The Crazy Old Lady Who Lived in an...

Nope, not shoe, but in an old run down house just down the road from where we had made an offer on the previous piece of land. It is funny because it was right down the same road just south of the other house by about 10 or so houses. This was a house that has sat empty for a little while. It was on 6.67 acres and had a nice barn with 4 stalls and water and electric. There was fencing and the like but it had been neglected for years and would need to be repaired. The piece of property was fairly narrow at 185 feet but was very deep and on a rolling hill that rose at the back of the property by probably 30 to 50 feet. This house needed some major repairs and was missing a window or two. The roofing needed replaced, the hot water heater was bad, and the floors were torn up because the lady had kept animals inside. I said it before, but I still don't understand it, what possesses people to allow animals to rip their house up? Although these are things that would take a lot of work, we were fairly excited that we wouldn't be facing a whole lot of competition from other bidders. Whoever bid on this house and property had to really want it and be willing to do the work. We contacted the realtor and set up a visit. This was another property that wasn't being lived in at the time. It amazes me that there were two of these properties that were like this. The doors weren't locked and I had went out to look over things at least a half dozen times after that initial visit. It was probably not the wisest idea because I became somewhat attached to the property before we bid on it as I envisioned the various improvements and layouts that I would make. Ah, yes, a chicken coop over there, and a tool shed over here... few years down the road I will build a new barn with living space above it here... So as we bid, we included the cost of the repairs in our bid to be given back by the owner. We had the highest bid that had been placed on the house and it was a solid and fair bid. We didn't want to be outbid again, something about the last house had left us a little gun shy. With all the repairs that were needed and winter coming up, we were confident that we would get the house. The lady, who was selling it wanted someone to take over her mortgage for here. It was only three years old and she had been living in the house for about 15 years so she must have just refinanced it. On top of taking over her mortgage she wanted twenty thousand dollars. It was not a very realistic expectation, especially since she must have taken quite a bit of the equity out of the house when she refinanced. We were about eight thousand off with the offer we made to her and felt that this was a fair offer since we were not even sure if the appraisal would carry the offer we made or not. So we submitted the bid and waited somewhat confidently to hear from the realtor and expected to haggle for a few thousand dollars here or there.

What we got in reality was a rejection of the offer within about 6 hours of making it. We could hear the frustration in the realtors voice as she told us that the lady rejected the offer. We could hear the reluctance as she told us what the seller had said. The seller had said we had to meet her price because she wasn't going to budge on it. We kindly asked the realtor to explain to this delussional lady that if she held on to the house at her current mortgage and had to heat it during the winter (with 2 windows missing) that it would total more than the $8,000.00 difference between us and her. Furthermore, if she chose not to heat the house there would be even more problems with further deterioration of the house that would make it harder to sell.

The crazy old lady (in my opinion) said she would rather let the house be repossesed than to negotiate on the house. We left her with that option and continued on our merry hunt for a homestead. The realtor, who we were very pleased with, later told us that someone had offered two thousand dollars more than we did and she still refused it. The total offer wasn't more than us, but the amount she would have gotten was. I am still flabbergasted that she continues to let it sit vacant.

As you can imagine, after two instances like this we were very wary of getting our hopes up any further. But don't you know it, we stumbled on another house, but that is another post for another day.