© 2018 | Erik Richter
By Erik Richter Posted in Learning on January 4, 2018 0 Comments
Totally amped on the excitement and hype of finding A place, imagine our disappointment when we found out the advertised 2-car garage was only 1.5, and it would not be THE place. We would also find out it was not the last of our disappointments, either…
We looked at this first home on November 9th, a little over a month after our engagement. Originally, we had planned on waiting until March or April to start our search, once snow melted and we could see yards, but our Realtor advised we start looking ASAP. All I can say is, I am glad we did…because it took us a solid 2 months to find a place and had we started in April, we would have definitely needed to settle. As it turns out, very few people search for homes during the holiday seasons, so we were lucky in that sense. The bad part about it was, not many homes go on the market during the holiday seasons, either…so, at times, pickings were quite slim.
Before starting, we made a list of “must-haves,” “nice-to-haves,” and “don’t needs.” …and then, after getting pre-approved and meeting with our Realtor, promptly revised our lists after discovering “fireplaces in the master bedroom,” “huge walk-in closets,” and “heated floors” are non-existent in homes in our price range. What do you mean we can’t have “great views with lots of windows with 1-way glass?!” I guess it will have to wait for our second home.
So…we started our search!
Laura and I both downloaded all four major real estate apps on our phones…Redfin, Realtor, Zillow, and Trulia…and went to work at fine tuning our saved searches and notifications. We started with all four to see which was the best, ultimately settling on Redfin, because of their collaboration feature, and using Realtor as a supplement. Don’t even bother with Zillow…homes never get updated on it and you may find yourself asking your Realtor for details on a home that sold over two months ago but is still listed as “For Sale.” I did on two occasions and then deleted the app.
We made the decision to physically tour everything in our price range, even if the pictures were off, because you can’t get an idea of the space until you do.
If I may pass along one of the biggest things we discovered in our search…”Pictures LIE!” If a seller has enough money for a professional photographer to take their listing pics, the photographer can make a beat up shack look like a high-end bungalow…and they did. Space sizes are completely off and you can’t see find-detailed items…just the big picture. Don’t even get me started on forced angles. Pictures may give you an idea of the home, but you need to physically see it to make a decision…so don’t get excited about a place until that happens. It got to the point where we made the decision to physically tour everything in our price range, even if the pictures were off, because you can’t get an idea of the space until you do.
One of the cool things about the Realtor app is, they offer something called “3D Tour” on certain homes. This feature simulates a first-person view of walking through that home and can give an awesome idea of its floor plan. But we still looked. Some homes also conveniently omitted pictures of less-than-desirable features, like staircases in the middle of the kitchen or cracked walls in the basement. I get it…sellers want to sell their houses…but some of the marketing was, borderline, sleazy.
“This search will be a roller coaster. There will be ups and downs. But each house you don’t choose is only one house closer to the one you do choose.”
In the initial first few weeks of our search, we were inundated with a large assortment of homes in our price range. It was great! We could pick and choose and dream and scheme. We wondered why people thought searching for a home is hard, knowing, at this rate, we would find a home in a week! What happened next, I can only analogize with online dating…
Laura and I found each other on Match.com, so we were well-versed in the similarities. When you sign up for online dating, there is a large pool of potential suitors the app throws your way. The reason why is simple statistics, though, and not because there are that many people looking for mates. Before I signed up, there were numerous people already on Match who had not been able to find anyone…and they were all filtered into a digital pool, waiting for the app to release them to me in my first few days of membership. When they were released to me, and after I saw ALL these options, I thought, “This is the best $60 I ever spent! I’ll find a woman by next week!” But once I had seen their “New Membership Pool,” mostly consisting of people who had been rejected by others for whatever reason, I quickly realized quality candidates were few and far between. Match had exhausted all my options…so new candidates slowly trickled in after.
The same was true with our house search. After we exhausted all of that “Initial Pool,” mainly consisting of homes that had many defects and were still on the market for a reason, new homes were extremely rare and we quickly grew discouraged. It was at this point our Realtor conveyed some wisdom. “This search will be a roller coaster. There will be ups and downs. But each house you don’t choose is only one house closer to the one you do choose.” This is something Laura and I needed to remind ourselves of frequently…especially when we went through whole weeks where no new homes went on the market. But even though we had not found the right house yet, we were getting experiences with the process. We were learning more about homes. We were learning more about what to look for and what is a good investment. We also learned more about what we wanted. We learned location TOTALLY matters and that we should not settle for something that isn’t quite right…because something that is will come along. Had I jumped at any one of those initial suitors on Match, and settled, simply because I wanted a relationship, I would have never met Laura. Trust me. The wait is worth it. We are both living proof in SO many ways!
Let me talk about location for a bit.
When we started, our search perimeter was quite large. All the areas we blocked off were good, but some were better than others. Ultimately, it came down to this decision…”What do I value more? Having a larger house that may not appreciate as much in an area that is farther from things OR buy a smaller house in an area that is close to everything where our investment will truly grow.” …and we really flip-flopped on these two things throughout the search. I had 4 search perimeters saved in Realtor. Starting off we wanted the better investment/smaller home. But after not seeing anything come on the market in that area, we decided to settle and broaden our perimeter. This was eye-opening… “You mean to tell me I can get this big, beautiful house over here for the same price I would pay for that small house over there that needs a ton of repairs?” …and at first glance, we wanted the bigger, better looking house…after all, it was staring us right in the face. It was this decision that led us to our first offer and taught us a very important lesson about real estate…
The first time we stepped foot into Crest View Terrace, we swooned. Literally. Goosebumps everywhere. This was a beautiful, modern, recently renovated home that was still really close to the “better” area, and had everything we dreamed of having; Stainless steel appliances, fresh paint, beautiful flooring, an open floor plan, a finished basement, and a beautiful field stone fireplace. “You mean to tell me this could me MY home?!” We were mesmerized…hypnotized…completely under its spell…so much so, we put an offer in, right away, for almost exactly what the sellers were asking for. We went through all the paperwork of our first offer and were filled with great hope and nervousness as we waited to hear back. It was accepted! We were in heaven! …and we couldn’t wait to get in there!
Laura and I decided to go back the next day and poke around the outside as we started to dream up living in our new home. When we arrived, we were fortunate enough contractors were working on a few things and they invited us in. “Wow…there isn’t much cabinet space in the kitchen, is there?” “Is this a broken window?” “Look at the shoddy job they did with this bathroom!” “Who painted this? A three-year-old?” Let me just say, due diligence is not just an alliteration, and a buyer should always do it before placing an offer.
Be extremely wary of flipped homes and always do your due-diligence before putting an offer in.
With a fresh, more-critical eye, and snapped out of the house-hypnosis from the previous night, we discovered a good majority of the remodeling inside was haphazardly completed, sloppy, and, mostly, a facade. This house was a flip. The sellers purchased it for really cheap, remodeled the inside, and planned to sell it for a lot more, thus making a substantial profit in the process. With the explosion of HGTV and all of the house flipping shows on television, it’s no wonder even the least-handy of people feel compelled to flip a home as an easy way to make a quick buck. …and I imagine it would be IF the remodel was done properly. Sadly, and as we later found out in a few other flipped homes, a person flipping a home takes no pride in that home because they do not have to live there. As a result, the work is done with the cheapest materials, and as quickly as possible, just to save money and make more profit. It just needs to look good to attract buyers into that same hypnosis we fell into. Only after the new owners have spent a few months in their “new” home will they realize this and, by then, it will be too late to go back.
After this experience, I would advise any potential buyer to be extremely wary of flipped homes and always do your due-diligence before putting an offer in. I’m not saying all flipped homes are bad, but many are. Fortunately for us we realized this right away and were able to get out of the contract due to many items that were not disclosed about the house by the seller…but let me tell you, we were sweating-it-out and nervous thinking, because we had an accepted offer, we owned that house. Our Realtor later let us know that, in a home search, buyers may write a dozen offers with a handful getting accepted before finding the right home. But a house is not officially sold until closing.
A few weeks after we got out of the contract with Crest View Terrace, we decided to re-evaluate our priorities and commit to looking for the smaller home in the better area that would be a better investment. We’ve been repeatedly told location is everything when it comes to real estate, and this better location was highly desirable…which is why homes were not coming on the market in it. It was sometimes hard to stick with this new notion, especially when we saw so many homes go on the market outside the area, thus creating major FOMO, but we held our guns and wouldn’t draw. Along with this new strategy, we also knew we would probably need to fix up any home we bought, given they cost more and looked less-pretty than the others. Laura and I started watching a lot more HGTV. I used to hate that station. I love it now! Two of our favorites are Fixer Upper and Property Brothers. These shows specialize in educating buyers that, if they buy a cheaper, dumpy home, they can transform it into a beautiful, appreciated, dream home with a little sweat equity and time…and unlike a flip, the buyer will actually be living in the work they perform, taking great pride in it and making their home better. The stories are extremely inspirational…and they were just the inspiration we needed to realize that we should not judge a house by how it looks cosmetically. A fresh coat of paint and new carpet can completely transform even the worst-looking houses. While our “new strategy” homes may not look as pretty, if their bones were as solid as their location, we could definitely turn one into our beautiful palace and an amazing investment.
This mindset, along with patience and trust in God, ultimately led us to Roomerg Road..the house we will make our home!