The stereotypical Back To School exercise is to write a "What I Did This Summer" essay. I have followed many of my friends via social media as they traveled, partied, relaxed and overall seemingly had a great summer. My summer, my wife's summer, our summer has been anything but that. Not that it was a bad summer- are there ever really any bad summers? But our summer was a summer of disappointment.
For the past year, Stephanie and I have been debating back and forth whether to sell our house and upgrade, or stay where we are at least until the boys are out of school and then move. There were many pluses and minuses to both moving or staying. If we stayed we had a house that we were for the most part happy with, we had a house payment we could easily afford, we live within walking distance of Olde Town Arvada, the neighborhood is quiet and safe, our neighborhood was recently named the "Most Desirable Neighborhood in Denver", we have a very nice sized house (almost 2200 square feet), a really nice deck, and besides all of that moving is a real pain.
If we chose to move we would get a house that had things that our current house does not have such a two car garage, more open design so we could easily have guests over for holiday dinners, BBQ's and Bronco games, a neighborhood where EVERYONE takes care of their yards and homes instead of just a few so we wouldn't be embarrassed when people came to our house and saw the weeds, dirt, and trash infested homes that dot our block. We wouldn't have a sixty-year-old house and the upkeep that a house in its sixth-decade demand.
Steph and I went back and forth about moving for a year plus. Finally, we came to a decision after listening to the stories from friends who had recently moved. We heard horror stories of quickly selling their homes with multiple offers but having a difficult time finding a house to move to because of the lack of homes available on the market and those that were available usually were not very nice. We had friends who lost out multiple times on offers because another offer was a little bit better than theirs. Hearing and knowing all that, Steph and I decided to stay put in our nice sixty-year-old house in the Alta Vista neighborhood a mile and a half away from Olde Town Arvada.
Then, on the first Saturday of July, we went grocery shopping. As we were leaving our house we noticed there was an open house at a house across the street from Standley Lake. So on a whim, we went to the open house on our way to King Soopers. The house was amazing! It checked every box we wanted in a house. It was beautiful. Recently remodeled, with a large open space on the main level, large master bedroom with a walk-in closet and a large master bath. It had a beautiful Trex deck with built-in lighting and seating. A large fully finished basement with a pool table, a bar, and a full bath. Plus it was closer to the boys' schools than we are now. And best of all; it was in our price range!!!! Steph and I decided that if we were going to move, this was the house for us. So we made an offer and made arrangements to put our house up for sale.
Unfortunately, there was another offer for the house as well and it was a little better than ours so we were out. We took another week to decide if we should still put ours on the market. While we were deciding to list our house the contract on the other house fell through and the listing agent on our "dream" house contacted our realtor and wanted to know if we were still interested. HECK YEAH WE WERE! This seemed like fate! Obviously, the Universe wanted us to have this house. Within a few days of this phone call, our house was on the market. Knowing we needed to get under contract quickly, we listed below market value for our house at $410,000. Other, similar houses in the neighborhood were currently listed from $430,000-475,000. Hours after our house was actively listed we had an offer on our house! And for $15,000 over asking! We were going to get the house we both wanted! Then the roller coaster ride began.
Two days after the offer was issued, the buyer and her agent wanted to tour the house again. Fine. No worries, right? That night the offer was rescinded. The reason? Well, they wanted to say based on inspection, but no inspection had been done so that didn't hold up. We later found out it was because the prospective buyer couldn't get financed because she had some problems paying her current bills. A real letdown, but we still had time to sell our house so we could move into our new house, so back on the market we went.
Literally hours after going back on the market, a person who had looked at the house the first night saw that it had been re-listed and asked to come to look at it again. Again, hours after hitting the open market we had another offer on our house. This offer was for $415,000. Not as good as the first one but still over asking. Furthermore, the offer stated that they wouldn't ask for anything to be fixed that was under $1000. Okay, that shouldn't be a real problem because we had taken fairly good care of our house. Our realtor did say he thought it was a bit odd because the loan was for 100% and he didn't think that was possible, but apparently for our neighborhood you could get a 100% loan. Now, Steph was not happy or satisfied with this offer at all and believed that there would be better offers to come along but reluctantly agreed to accept it understanding that having an offer in hand was better than hoping there were better out there that didn't exist at that point. So, we were under contract again and began to look forward to our new lives in our new home.
We did an inspection on the new house; no real problems there (it really was a great house). A few days later the inspection was done on our house and soon after we began to get the feeling this wasn't going to end well. First up they stated that the electrical service coming into the house was not up to code because the wires were too low. Well, when the house was built in 1958, it was up to code, remember this is a SIXTY-YEAR-OLD HOUSE! The top of the chimney was worn and would need to be addressed. Okay again, this is SIXTY-YEAR-OLD HOUSE! Then the kicker- they wanted a structural engineer to come to look at the house. Fine, understandable, bring him on.
The structural engineer showed up at the house, walked around the house with a flashlight, did some measurements on the main level and the upper level with a water level and then 20-30 minutes after arriving was gone. I asked him before he left for any feedback. The engineer said it was obvious that there had been some settling in the house because of some cracks in the walls and ceiling but it had to be taken into account that the house was 60 years old. After he left, I felt good.
Later that day I was at a "mandatory fun" bowling with teacher leaders when I got a phone call. The structural engineer told the buyer that the house had settled 2" and could cost a lot of money to fix it. The buyer was terminating the contract. It was a gut punch. Our realtor said a lot of stuff after that, but I don't really remember much of what he said. We were done. The house Steph and I had been making plans about where to put furniture, how to decorate it was not going to happen. We were not going to have people over for Thanksgiving or Christmas. There would not be any Bronco parties at our new house because we were not going to get a new house. The people in what was supposed to be our new house needed to close by the end of August. This was August 1st, there was no way were would meet that deadline. We were done. We would not be going anywhere. I slunk back into the "mandatory fun" bowling, but I was not having fun at that point, mandatory or otherwise. I wanted to go home.
I came home and told Steph what had happened. We were sad and despondent. We lost a great house that, in our minds, we had already moved into. And on top of that, our house, the house we had spent the past nine years of our life, was junk. Steph and I sat on our bed, in our crumbling bedroom and looked at each other. We didn't say anything, we didn't have to. Our next, great house was gone. We would never get that back. Our house was about to collapse at any minute. We should have never bought this house. We were stuck in a house that was okay but not great and we were never going to be able to get out of here. Sadness is a powerful, debilitating feeling. We went to bed that night sad that we thought our house was good enough to raise our boys in and spend our holidays in and do work on and make so many good memories in but in the end none of those things seemed true. Our house was not good enough.
The next morning when I woke up, I walked around the house and looked at things. I mean really looked at things. Our floors creaked, there were some cracks in walls and ceilings, but the all the doors also opened and closed, as did the windows, the heating and cooling systems worked great. Olde Town Arvada was still a 20-minute walk away. The neighborhood was still quiet and safe. The more I looked and the more I thought the angrier I became. The more insulted I became. Two inches, some creaking floorboards and a few cracks in a sixty-year-old house are the reasons to drop the offer?! This person was getting a GREAT deal! $415,000 for a 2,200 square foot house in a hot neighborhood in Denver is a fantastic deal! What did this person want? If you want a perfect house go buy a new house, not a house built in 1958! Oh and good luck finding a new house for $415,000 in Denver! Or an older house as nice as ours! 2,200 square feet, four bedrooms, two full baths and one-half bath, a fully finished basement, plus a new roof in Olde Town Arvada for $415,000?!?!?!? Who do you think you are? This house isn't good enough for you? This house was good enough to live in for nine years! This house was good enough to raise my boys in! This house was good enough for me and my family! Yet, this person doesn't think this house is good enough for them?!?!?! They are wrong! You are not good enough for this house! You don't deserve this house! My house! I was not happy. This "buyer" really set me off. One, because they had caused us to lose a house Steph and I absolutely loved and two, because I really felt insulted that they would feel this way about a house that we had raised our family in. Perhaps that is irrational, but then anger and frustration have a way of making the irrational seem perfectly rational.
So, the question begs, "Now what?" Steph and I spoke for a long time about this very question. For now, we'll stay. We don't hate this house, actually we kind of like it- the look of the neighborhood, well that's a different issue. So we'll stay until Cameron is through or almost through high school. We're going to hire our own structural engineer to do a full survey on our house so we can get a full, true picture of the actual state of our house. And then, in a couple of years, put it up for sale again and move to our next "dream home". For now, we are content in our house as well as knowing the buyer is never going to find anything as charming or as nice for the price as our sixty-year-old house in Olde Town Arvada.
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