After a crazy hectic few months we are now coming up for air! Even though it is mid October and the Summer has long been over it feels like it just ended. Partially because the weather but mostly because we have been working our tails off for months. It all started back in the spring when we approached a real estate agent about buying a new home. We told her that we were in the market for either a new rental or a new home for us. Whichever we found first we would buy. After several months of shopping we found the Horseshoe house (named for the street it is on). It was in near perfect shape and located in a nice neighborhood on a dead end street. Its curb appeal and location made it a nice rental.
The Horseshoe house
So, after a contact was agreed on we started the closing process. A week and a half from final closing a house came on the market that we had been eying for months. The house on 103rd. It was going up for an online auction. Quite embarrassed I called our banker and asked if it was even remotely possible to buy two houses at the same time. He took another look at our finances and gave us the go -ahead. We were quite surprised and kept expecting someone to stand up and say it wasn't possible. We secretly though we were insane.
We entered the auction for the house on 103rd and won it.
The 103rd house.
After the auction we closed on the Horseshoe house and started readying it for tenants. We had recently hired a property management company and once our work was completed we handed it off to them. It was promptly rented in a little over a week. Buying the Horseshoe house had been easy. Buying the 103rd house was a nightmare. It was a foreclosure and had been neglected for some time. We were buying it "as is", in other words the sellers (a bank) would not fix anything up. We were still allowed an inspection, however nothing would be fixed for us. The biggest problem being the roof was in need of repair. Three days shy of closing our bank refused to give us the loan unless the roof was repaired. We told them we would promptly replace it as soon as we owned the place. That wasn't good enough. We were told to repair the roof or we wouldn't get the loan. Fine, we would replace it, but we were making a gamble in paying for a roof on a house we didn't yet own. At first paperwork delayed us, then the weather but after a week of nail biting the roof was complete. Then began a week of finger pointing between the two banks and the title company as to who wasn't ready for closing. By then our trip to Colorado that had been planned for 9 months had changed several times over. After doing everything short of throwing an adult size temper tantrum we gave up and left for Colorado. It took the powers-that-be another week and a half to finally be ready. Chad came home a couple of days early and signed the closing documents with a Power of Attorney. By then the closing date had changed 7 times! I arrived home the next day and we started work on the house. We painted the bedrooms and office and had carpet installed. After that we started moving in. Once moved in we turned our attention to the house we just left on Haven dr. It needed to be remodeled and put up for rent leaving us little time to settle into our new home. So here we are in mid October, the old house on Haven dr. is remodeled and is ready to go. We are exhausted, but happy to be in our new place and finally able to focus on it. There will be many, many remodeling blog entries coming soon.
And that is the story of how we bought two houses in one summer. Go ahead, call us crazy, we won't disagree.
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