There were a couple houses that looked promising, but I was very interested in a cute little home in Gaston, not far from where I currently live. The home is a two bedroom, one bath with a partially finished daylight basement and a third of an acre of property. It is set back from the main gravel road and surrounded by trees and a big, open field that gives the home a lot of privacy. The inside was definitely a cosmetic redo but there didn't appear to be anything structurally wrong with the home. Since we plan to use VA financing to purchase, there are very strict stipulations on what condition the house can be in prior to lending. We knew there would probably be a couple things that they would want repaired: water entry into the basement, a broken toilet, some missing plumbing under the sink, moss on the roof, and the installation of a couple wall heaters. Otherwise, it looked fine to move forward.
Because the property was a foreclosure, we had to deal with a bank as a seller. This was a very frustrating process as we scurried around to gather everything we needed to start the lending process and submit an offer. Because Andrew is in Afghanistan, I had to do most of the footwork (along with my Mother in Law, Jennifer) myself. Even with him being deployed, we were still able to get everything done extremely quickly. The seller on the other hand dragged their feet and acted like they really had no interest in selling the home. After a couple set backs, we finally had a strong offer on the table and the seller was ready to move forward. After they accepted our offer, we were then told they could not turn on utilities due to open permits on the electrical work and issues with the plumbing. Unfortunately, our appraiser for the VA had already gone out since we were assured the utilities would be turned on that day for the inspection. Because we are charged for that service (quite a chunk), I was willing to hold out and see what could be done to fix the issues.
Over the next several months it turned into a convoluted mess. More and more repairs kept cropping up and the seller was being uncooperative and unwilling to negotiate. I had been ready to walk on the deal for months except that I was worried about our earnest money and the money we had spent on the appraisal. In hind sight, I should have never even bothered putting an offer in on the house, but hindsight is 20/20 right? After so much heartbreak and anticipation of having to drop the deal, the bank unexpectedly offered to pay for all the repairs on the required punch list. We took them up on the offer and got to work having everything fixed and brought up to code/VA requirements. I put my own elbow grease into it and so did Andrew's family; they selflessly helped me to check each thing off the list.
After getting my hopes up again and starting to feel excited about having a home to move into and prepare for Andrew's homecoming, the bombshell hit. The seller had had the utilities turned on and the water was not flowing correctly from the main to the faucets. Anticipating a costly repair for that, I knew the seller was not going to pay for it. On top of that, a peg board in the basement was removed to unveil a bowing foundational wall. There is no way the VA would ever approve lending with those two major issues and I knew we were done. After a good cry, I let my MIL know that we had to let it go. After four months of investment we had to just drop everything and walk away.
I'm in a sort of daze, after the roller coaster of emotions. Every week it was "you're getting the house", "it's probably going to fall through", "we're moving forward", "we're at a standstill", "start packing up your things! You're moving into the house in two weeks!", "We're done."
I just hope this means there's something even better in store for us. I'm fortunate that we found the issues before we took over ownership of the home. I'm disappointed I don't get to wake up to the amazing view from the living room window, but now I can be excited about new, fantastic opportunities that have been presenting themselves.
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