jgann

4. The Process

john@jgann.com (John Gann) — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 01:28:55 GMT

Did we mention it's a foreclosure?

Yep, that's why the price was dropping. Here's the rundown on the issues we knew about:

It's a foreclosure - the property had already been auctioned off at the courthouse steps. The bank that was carrying the note bought it.
The house is occupied. The information said the purchaser would need to have them evicted.
There's about 12 "Private Property - No Trespassing" signs
The shop comes with the property. It's large, and nice
We can't inspect or view the house before we purchase it.
It's a cash deal - no financing option
It's on an Auction site that specialized in foreclosures.

I mean, think about it - what could go wrong?

We started praying about it, asking God that if was the place for us to make it clear and obvious. There were some big hurdles: The biggest would be coming up with cash up front, before we had a chance to even put our house on the market, then there's the issue of storing our stuff if we can't get the people out before we sell our house.

As He always has done in our lives, things started to fall into place. Within a few days we had secured a Line of Credit that would let us cover the $ side of things. Next we went into hyperdrive to get our house on the market, we had three showings the first day it was listed and an offer on day three!

Ok, God - here we go.

Next hurdle: Win the auction.

3. The House

john@jgann.com (John Gann) — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 01:16:31 GMT

Trying to Understand what it is we might want to buy

Thanks to some aggressive price drops we're now investigating this blurry picture house. It's listed as a 3 Bedroom - 2 Bath / 2 Car Garage around 1700 sq ft. The good news is, I'm trained to dig in and find the details of houses for sale. I hit the MLS and start digging to find absolutely nothing.

The MLS only shows information on houses that have been sold through the system, and this one hasn't ever been sold before. Everywhere I searched I came up with very little information. The listing says it's a 3/2 and we can see a two car garage but that's about it. Looking at the house on Google Earth Pro I measured the layout and it's well over the listed 1700 something sq ft - more in the 3000' range.

We finally drove by the house to get a look. Here's the other wrinkle on this - it's a foreclosure, and we can't look inside the house or bother the occupants. On the plus side, the house looked to be in great shape, it has a large shop with it and a really big lot. Ok, we're really interested now. By the way did I mention it's in a great are that I didn't even know existed!

So, here we go. Let's see if we can get this house.

2. The Search

john@jgann.com (John Gann) — Tue, 25 Jun 2024 14:37:05 GMT

Sadly, not in Australia - it would be interesting though!

Being a guy that is a paid professional in helping find a new house, I did the basic step of creating a search meeting our criteria:

In the same general area - we want to stay close to Isaac, Misty and the grand kids & our parents
Affordable (remember that retirement thing?)
Bonus Factors:
No HOA
A Sewing Room for Joann
A Shop for John
Did I mention affordable?

So, I built the search, and kept an eye on it. The first houses we not very reassuring, they were way small in both house and lot, and not much in the way of a location that we'd really be excited about. I waited and watched, then waited some more, and got a little more disappointed.

Every week or two the same blurry picture of a house showed up. The image was taken from the front of the house, looking through a chain-link fence at a blurry image of a house that was listed as somewhere in the 1700 sq ft. range. I would glance at it, then delete it.

But then the price started dropping...

The 1st drop was $31k. It's not unusual for people to start high on the price (some people think that's still where the market was), and then adjust it down some. This was a big jump right off the bat.
The 2nd drop was an additional $27k - ok, now you're getting my attention.
The 3rd drop was an additional $25k - fine, I'll actually click and see what's up with this fuzzy picture house

But wait, there's more!

The 4th drop was an additional $16k
The 5th drop an additional $15k

Let me save you the mental effort of adding that up: $114,000!

So, now you understand why we took a deeper look. Next up: realizing just what the house is - and has.

Why change?

john@jgann.com (John Gann) — Mon, 24 Jun 2024 17:48:03 GMT

So many people are now tracking this adventure - it's time to document and keep things updated...

That's always a good question to start with. We moved into the Bolen Street house for several reasons:

An amazing pool & backyard
An ensuite bathroom for Isaac & Misty

Joann had wanted to put in a pool at the last house, but based on the slope of the yard and other factors it was going to be crazy expensive for a very basic pool. Bolen Street had everything we could dream of in a back yard - pool, spa, water-slide, waterfall, natural gas fire pit, large covered patio with built-in kitchen, oh yeah - there was also a house attached to it! At the time we bought the house we were multi-generational and the ensuite bathroom was a really nice thing for Isaac & Misty - so put everything together and it was a great move.

But then Isaac & Misty moved out to their own place, we tried to negotiate them leaving Cora & Levi with us but talks quickly broke down as we came to our senses! So now we have a 3200+ sq ft. home, 4 bedroom, 4 bath, two-story house for two people. As my wife the account would say - that's not really sustainable from a budget standpoint. Then, throw in the fact that she would actually like to retire someday and it came down to either start a long term plan to sell off our organs or downsize.

So, we determined it was probably better overall to downsize. We've loved living there, we had some great neighbors that will always be important to us, but new adventures have always been a part of our life so here we go...