Our Leap of Faith had a Bungee Cord Attached

When Ashley and I took the "leap of faith" and put down an offer on our house on Westwood, we knew this jump was going to be a little risky. There was a ton of work the house needed done (weeding anyone?), a contractor had to fix a lot on a tight budget, the 203k loan process was complicated and our freezer was running out of Ben & Jerry's S'mores Ice Cream due to pints of anxiety. Like the penguin below, we figured our leap of faith would consist of a splash, a couple swift maneuvers avoiding the jaws of seals and sharks and then a leisurely swim into the sunset, happy as can be. PSYCH!

Instead, some prankster penguin tied a bungee cord to our little penguin feet and our leap left us in perpetual limbo narrowly avoiding shark teeth as we bobbed up and down fearing absolute disaster for the last month. Thankfully, the bungee cord finally snapped and it appears that Ashley and I have avoided the last remaining obstacles and the little house of horrors on Westwood just might be ours after all!

For those who have been stuck in limbo with us as we've kept everything close to the vest, we apologize. Finally ... now that we've been given the thumbs up ... we can share with you the ups and downs of our house purchase.

July 18th: Our offer is accepted by the bank.

July 23rd: A contract is signed by both parties with a rather ominous warning by the bank's agent: "It is extra wise to be prepared for ANYTHING when purchasing bank-owned property."

July 25th: HUD Inspector Tom and Contractor Jim walk through the house and draft up a report of things that need to be fixed ... everything from gutting the basement to providing a stable base for our water heater (it's on wheels right now)!

July 27th: We have a structural engineer look at the cracked brick near the foundation of our tuck-under garage and it is determined the issue isn't a major impediment to us purchasing the home.

August 1st - 17th: Contractor Jim trots through an electrician, plumber, concrete guy and a few other specialists to determine the true extent of the work and what it will cost to complete. The required city repairs are going to eat up almost our entire budget and we won't be able to complete the kitchen remodel or master bathroom build.

August 20th: Contractor Jim has second thoughts on the project and determines that after the subcontractors complete their tasks and without a bathroom or kitchen project, there's just not enough money in it for him to make it worthwhile. He regrettably informs us that he quits.

August 20th: With our Realtor on vacation, we (mistakenly) decide to try to fix everything ourselves and set-up an emergency meeting with another contractor.

August 21st - 27th: Our new contractor meets with HUD Inspector Tom and is quite negative on the house. His bid is excessively expensive and we are crushed, thinking we have to walk away and forfeit our earnest money.

August 28th: Realtor Shelly returns from vacation and attempts to save the day by setting us up with a contractor she highly recommends. Contractor Lee quickly surveys the property, provides us with an estimate and restores our faith back in the house. Better yet, he thinks we can fit the master bathroom build back in the project!

September 3rd: In an attempt to give us a little more cushion, we make the bank aware of our situation and ask for a decrease in purchase price of $10,000 and a closing extension to October 25th.

September 8th: As we await the bank's decision, we finalize our work proposal and sign a mountain of documents.

September 10th: The bank refuses to give us an answer on either issue until we complete an appraisal of the property. They want to see if the "as is value" of the property is fair compared to the purchase price. Unsure of whether to risk even more money on this property, we decide to roll the dice and order the appraisal.

September 17th: The appraisal comes back and the as is value is basically identical to the purchase price. We won't be getting a further discount on the price, but are comforted by the fact the other comparable properties are impressive and will provide us solid future equity.

September 17th: Just when we think we're in the clear and FINALLY able to move this forward, we get a note from the bank stating, "The lender/owner is getting nervous and feels there has been too many red flags to grant an extension that far out." Myself and Mortgage Broker Dave frantically send letters imploring the bank to provide us with an extension because our file is rock solid now that we've gotten through the contractor hi-jinks.

Inside Josh and Ashley's brain:


September 18th: Ashley and I start devising methods of cruel and unusual punishment against the bank if they decide to screw us over at the 11th hour. We put in an order for 10,000 locusts to be delivered to Wells Fargo's corporate office.

Inside Josh and Ashley's brain:


September 18th: The bank decides in our favor and grants us the extension. We are in the clear and will be closing on or before October 25th! We contact the United States Postal Service and divert the aforementioned locusts to Comcast because, well ... everyone hates Comcast.

Inside Josh and Ashley's brain:


So that's the story of the last few weeks of our life. It's been emotional, nerve-wracking, stressful and frustrating. There are myriad awful things I'd rather do instead of go through that again. In fact, going to a Creed and Nickelback concert on the same night and shooting a bottle rocket from my butt both sound a lot more fun!

But like I said, the hard part of our loan process is over and the Williams on Westwood is back on!

Patience is a virtue...

Several people have asked about updates regarding the house situation and believe me, I want to tell you everything that's been going on (it's a lot, trust me). However, we have legal documents in the works and nothing has been finalized....yet.

We hope to have an update for everyone by the end of the week (fingers crossed). Thanks for your patience!

Gut Feelings

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Back in the summer of 2007, I’ll admit my life was, how do they say, “in transition.”  My job sucked, my sister was moving to Chicago, I was going to be homeless in thirty days and my boyfriend of nine months had just broken up with me. I did what any rational person would do: I got a cat.

On a warm June day, I marched into the Apple Valley PetSmart determined to walk out with a new furry friend. I wandered around the adoption section looking at all the cats that needed a home. All of them purred and playfully pawed at the children poking their stubby fingers into the cages, begging to be cuddled and played with. Everyone but this cat. Ginger.

 

She was white with ginger colored patches, a pretty pink nose and weighed all of nine pounds when wet. She also hissed, snarled and growled the second anybody approached her area, including her current foster owner. I crouched down and said hello in a soft sing-songy voice. She barred her teeth and hissed loudly back at me.  Then she curled up at the back of the cage and glared at me with her thinly slit eyes. 

I told the foster owner I’d take her. 

Upon seeing the white devil, Brooke and Jake implored me to reconsider. They begged me to keep looking. I smiled and said, “I know it sounds crazy, but I’ve just got this feeling about her.” And I decided to rename her “Gigi.”

She hissed the entire way to the car. We had to pull over several times to put her back in the cardboard box she so desperately tried to escape. That cat growled and made noises only a creature truly possessed by Satan himself could make.  I pretended not to hear Brooke and Jake discussing the return policy in the back seat.

Within ten minutes of being inside the apartment, she relaxed. The next day she sat next to me on the couch. By the end of the week, she was curled up on the bed with me while I read before sleeping.  

So, what does Gigi have to do with a house?

I tell people this story because I am a firm believer that God talks to me through my “gut feelings.” God understands I’m not easy to reason with and I have a tendency to steamroll our conversations. But, God has learned what DOES get my attention: my gut. It’s a knot in my stomach when I’m on the brink of making a bad decision like that belly button piercing with the dangling charms (still have the scar from when that ripped) or signing a lease on that one apartment and actually believing that air conditioning wasn’t a necessity.

It’s that happy flutter when I stumble upon something truly and supremely wonderful like the moment I met my husband or when I discovered Oreos dipped in peanut butter.  Truth is, I’ve never been led down the wrong path when I listened to my gut.

And I have a gut feeling about this house. I know that its laundry list of repairs and city code violations should have us walking away and looking for that nice house that everyone immediately loves. With yards that aren’t overgrown, a garage that isn’t buckling and a basement that doesn’t need to be gutted.

But the feeling I get when I look at this place is just like when I spotted Ms. Gigi. That she wasn’t a bad cat; she just needed the right person to see her potential.  

And who knows. Maybe the house feels the same way.  

Closing the Door

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The last few days have been like white water rafting through some of the most intense emotions humans can have. It’s like being tripped by that mean kid in elementary school and then kicked in the stomach by a member of the women’s Olympic soccer team. We’ve gone from gleefully bickering over where we would put both Christmas trees to preparing our goodbyes to our dream home.

Here’s what happened:

When we put an offer on this house, the bank had an estimated assessment to do all the necessary repairs to get the house up to code. Once we found out we were in a multiple offer situation, we took a leap of faith and offered our max. Unfortunately, after having several city inspectors and contractors walk through the property, the bank estimate is nowhere close to what we were told. In fact, it’s a whopping $25,000 - $30,000 over the original estimate. 

What does this mean? It means we are most likely walking away from our house and a hefty “good faith” deposit that we can’t get back.  My mother keeps telling me that in the grand scheme of things, several thousand dollars is peanuts compared to $30,000, but it’s hard to swallow this when you’re abandoning something you love.

Yes, it’s just a house; some bricks, beams and drywall (that probably all had to be replaced, but that’s beside the point). But it was where we saw our future, the place we wanted to call home for the next 30 years. And that feeling just doesn’t come with every house you look at. It just doesn't.

Is there still hope? Sure, there’s always hope. And by golly, I hope that in a few days, I’m writing that a miracle happened and we are going to be The Williams on Westwood for a long, long time.

So I apologize if the last few posts have been total downers. But it wouldn’t be fair to gloss over, to Josh and I, nor to you.

Crossing my fingers and my toes (and everything inside that won’t cause permanent damage if I do) that things work out in the way I want them to. But if not, we’ll shed some more tears and eat Ben and Jerry’s. Lots of it.  

Lessons from Liu Xiang

During the first round of the 110m hurdles, Liu Xiang from China was one of the favorites to take home gold from London. After rupturing his Achilles tendon in 2004, this was likely Xiang's final shot at winning an Olympic event.

But as fate would have it, he mistimed his first hurdle and crashed into the ground, rupturing his old injury and putting him out of medal contention. At first he hopped off the track towards the tunnel, away from the crowd and, I'm sure, in an effort to conceal tears of disappointment. Athletes stumbling in the preliminary round is nothing new, so why did Xiang make headlines across the world?

Because he got up. He hobbled back onto the track and limped his way toward the finish line. He stopped to kiss the last hurdle, most likely his last gesture at an Olympic games. And he was carried the final few feet across the finish line by his competitors.

I'm telling myself this story because, we hit a hurdle today (two, actually). First, the cost of the city mandated repairs is actually double the original estimate, which will now take up our entire remodeling budget. And if that wasn't enough, our contractor called this morning and can no longer do the work on our house.

Ouch. Feels like we just crashed and burned and we barely made it out of the gate.

Not going to lie, this sucks. It's not easy to look at your dream house and start second guessing your decision, or worse, contemplate the idea of actually walking away from it. It's hard seeing your friends and family move into homes where the biggest setback was scrapping off wallpaper in the kitchen. It's also humbling to be reminded that this probably isn't the first hurdle we're going to hit, and the anticipation of future pain is a hard pill to swallow.

"What's next?" you ask? Thankfully, Josh is part of this equation because my gut reaction is to curl up in bed with ice cream and delete all those Pinterest ideas I've been collecting the past four weeks while whimpering loud enough for Josh to hear. He had a good sulk, and then made some phone calls to find us another contractor.

This is why I love my husband; because he doesn't focus on the hurdles, he focuses on the finish line.

So we're back in the race...

Welcome to the Jungle

In college, my mom bought me a small bamboo plant. She told me that I it would be good for me to care for something outside of myself and help it flourish. Bamboo, she said, is one of the heartiest plants on earth; able to withstand wind, little water and temperature variations. "Prove to me you can do this, sweetheart" she whispered.

It died two months later. (sorry mom). 


The point is, when it comes to plants, I'm able to kill just about anything. Plants have some kind of sixth sense when they come into my presence; it's like they know it's the end and completely give up on life. I've tried everything. I meticulously cut the stems off flowers Josh sends me, put that packet of food in the water and give them a sunny spot in our dining room. Within 48 hours, they are on life support, drooping like the white surrender flag.

So when we saw our beautiful house on Westwood Hills, I realized that my flora-destroying experiences up to this point were just practice; small exercises to prepare for the jungle that is our yard.

Because nobody has lived on the property since last November, the greenery has, well, made itself quite comfy. With plenty of sunlight, frequent rains in the spring and nobody to reign it in, the plantlife has completely taken over the house. This is where our front door is. There are actually beautiful windows into the living room but you can't see out them because of the shrubs.

Seriously. It's like somebody pumped steroids into the soil and told everybody to have a party. And boy did they ever.

 The planters in the front also went a little wild. Every time we stop by the house, our realtor and I take turns weeding this. Not that it does much good...

And then there is the ivy. Yes, it gives the house that beautiful English cottage look. In fact, my buddy Jason asked me point blank if we bought the house because it looks like something out of Harry Potter (this comment actually made my week. All I need now is an owl to deliver my mail and I could die happy).  Unfortunately, it all has to be ripped down. Immediately.

Ivy causes a whole host of problems (which, I didn't know until we bought the house).

1. Since it's plantlife, it holds water like a sponge against the house. 
2. It also plays hostess to a variety of cute insects like hornets, wasps and beetles. 
3. The little plant feet that attach it to the brick grow and start to rip the brick off the house. 

So as we visited the house this past weekend, I made a point to walk around the house and alert these photosynthesis loving organisms that they have met their match. I haven't met a plant yet that I wasn't able to swiftly destroy.

(Editors Note: we won't be killing ALL the plants- unless Ashley is in charge of the landscaping).

Holy crap, we bought a house.

PREFACE

"You sure about this?"Josh says to me over the phone.

I'm at work, in the middle of the busiest month in recent memory and we're in a multiple offer situation with a house we've been looking at for over a week. The bank has asked all parties for their "highest and final offer;" it's our last and only shot at buying the home we've fallen in love with. The number swirling around in conversation hits my ears with deafening power.

"No," I say, "but let's do it anyway."

On Friday, shortly before 5:00, I got an email from our realtor congratulating us on our new home. I called Josh and told him the news. I imagine we had the same response as most couples do when they find out they're pregnant with their first kid. He asked if I was serious, I repeated that I was several times. There was silence. Then laughter- that nervous laughter that often occurs on first dates after an awkward joke where the punchline wasn't delivered correctly. And then, more silence. Finally, Josh takes a deep breath and says, "looks like we have our own little house of horrors."

WHAT'S WRONG WITH IT?

It's the first question I asked when I saw the listing on our email from Shelly, our realtor. The house was just TOO perfect. After getting cold feet in our first house search earlier this year, Josh and I were convinced it would take several months to find something within our price range and, more specifically, something that matched our wish list.

We met Shelly at Cuppa Java a few weeks prior to see if she would be a good realtor for us. "If you don't like a house within the first few seconds of walking inside, tell me," she said. "Don't waste my time by having me show you around the whole place when you're just not feeling it." We were immediately sold, shook hands and then gave her our list of "wants" for our house:

• Three bedrooms, two bathrooms
• Master bedroom with en suite bathroom
• Minimum 1,600 square feet
• Two car garage
• Decent size yard for a garden and patio
• Fireplace
• Open floorplan
• Old kitchen we could gut and re-do ourselves
• Wood floors
• A man-cave
• A place for all my books
• In St. Louis Park
• Under $190,000

Admittedly, it was a ridiculously specific list for our price range. Since we are doing a "rehab" loan, the house couldn't be more than $196,000. The purpose of the loan is for buyers to "rehab" delinquent properties and bring their value back up by putting in money to repair and upgrade the existing home.

So imagine our surprise when we come across a listing for a home that matched all of our requests. In fact, if you had asked us to draw up our perfect house, this was what it would look like. So we asked "Ok, we love it. What's wrong with it?"

The answer we got wasn't what was wrong, but where to begin with the problems. Overall, the majority of previous remodeling work had been done without ever pulling permits. In fact, we are now proud owners of a 26-page report listing all the city repairs that need to be done BEFORE we can even obtain a certificate of occupancy. After meeting with a contractor, two city inspectors and a structural engineer, we realized the majority of our budget would be used just to make the house livable again.

LET'S DO THIS

It was a Tuesday evening, and we had just spent 90 minutes with a contractor walking through city assessments and other projects we wanted to complete. It was daunting; anyone with a shred of sanity would walk away. But we looked at each other with slightly guilty eyes that said "I know it's kind of a disaster and this is crazy but, I still love it."

So we took the plunge. And now we're here to share our trials (and triumphs) of being first time home owners with a beautiful house that needs A TON of work. One thing is for certain, it's going to be one hell of a ride.

Google Maps aerial view of our house and garage to the right.