Well as many of my friends and family already know, I'm not buying my first home anymore. If you could have seen the heartbreak in my face when the realization was that I would not be a home owner happened, crying happened.
What happened did you ask? I think I have explained it a dozen times and it doesn't get any easier to know your dream starter is a bust. For those of you who don't know, let me rewind:
- When I decided to buy the home it was somewhat of an impulsive decision, I started saving money in order to look for the house but was nowhere near ready (foreshadowing, maybe?). The house came on the market on a Thursday and I put in an offer on a Tuesday, it was the perfect little starter home for me and recently flipped. I would have to do no work to it structurally, just a few cosmetic things (another irony of foreshadowing) like paint colors. We started down the long road to closing day and as the date started to get closer, we found the bump in the road. It was more like a complete halt.
Their lawyer told us he found the title was not clean and he was embarrassed that he had missed it before (he helped them purchase this house six months prior). Apparently, somewhere in the history of this house a mother passed away, gifted the house to her three children and one of them went bankrupt in the process. She never told the bank that she owned 1/3 of this house and somehow there is someone's name attached to the title of this house, besides the sellers. Say whatttt?
How do you remove the name? You go to court or as my lawyer suggested, get owners title insurance and it will protect you if someone tries to come back for anything. And that's when I decided to walk away from the house. I am lucky enough to surround myself with people who care about me and what goes on in my life, who are also much wiser. Every single person said to walk away and it was not worth the hassle, especially if I tried to resell it later.
And here we are now (sort of because I still have my apartment!):
Don't mind Liam, he's hooking up the new electric power washer so we can wash the side of the house and the spiders!
This is Liam's duplex apartment he owns, his dad just moved in downstairs after we renovated it (part of the kitchen here). We are moving upstairs for the time being to save some money, but it looks like a frat boy used to live there and I refused to live with the bathroom. At first, we decided a band aid would work: new toilet, tub, and vanity, would be okay, but we talked more and more and came to the conclusion it should be done the right way and completely remodeled... (please send stress balls my way because I have a lot of freak out, break down, crying moments).
A month until move out date from my lease ending (actually less than a month) and we have to be out of the apartment September 30th. So, what is the plan?
- Move into Liam's house
- Move my things into storage
- Paint the two finished rooms (spare and master bedroom)
- Change the spare bedroom into a living room
- Remove the bushes outside (too many spiders)
- Remove the tree in the front yard for better parking
- Fix and update stairs
- Redo the bathroom and kitchen
Well, "redoing the bathroom and kitchen" actually means take everything out of it and gut everything down to the studs and change all the galvanized piping into PVC pipes, move where the tub, toilet, washer/dryer, and vanity went, as well as buy a brand new bathroom and kitchen. When I tell people we are renovating, they thing easy stuff... not even close.
So my perfect little recently renovated starter home with no updating turned into completely renovating Liam's duplex apartment in one month. If we make it through this without killing each other, I think we might be able to make it through almost anything.
Follow along in our journey of crazy nights and maybe a few weekends, although the next two weekends I am away. OOPS.
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