The Walk Thru

Time went quickly by as we were meeting with contractors and with our architect trying to figure out what we wanted to do with a house that we have even NOT GONE INTO. I know we are so crazy. No close of escrow. No walk thru. Yet still investing a ton of time and now money into this house.

Then it came.... the walk thru 90 days into escrow. WOW. We had been waiting for this moment for almost 2 yrs and it was FINALLY here. August 8th, Tad, Jeff (one of the contractors), and I went into Betties house.

AND this is what we walked into...

the Living Room

Next the family room 

Then came the Kitchen

AND that is when I left.. I had seen enough.. Tad and Jeff continue to through the house

Guest Bedroom

Hallway from the guest bedroom

Guest Bathroom

Get ready for the 3 car GARAGE

They head upstairs 

Bedroom 1

 
Bedroom 2

Bedroom 3

Kids Bathroom

Upstairs Hallway

Master Bedroom

Master Bath

Heading downstairs to check out the backyard.

Outside.. 

 They were nervous to venture to far out into the jungle

 HOLY COW!!! Houston we had a problem. We had given Bettie a little shy of 2 years to pack up her stuff and NOTHING had been done! She had 2 more months to move out.. This was asking for a miracle. What had we gotten ourselves into???

Designing our Home

In order to get an accurate bid from the contractors we needed to have architectural plans. We decided to go with one of the contractors architect, Phillip. Phillip has been in the business for probably 30 + years and had designed 100's of houses. We felt confident in his work.

We met with him and showed him Bettie's floor plan (or what we thought it was... since we still had not been in it).

The original first floor plan

WE discussed with Phillip what things we would like to be changed: The Kitchen?? are you serious... it is so small. Needed to be bigger. We also needed to have a bathroom that we could access from the backyard.

The original 2nd story:

Things that needed to be changed: Bigger Master Bath and a Large Bonus room.

We also discussed the Style of our House and what we would like it to look like outside.

Now it was Phillips turn. He went to work and tried to figure out how we can get all our wants into this house, using most of the existing floor plan.

After a week or so he came back with this plan:

1st floor

2nd floor

Outside

 We sat down and looked over the plan and needed to make some major changes.
1. Didn't like the guest bathroom and bedroom configuration
2. Didn't like the Master bedroom being in the huge room that needed to be the kids bonus room
3. The outside look was not what we were looking for

Back to the drawing board Phillip, Literally. Yep he hand draws everything which is a huge talent but something that became really annoying really quickly. If we wanted just a little change here or there it took him a while to make the change because he needed to redraw everything.

***A little piece of Advice.. make sure that if you ever have to use a Architect make sure they know how to use the computer.

Second round of designs:

1st floor

2nd floor

Outside

 Ok.. it is getting closer.. but still changes needed to be made.

1) still didn't like the set up of the guest bedroom
2) the Kids bathroom needed to be a lot bigger if they were all going to share
3) The outside still needed to change.

Third round:

1st floor

2nd floor

Yes... getting closer and closer.

1. Remove a small wall on the 1st floor 

2. Still not loving the size of the 2nd story bathrooms.

 4th Round: (can you tell we study these plans over and over and over again.. sorry about the messy paper)

YES!!! Almost perfect but good enough to get a decent bid from the Contractors.

****This was by far my least favorite part of the process*** So stressful! Should we put a window here? or there? should we put the closet here or there? should we have the laundry room here or there!!! Wow I hate decisions... especially when they are important. My brain fills like it is going to explode.

Choosing a contractor

After signing the purchase contract, Bettie agreed to allow us to do a walk thru of the house, for the first time, in 90 days. She thought that 90 days would give her enough time to "clean up" the house.

During the 90 day wait period, Tad and I began to plan and to figure out exactly what we were going to do with this house that was in need of so much TLC!!!!!

We went back to our dream home wish list and figured we would do a complete remodel to the house, including the following additions:
1. Large bonus room
2. Enlarge the Kitchen
3. Home office
4. Bathroom that you can access from the backyard
5. Laundry room inside

Our next big question was, "who is going to build this house for us?"

The search for the contractor was on!

We were looking for a contractor that was affordable, worked fast, and one that did great work also.. was that too much to ask???   We found out quickly "YES" that was too much to ask!!!

There are many ways to find a contractor, yellow pages, ads in the mail, google, but I always feel that
references are the best advertising. So we went to around and talked to everyone we knew to see if they knew a contractor that fit these criteria.

We found contractors that were affordable and fast... but then looked at their work and it looked cheap and sloppy.

We found contractors that have Built AMAZING houses that looked very expensive and a lot of work and that is exactly what they were... expensive and they took a long time to build.

After many months and lots of research we finally narrowed it down to 3 contractors.

One was our good friend, Jeff Carr, that we knew from Church.

Another, Dan Hausen, who was a reference that I got sitting at our son's first soccer practice of the season.


And finally, Jason Gonterman, who was a reference I got when I ran into our son's soccer coach and his family at the beach.

This picture was taken the day we got the reference. We were at the beach from 9 until 4 that day because it was such a fun day and the tide was so fun to play in.

 All three had great personalities and did great work. All three gave us priceless advice on how to make this trashed house a home to treasure.

How can we decide who to choose?

The Contract

Once Bettie said she would get into contact with us we knew we needed to act fast!!!! We invited her over to our house the next day to get the process going. She came over and after 1.5 years Tad was able to talk to Bettie face to face (up to that point Tad had never even met Bettie). We all sat down in our living room and got to know each other a little more. It quickly felt as though we were just visiting with a long time friend.

Bettie is such a kind loving person. She told us about her past. She bought the house 30+ years earlier with her husband and their two little children (ages 1 and 2). Shortly after buying the house she and her husband divorced. This left Bettie with two tiny children and a huge house to take care of.  The pain and stress of the divorce had really taken its toll on her.

And then it happened... "I am a Hoarder", she blurted out to us. Tad and I had always suspected that she may be a hoarder but now she was openly admitting it to us.  She explained that throughout her difficult past, with the divorce and all, that  she began feeling the need to hang on to everything that she could. And so she did... EVERYTHING!!!!!!

Not really her house... but what we were imagining

She let us know that it was the hoarding that had prevented her from letting us inside the house.  She was super embarrassed and ashamed of the status of the home.  Little did we know, but her 5 bedroom home with a 3 car garage was packed with so much stuff that it was nearly impossible to walk through.

So here we are in our living room with Bettie trying to figure out a purchase contract with her for a house that we have not yet gone into and to top that off, we confirm that she is a HOARDER and the house is COMPLETELY full of STUFF.

After discussing the hoarding issues with us, it became time to begin the discussion with Bettie about the price and terms of the sell.  So Tad (being the real estate agent) started to discuss recent sales comps in the neighborhood with Bettie.  After reviewing the comps Tad suggested a price we would be willing to pay and Bettie asked that she have 24 hours to think about it.  She would go home, re-review the comps Tad provided, talk to her friend and then come back over the following day with her decision.

The following day... Bettie came over... we agreed on a price that was fair for all of us. Then came the close of escrow date... when would we actually be able to become the new official owner of the property?.

Bettie explained to us that she still needed TIME... (this made me kind of laugh.. considering we had given her 1.5 years already to that point)............ "So what type frame are we talking about?", I asked.  "How about 120 days", said Bettie......... yep folks that is another 4 months. People might think we were crazy, but after waiting this long what was another 4 months. So we agreed. Great price and an extremely long escrow and papers were signed.

"SO... when can we actually go into the house?", I asked.........that was our next question.............

The Phone Call

After months and months and months of riding the "she said she will sell to us, but oh wait, now she is not sure when" roller coaster with Bettie we started to feel like we were just wasting our time.

We began to search the MLS. We were ready to find "our new home" at this point. We went to several open houses hoping that one of the properties would "feel like home".  Of course, none of them did.

After looking at several homes that just weren't the right fit for us, we started to consider the idea of expanding our current house. We could build a second story and finally have the room that we needed. We would not have the backyard we wanted but adding to our current house was definitely was an option/Plan B. We got bids for the addition and realized that is was going to be a huge expense and probably not worth it. Urghh.........nothing seemed to be working out.

So we just lived life.

Finally, spring came along and one night we received a phone call. It was from a Realtor in our area telling us that she had just listed a home in our in our neighborhood. "Where is the home", I asked? It is your neighbor "Dave's (we will call him)" house.  Dave happened to be the owner of the 5 bedroom home on the large lot the very same Dave that had responded to our letter months earlier.  I gasped for air... oh my gosh.....

Well this was it! The waiting game seemed to finally be over.  Finally Dave was ready to sell and Bettie still had not moved. "What's the asking price?" was my second question to the Realtor. Once again...my heart dropped... the price was lower then what they had quoted us months earlier...however,  we still felt like the price was way too much!!!  Especially given the fact that we would plan to remodel the inside

What to do????  Should we buy this house? After all, this was the only other house that we had liked, besides Betties. Or do we continue to hold out for Bettie's house??....We know we had a HUGE decision to make!!

That following Saturday the Realtor hosted an open house at Dave's property and of course, we stopped by.  After looking at the house again,  we decided that we needed to submit an offer.  So that is what we did, we submitted an offer much lower then the asking price and we hoped that they would accept it......or at least respond favorably to it :).

Meanwhile... we decided to contact Bettie.  We figured we would let her know about this other house and that we had submitted an offer it.  We wanted to basically let her know that if she wanted to sell to us now is the time.  We could wait no longer!!!

"OK, lets meet and talk about getting a contract signed then", she said........What???  Did we hear her right?  She FINALLY wants to do this????? We had been waiting a 1.5 years and just like that she said, "Ok, lets do this........... WUHOOOOOOOOOO!!! We couldn't believe it. All we needed was a little leverage with her and we finally could start the official process of buying her house.

Another Option

We had been waiting for Bettie to move for a year now and we were wondering if the move was ever going to happen. When we received a response from another neighbor saying he was thinking of selling his house we were thrilled. His house was just like Betties. Large lot with 5 bedrooms and his house even had a pool.



We set up a time to go over and see the house and to talk. We went over and loved the backyard... yeah the pool wasn't perfect but it meant we wouldn't have to build one.

half of the backyard

the other half

The inside of the house needed some major updates. Their style was not our style, but at the end of the day it was a huge lot and 5 bedroom house... and a bonus... they actually let us go in and see the house. This was something that we still had not done with Betties house.

They were not sure when they were moving but they would let us know. So then the big talk came... How much???

Oh No! They saw us coming from a mile a way. A growing family, desperate to find a great place to live, knowing that they have one of the few big lots in the neighborhood... they put a HUGE price tag on it.

Our hearts sank. The price was WAY too much.. plus the whole inside needed to be remodeled. We would not be able to afford this house.

We ended the conversation, letting them know that when they are serious about putting their house on the market.. please let us know. (Maybe we will strike Gold by then ;))

Back to the waiting game...