Well that was an interesting but unproductive day.
We started off with a last minute bank repo that had just hit the listings that day.
Easily the worst house and piece of land i've ever been in, let alone considering buying. The lot was practically vertical, the home appeared to have been built by demented goats, and at least 30 animals must have lived in it for about 20 years. The whole thing was ready to fall down, bare plywood on the exterior and flooring, an overpowering smell of urine, and absolutely not one square foot of anything that made me stop thinking of hitting it with a bulldozer.
Looks to me like neither the listing agent nor the bank, asking $465k, has actually seen that property.
Somewhat better stuff from there. A nice newer manufactured home on 5 acres that unfortunately had a huge fast running river running through the center of the property and 20' from the front door. A 30 year old stick built house on 2 acres where the property was beautiful but the owner had doubled the house square footage without permits...or a whole lot of forethought to design. One of the more interesting looking homes and a very unusual roof line. Great views, lots of level land, but for $477k and a home inspection report that was going to run to 85 pages of code violations and glitches...no thanks.
The large acreage property with the manufactured home was last. A beautiful home inside, appeared well made and sat on a large pad with plenty of paved space around it and carports for four cars. Unfortunately the land was more vertical than horizontal. One bend at the driveway led to about a 150' drop straight down. Several other points close to the home were one step out, 100' down. The driveway is tipped at about a 25+ degree angle at many places. Except for the 1/2 acre or so the house sat on and another flat spot near the pond, the land was unusable except for experienced cliff climbers.
Heres the fun part. The listing agent is there when we show up, and bear in mind the house has been for sale without offers since last may. First thing he does is get grumpy with me that our agent didnt call him and gripe about that a while because he already had someone in looking at the property. Turns out our agent called the owner, who has the same first name as the agent, and made the appt with him. Then the listing agent goes on to say how he spent the better part of two days positioning the cameras for the still shots and virtual tours to hide the vertical nature of the land.
Anyone want to explain to me why a sales person would be unhappy about two customers looking at something at the same time (which might create an air of competitiveness) or why a sales person would go to great lengths to hide a serious defect that would become very obvious the moment someone actually viewed the property?
All that aside, the home was great, there were several small restaurants, country stores and knick knack shops right in town a mile away. Lots of shopping in another town one exit up off the highway which is under 10 miles away. And the shopping mecca of the universe another 5-6 miles past that.
So no real worries locationally, but the land was simply not workable.
However I think we have our location. Just some unrealistic selling prices, some trashy houses to sift out, and wait a while for the right thing. I think i'll dial down the lot size a little, perhaps the house size a smidgeon, watch and wait.
Ron'Da said:
So, maybe it's time for her to retire? What's wrong with that...
Gosh, think you can talk her into it? So far I'm not having any luck. She loves her job, went to school a long time to get the degrees and qualifications to do it, and wants to work for at least another 10+ years.
I cant think of anything more fun than having her quit, but given that its only a couple of days a week and something she loves, she just wont go for it.
Given that there are about 42 hospitals within a 15 mile radius of the prospective new area, she certainly has plenty of opportunities.
