Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Desperation

At the end of yesterday's post, I left you in the parking lot of our realtor's office.  Brett and I were hot, sweaty, dirty (climbing all those steep hills) and discouraged.  We drove our rental car to Sacramento where we located my temporary housing complex.  Starting this coming Saturday, it will be my home-away-from-home until we can be together, in our own place, in the Sacramento area.  We sat on the terrace of an Italian restaurant, ate pizza, guzzled ice tea and talked about the afternoon. 

After discussing the highs and lows of the properties, the mis-information on listings, and the inability of Google maps and Google Earth to give us a really accurate picture of terrain, Brett brought up the log house we liked so much.  That property was relatively flat, with a barn, an arena, and two pastures.  Other than the rotting wood and the out-of-touch-with-reality owner, it was perfect.  Remember it?

We had a couple of hours to kill before our flight home so we drove up to El Dorado and cruised by the property.  It was a beautiful drive and the land was as well organized as we remembered.  Brett parked the car on the shoulder of the narrow road and walked along the street-side fencing.  It was dusk and the house was dark.  When we previewed the house last month, the owner told us that the water and gas were turned off.  The house did not look lived it; most of the furniture was gone and there were cobwebs on the windows. 

One of Brett's concerns about the house is a cement walkway that runs along the side of the house (the left side of the house in the picture).  The cement is poured too high against the house and it didn't appear to have a way for water to flow off.  It is also the area with the most wood damage. Brett wanted to take a look at the cement and see if it could be "fixed."  The gate was ajar so we slipped inside.  Brett strode purposefully across the front lawn towards the cement area.  I followed, with less purpose, so a flickering from the inside of the house caught my attention.  A TV was on.  I told Brett and we high-tailed it back out the gate.  Either someone was sitting in the dark house watching TV or the TV was on for security purposes.  We didn't stick around to find out. 

This morning I talked to the realtor that is helping us with our new home search.  He advised us to not act out of desperation.  He reminded me that this house is priced higher than the awesome kitchen house on the hill.  It should be priced significantly less based on its lack of view, dark log interior, inspection issues, etc.  The owner is not willing to be reasonable.  He reminded me that we are dealing with an out-of-touch, unreasonable owner and it would not be wise to buy an overpriced home with lots of issues.  He assured me that the right place will come along; that our place will sell; that it will all work out and that we don't need to make choices based on desperation.  Excellent advice. 

17 comments:

  1. maybe the tv was on as a warning - just to get you two out of there for another reason. :)

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  2. Great Realtor! Lots of people wait until the magic month of May to put properties on the market. Wait and see what gems appear.

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  3. Eek! Freaky about that TV being on. I hope they either come down to reality or you find the perfect house - whichever is easier :)

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  4. Looking for the right house can be torture. Either the unreasonable owner will see the light, in time, or you'll find a good place in the interim. Rooting for you . . .

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  5. Give it some time, it is very early days in a real estate hunt.

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  6. Sounds like a good realtor ...in the end follow your heart ...home is where the heart is :)

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  7. Hang in there....things happen for a reason and I know something is going to turn up. You will have time to look around after work during the week. Good luck with your new job and apartment. Please keep us posted.
    Give Brett my phone number in case he has any cooking questions...ha ha.

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  8. I feel bad for you, this is so stressful, but your realtor has a lot of experience, and has seen it all before. So good that you listened to his advice. All the best to you.

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  9. When we were looking for our property we made a list of what we could and could not live with, and a "if this is right, than this can be not so right" list and gave it to our realtor. We looked at 10-15 properties and finally made an offer on our current house. It's not perfect but we have everything we need. We have a functioning barn and a functioning house.... and there's tons of projects, but we couldn't afford a perfect place. It is slowly become more and more lovely every time we work on it :)

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  10. Yes, give it time, it's early days yet.
    If you sell Aspen Meadows quickly could you maybe rent a place that's less than perfect while you wait for the right place to come along?

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  11. Hi Annette and Brett. The Realtor is correct. We have a very wise saying here in Scotland, " What`s for you, will not go by you!"

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  12. OMG! I had to go back and read all the posts leading up to this one. You're moving away from beautiful Aspen Meadows!!! I can sure understand why though, now that I realize you commute 2 hours each way to work. I didn't know oyu did that. It would be awful. I've been commuting 1 hour 45 minutes each way to ride Rogo and it killed me. I had to cut back to one or two rides a week.
    Congratulations on your great new job! So happy for you and I know everything is going to work out. Aspen Meadows is beautiful and will sell quickly I'm sure.
    It sounds like your training with Winston is going really well - the canter work sounded very nice.
    I'll be looking forward to more updates. Chin up! :)

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  13. You have a MARVELOUS realtor and the perfect place will come along....and you will know it when you see it I promise! Sending good energy to you and that Aspen Meadows gets a great owner as well.

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  14. Living apart will be very hard, but it is definitely too early to settle. Your realtor sounds wise.

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  15. You have a very wise realtor .Listen:) B

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  16. Oh I don't envy you in trying to find a place if you are in a time crunch. It is hard to be patient but I hope you can give yourself some time. The log house is very cool though.

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  17. How nice that your realtor is looking our for your best interests before considering his commission. I rushed a lot of things while moving, and in retrospect I wonder why I was in such a hurry. I could have slowed down and got better results. I was always trying to save money and time, but in the end I had more of both than I realized.

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Thanks so much for commenting!