down the path of killing the deal.
Still, I hadn't completely made up my mind. I called Carrie, my friend in Allen. She said that she would go through with it, but at the same time, she's a lot more cold and practical about decisions than I am. Honestly, I expected that response, but she said something that both my dad and Dave had both said. She asked me how badly I wanted the house, and that's what I should base my decision on. Still not convinced, I called Nathan to see if he and Susan would go to dinner with me and hear me out.
Free food is almost never refused, and this was no exception. Nathan said that he and Susan would be happy to go to dinner with me. He also said that he needed help returning his new TV, so I went to his house early. While we were moving the TV, I went through the story once again. Nathan is also very practical, and he started going through all of the details of the deal. Details really wasn't what I was looking for, and I asked him to come at it from a more abstract point of view. He asked me the same question: "How badly do you want the house?"
While we were waiting for Susan to get off from work, we took the TV back to the store where Nathan got the TV. It had started to rain, and the weather matched my mood. Returning the TV took a little time, and I thought about my answer to the question. How badly did I want that house? The answer was: not badly enough to put up with dealing with a sleazy builder and have a little black rain cloud constantly covering that house, causing me doubt. Susan got home, and we all went to dinner. Nobody tried to talk me out of my final decision, and there was, I think, complete understanding of the whole situation. Having finally decided to walk away, I went home from dinner feeling much better.
It didn't take me more than six of the 24 hours to make the decision, so I was going to wait until the next day to call my realtor. Being anxious, I couldn't wait, and decided to hedge my decision and emailed her. I sent an email instructing her to pull the offer and retrieve my good faith check, if possible. That night I slept well. The next day I called and confirmed that she had received my instructions. She had no problem with them, and told me that Manager agreed with me. We parted amicably, and my first search for my first house officially came to an end.
While I didn't get a house this go around, I did get a good education. Seeing the mechanics of looking for a house, finding a realtor, getting loan papers, making an offer, and all of the other motions of buying a house provided an excellent dry run. Next time I try, and there will be a next time, I believe I will be much better prepared.
Oh, by the way, two weeks after all this ends that house is still sitting there, apparently unsold, waiting for another offer.