The New House...and the Complications of Buying a Short Sale and Working with a Crazy Realtor

For those of you who wants the whole story (well, okay, this is actually the short version of it, particularly once I get to the interactions we had with our realtor, but it's going to be a long post...if you want the short version, what you need to do is ask Adam. He'll give you a very short version.)
Several months ago (I'm not sure on the exact timing but I do know it was before Thanksgiving 2013), I was talking to Sandy Watrous, a lovely lady from church who had come over to help out with Zed and Alice, and I mentioned how we were going to outgrow our little house faster than we anticipated. She said, "Oh, I wish you'd buy the house across the street from us!" Well, just out of curiosity, I looked that house up online, but then I pretty much put it out of my mind; I wasn't super impressed with the photos, and it was time to get ready for Christmas, and oh yeah, I had twins to take care of.

Well, as the weather started to warm up in 2014, I would take Zed and Alice out in the stroller and walk around the neighborhood, and I'd frequently see the sign in front of this house (which I will refer to from here on out as the gray house), so I knew it was still for sale. At some point on those walks, my curiosity was piqued again. Adam and I had talked about how we like our ward and don't want to move out of it, but there aren't a whole lot of homes for sale in our ward, and there are actually only a few homes in our ward boundaries that we'd seriously consider (a lot are no bigger than our house; others are twin-homes, and Adam and I aren't twin-home type people). So Adam and I had kinda talked about it a little, and we looked at the pictures online again, and we kinda wondered if we should go look at it

Then, on March 11, Adam texted me to ask if I thought we should go look at the house that night; I responded, "Idk. What do you think?" He said he thought we should go look and that they could show it to us at 5 that evening. Our plan was that we would have the seller's realtor show us the house, and then if we happened to like it, we'd call the realtor we used when we bought our white house...except somehow (to this day, Adam still doesn't know how this happened), the number Adam saw on the listing for the house wasn't for the seller's realtor but was for some other random realtor, who I will call CJ.  CJ showed us the house, and we were surprised; I think we both went into it thinking we would get over there and just know right away that it wasn't a good idea (the photos--and the condition the house was left in--didn't exactly inspire a lot of hope in us). However, as we were walking through the house, rather than being put off by it, we both thought that maybe it could work; it definitely needed work (painting and re-carpeting the whole house and some serious cleaning, among other things), but it was also do-able work.

Well, we thought about things for a few days and we talked to CJ about what selling our home would entail. He was VERY optimistic in what he thought our house would go for; we were surprised to hear he thought it was worth as much as he thought it was, but hey, he's supposed to be the expert, right? We decided to go ahead and put an offer in on the gray house and put our house up for sale. We knew that this could be somewhat complicated because the gray house was a short sale and the seller's realtor said that Wells Fargo (the bank holding the mortgage) wouldn't consider our offer without us having our home sold. (At this point, I will note that we debated whether to keep CJ or go with our preferred realtor, and we ended up sticking with CJ pretty much out of guilt, just cuz we felt bad that he was expecting us to use him...so it turned out to be like a several-months-long pity date, and it was a terrible idea.)

So, we put our offer and put our house up for sale, and we quickly realized that CJ had been way high in the price that he recommended we list our house for. So we lowered our asking price, and we got an offer that was even lower than that, but CJ reminded us we needed to have our house sold in order to be considered by the bank for the short sale. So, with that in mind, plus what turned out to be a communication error from CJ in which he made it sound like we'd be netting more money than we actually would (and of course we didn't discover the error until months later), we accepted the offer...only to find out that the seller for the short sale filed bankruptcy, which meant Wells Fargo couldn't even give us a decision on the house because the seller had to go to court and get the house discharged back to the debtor.

Well, CJ assured us that would happen just after Mother's Day...except, when the seller went to court, it took longer than expected so then the judge had 21 to 45 days to get through his case...and he took the full 45, which took us into the beginning of July. At that point, the debt was discharged back to the debtor and our realtor told us we should have an answer from Wells Fargo within 48 hours. Well, 72 hours later, we heard from CJ that we needed to extend until July 31st. When I asked him what the hold up was, he said there wasn't one (Really? 48 hours and the end of July aren't the same thing to me but apparently they are to CJ.) but that Wells Fargo's employee working on this was new and needed to have time to review all of the files. Good grief.

We did get the approval on July 24th, and we quickly got our inspection done and were ready to move forward, but then our buyers were slow getting their inspection done and then the inspector they used was INSANE. He was seriously really weird with the comments that he put on his inspection--like that the appliances (including our fridge which is 2 years old) were all marginal because of old age (but the swamp cooler that he estimated to be 35 years old and only half works was acceptable), that we probably had asbestos in the basement floors because of the age of the house (uh...Adam and I put those floors in and we've only lived here 3 years, and given that we barely use the basement, they certainly don't look old enough to have asbestos in them), etc. So then he kinda freaked the buyers out, and then our realtor made it sound like they might back out entirely. They ended up submitting a lower offer than we really wanted to accept but we accepted it, rather than countering since CJ made it sound like these people were completely unreasonable and weren't going to meet us in the middle and would just walk away if we didn't do exactly what they wanted.

Then it came time to close on the house, and we needed to get a rental agreement from our buyers, since they had said we could rent the house back from them while we were fixing up the new house. Well, once again, CJ made it sound like they were completely unreasonable people and were playing hardball here and were demanding a $900 deposit and $40 per day for rent  and wanted us out as soon as possible because they were mad that the whole process had taken so long because they had wanted their kids to work on fixing up the house over the summer and just wouldn't work with him on this at all. So, Adam and I were getting really frustrated and worried that if we went and signed all the papers to close, these people were going to show up at the door demanding we get out, since we did not want to pay a deposit and thought $40 per day for rent was a little high. But again, CJ is making these people out to be the devil incarnate, pretty much, so Adam and I are trying to figure out if we need to go rent a storage unit and if we can stay with my sister and how we're going to get the house finished super quickly, etc. (And in the middle of this, for an extra does of awesomeness, every member of our family got the stomach flu and threw up and had body aches and felt awful.)

Adam ended up talking to the buyers directly, skipping CJ and all his crazy talk, and they were super NICE people who didn't want a deposit at all, wanted a much more reasonable rent, and assured him that this is our home and we can rent from them as long as we need to while we're fixing up the new house. Adam said they apologize profusely for the confusion, made sure that he and I had both of their cell phone numbers and knew we could just skip CJ for any further communication, and said that we could take as long as we need to get the new house fixed up and we don't need to feel rushed at all. So, yeah, totally nice, reasonable people...not at all what CJ described. (And, we didn't ask them about this, but we did a little Facebook stalking, and considering that their five children range in age from about 5 to 15, I don't think they were going to have them do a whole lot of repair work on this house. Cleaning, maybe, but I don't think most kids are qualified to do roofing or electrical work.)

So, we went and signed the paperwork to sell our house and then signed all the paperwork to buy the new house, and the seller for the new house did NOT sign the paperwork to sell it when he was supposed to (OF COURSE!)...but he did sign it the next day, and finally, finally, Adam and I were able to purchase the house that we have been trying to buy since March. And I guess for a short sale, that's actually fast, but it still feels slow, and it was made worse by having a realtor who is either completely incapable of communication clearly or delusional...or maybe both.

And now we move onto the house repairs...

New Floors!

For the past couple months, whenever we've had spare time, we've been working on our floors. (And by we, I really mean mostly Adam but I did help!) We had some pretty ugly linoleum in our house...but we also had a couple of hard wood floors that made us wonder if the whole upstairs had the same hard wood buried underneath the ugly linoleum, which it did. So, we decided to pull up all the ugly linoleum, which took FOREVER. In the spare room, the stupid brown linoleum was so old that we couldn't just melt the glue and pull the tiles up; we literally had to take a chisel to the floor and scrape the tiles up--and the first time through, only the top half of the tiles would come up, so we had to do this TWICE in order to get the bottom layer off, too. Ugh.
So, moving onto the hallway, that was supposed to be easier...and the top layer of linoleum came up nice and easily...but it turns out there was another layer underneath (some weird blue linoleum that has to have been from the 70s). So, more scraping with a chisel :(
That left the kitchen--which was originally where Adam had started, but then he realized that the floor underneath was super sticky after the linoleum was pulled up, so he stopped in there and did the spare room and hallway and then returned to the kitchen. That was the easiest to pull up, but then we had to put cardboard and paneling over the floor in order to walk on it until we could move on to the next step because we would literally get stuck in it.
So, next, Adam used a bunch of chemicals (which he just told me was called "Adam's mixture of fun") to de-stickify the kitchen floor, and even more chemicals to deal with the dumb hallway. (Good thing we didn't have to pull up linoleum in the living room and our bedroom!)
Next, it was finally time to sand....
Adam and I both had Tuesday off; he went and rented a sander from Ace, having consulted with a worker there who assured him he'd have no problems; the machine he was renting would be great. Well, about 1.5 hours or 2 hours into the sanding and having only done about 3 square feet, we realized the Ace guy was NUTS. Adam went to Home Depot and got a heavier duty machine, which worked much better. He then went over all the floors with that machine a couple times and I followed behind with the wimpier sander to give the floors a smooth finish. We got the main areas of the floors done, but we still had to do the edges, which required renting yet another machine from Home Depot. By this point, I was pretty wiped out and went to bed, but Adam stayed up until 1:30 in the morning working on the edges. He finished that up, but then there were still some spots (like under the counter edges and in the corners) that had to be done by hand...which takes us to Wednesday.
I actually had to work on Wednesday, but Adam took a vacation day so he could work on the floor some more. He got the hand sanding done, applied the base coat and did 3 layers of the finish in all of the rooms but the kitchen, so I came home on Wednesday to beautiful floors! (And hey, even unfinished the kitchen floor looked way better than it did with the linoleum.)
On Thursday, Adam finished up the hand sanding in the kitchen (despite going to work and a church meeting, meaning he was out of the house for a good 12 hours). He even put down the base coat before going to bed. Then Friday morning, he got 2 coats of the finish done before going to work and came home on his lunch break to put the final coat on.
So, after tons and tons and tons of effort...we have nice floors!! YAY!


This is the before and after of the living room. The living room actually had a nice floor, but it was faded in one spot, and we knew it would be pretty much impossible to match the stain of the other floors to it, so we sanded it down and refinished it anyway.

This is the before and after of our bedroom. It's hard to tell with the rug there, but this floor was pretty scratched up...but still the second best floor in the house.

This is the before and after of the spare room...which had the UGLIEST linoleum in the history of linoleum. Brown parquet? Seriously? YUCK. I have hated that linoleum from the second I saw it!

This is the before and after of the kitchen. The linoleum in there wasn't as ugly, but it was very worn and needed to go.

We didn't take a before picture of the hallway, but the linoleum in there was brown and white-ish and not terrible but definitely not as pretty as a hard wood floor!

 Anyway, I'm thrilled with the new floors and very appreciative of my amazing husband and all of the hard work he does to improve our house.

One (Almost) Completed Room

We've been working on finishing one of the rooms in our basement,and after a long process of what felt like one step forward and then two steps back, we are finally done (except that I haven't finished organizing it, and the doors still need their knobs). It has been an interesting adventure to get from where it was to where it is now...

We started with no door, just this open area...
some painted/wallpapered fake wood paneling (but no insulation behind the paneling on the exterior walls) and the world's scariest wiring.
We had to rip down the paneling, and some rotten drywall, and we found some lovely hidden treasures, such as the sink below the stairs...
...and a hole in that we believe was once used for storing nuts.
We did the framing...
...and dealt with the whacky wiring (and believe me, this long, tangled cable cord was the best example of "wiring" in the room...I think we're lucky the house hadn't burned down).

We painted...
...and we thought that we were almost done...but then we got moisture and mold behind some of the paneling (although where the water was coming from is a mystery, as of yet unsolved.) So down came the paneling, as well as some of the insulation, and up went some weird moisture-resistant foam stuff and new paneling.

And finally, a finished, albeit not quite organized, room!
And, with my newly finished room, I decided it was time to get busy with a craft...so here it is!

This Old House

Besides a sink walled up underneath our stairs, Adam found another little treasure in our basement. This hole is underneath our outside stairs up to kitchen door. We think, given the evidence of old walnuts, that it was once used as a storage space, but then at some point, someone boarded it up and put drywall over it...except that they didn't use treated wood or anything, so the wood rotted and the drywall got all wet and yucky, too. So, we had to rip it all down and remove it and seal it up.

It's not quite as funny as the sink under the stairs, but it's still interesting to see what sorts of little surprising keep popping up as we're trying to finish the basement.

Basement Fix Up

We've started working on our basement, starting with what will be our "everything" room (crafts, music, etc.).

This is how it looked at first: fake wood paneling...which might not be so bad if there were actually insulation underneath it, but there wasn't. Also, there's one outlet for the whole room...
Adam pulled down the paneling and drywall and everything...and made an interesting discovery under the stairs...yes, that is a sink...because naturally, when you build a house, you hide a spare sink under the stairs, behind the drywall. Right?
This is where we started, with bare walls and lots of work to do.
This is what we got done: framing for one wall. Doesn't seem like a lot, but hey, it's progress. And I got to measure, hammer, and use the radial saw.

Garden

Our garden is growing! We've started eating the lettuce, chard, and spinach (and sharing it with Ruby), and I can't wait to see how the rest of the stuff turns out. There's definitely something to be said for self-sufficiency.

Changes

On Tuesday, we closed on our house; on Thursday, we received the keys and started moving in! It's an older home and needs a little TLC, but overall, we're very happy with it. And the people in the neighborhood seem nice; the Relief Society president stopped by on Thursday and the ward's membership clerk stopped by on Friday. He told me the neighbors' names (which I forgot) and when trash day is and stuff like that. Everyone seems very friendly so far. (And, to my single friends, I haven't seen him yet, but I've been told one of our next door neighbors is a single guy...)

So, come take a photo tour of our house:

Front of house (obviously)

front room

bedroom

bathroom

spare room (which is being used as a library/craft room/music room/exercise room)

kitchen/dining room

stairs down to the basement (it's not finished so I didn't bother taking pictures down there)

We also decided it's time to expand our family, so...meet Ruby:

Ruby is our tiny little rabbit, and she's adorable and funny. When she's in her box, she stays in one corner, and yesterday when I took her out, she was pretty content to stay in one place as well. However, today, she has already become braver; she will run all over the house, sniffing everything. And she realized that she can jump over some things (like my legs) and squeeze under others, so she has set off exploring everything.