Farm life, Uncategorized

Well That Dream Died a Quick Death

roamingridersite

Ugh. Can I say that a million more times? Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

Ok…moving on.

So the farm is dead. I was pretty depressed about it when it all came shattering down, but now I’m okay with it. Not in a “well, gosh I dodged that bullet yay” okay with it way, but more of a “totally not allowing myself to get screwed and oh yeah I’m not in a hurry so shove it seller man” sort of way.

Let me back up because this entire process has been complete shit. I rarely swear on the blog, though I tend to have a truck driver more swear words than regular ones mouth in real life, so you know it is bad when I do.

Before we got going looking at properties we reached out to the local lender known for covering properties of this size (did I ever mention the property was 67 acres????) for pre-approval. We knew what monthly mortgage we could afford, but weren’t really sure what loan amount we would be qualified for. We talked to an agent, gave her our information and got back a budget to work within. We felt pretty proud that we had been good consumers and did our homework.

Then we found this property and made the offer which was countered and we accepted. Reaching back out the to lender we were told that she was out for the week and nobody else could be assigned to us. Pretty crappy, but we just moved on to the next bank. That is when we realized things were not so good.

Our first dilemma was that the value of the property was in the land. Yes the house was new, but at only 1300 sq ft it really wasn’t worth that much. Regular lenders won’t mortgage when the land is more valuable than the building. We weren’t giving up yet though. We reached out to other lenders who typically handle the larger properties and everything seemed to finally be smoothed out until they got all our paperwork and realized Dusty had only purchased his business in July 2016. They require 2 years of business taxes when you are self employed even if you draw a regular salary from the business. That meant that his income, nearly double mine, was completely thrown out. My business has been around long enough, but the double whammy came down when they saw my salary. I take a minimal salary and pay myself in commission based on the profits of the business that month. Well, they can’t rely on commission so only my salary was taken into consideration. Which meant we now qualified for a shack in the ghetto.

Que up the drama, the anger, the frustration. Finally, after Dusty worked tirelessly contacting dozens of lenders we found one who would look at everything we made together and gave us a really great offer for a mortgage. The deal could move forward.

After all of that we decided to celebrate by announcing it to the world. I mean, we just jumped through about 1,000 hurdles, uploaded close to a million documents and got the mortgage secured. Surely this thing would go forward now.

The inspection went smooth as silk. The house was built in 2014, so we didn’t expect anything less. The only two things pending were the land survey (8k out of our pocket, let me choke a little on that) and the appraisal.

I didn’t even know when the appraisal was going to come in. The current owner had bought the place less than 6 months ago, so we weren’t concerned about it coming in for the price we were needing. It was pretty in line with other properties listed in the area for that much land. Imagine my surprise when the appraisal came in 25k less than what we agreed to buy it for. That is a huge deficit.

Now, I’m not one to cash in my chips and walk away without a fight. I’m also not one to enjoy bending over and taking it and I refused to pay out of pocket to make up the difference. Our realtor, who had been amazing to this point, started to get on my nerves as she kept insisting that the property was worth the asking price and that the appraisal was just really crappy. That may have been very true, but after an awful experience being upside in our house we bought during my schooling and taking a 45k hit when we went to sell because the market crashed after we bought it,  I refused to be on the shit end yet again and pay more than what this was worth.

The seller insisted he had an appraisal from when he purchased it that was for “well over asking price” though he never coughed it up. My response was that he could then find someone else who may be lucky enough to get an appraisal higher than ours was for, but I wasn’t going for it.

The truth is that while we both adored this property, it wasn’t perfect. There was no barn. No proper fencing. No arena. No garage. The house was one bedroom shy of what we wanted. We were willing to overlook all these things and spend a few years making upgrades and improvements, but not on top of having to cough up 25k in addition to our down payment. It wasn’t worth it.

We said a sad goodbye to all the plans we silently made in our heads for this property and are now looking again. It sucks. I’m frustrated and sad and a lot of other emotions all rolled into one big ball of mess. Nearly tasting my own farm has made me hunger even more for it, but not enough to get screwed. I did learn one important lesson, get the appraisal before paying for anything else. Period. And now we know our exact budget and know what lender we can use, so that is good.

Now let me just go and drink my emotions away…..

 

 

 

 

 

Published by roamingridersite

28 thoughts on “Well That Dream Died a Quick Death”

  1. Ugh. Buying a regular home is enough stress, 8k on appraisal?! Wtf, do they leave a gold property line?! Sorry, had a friend go through similar but on smaller scale. Our house appraisal came out exactly what we were purchasing for, which told me its all a little relative. I knew our price was high for emd of summer, but we were desperate and knew equity would go up.

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  2. ugh i’m so sorry, that’s really a huge disappointment. i understand where you’re coming from and all the reasoning behind the decision making process. it all makes total sense. but. yes. wine. wine helps.

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  4. Oh man. I’m so so so sorry to hear this. I know how excited you were and I was so excited for you! Everything happens for a reason…youll find a much better property with a little time!!

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  5. Oh no!!!!! Sorry it ended this way… but maybe that just means the perfect place is waiting to be found but wasn’t quite ready to show itself? Fingers crossed it shows up soon!

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  6. Oh nooooo!! I’m so sorry. I was really hoping it’d be smooth sailing after the whole income debacle. When we were looking, we had two farms nearly within reach for it all to fall apart. I gave up and bought a house with an acre overlooking the woods, but no possibility for having horses at home. It’s the most frustrating thing ever.

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  7. Oh no! This sucks so much but it’s good to know. I remember when Ed and I were all set to put an offer in on a piece of land to build what we wanted when we found out that there was an psychopathic neighbour who viewed it as his. He had a reputation for vandalism and poisoning pets so we backed out.

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  9. Oh man, I am SO SORRY!
    We went through Survey & Septic Hell on my new house last fall/this spring (House under contract October 3 of last year, and we closed Feb 20 of this year)- we didn’t have the bank shenninangins but it was in probate + survey was iffy + oh god the septic how did that EVER get approved type drama. House shopping is fun, house buying is hellish and the only thing worse is moving…..

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      1. This one is…. well, it’s prettyd arn close. I d like about 10 grand to do some earthmoving and tree and rock removal on the pasture. The water situation is weird but resolved (although god help us when we go to sell someday). THe neighbors were perfectly nie when I looked at the place and have turned out .. well, let’s put it this way, they were very disappointed that it was not another super quiet old housebound lady with no pets, no animals, and no visitors who bought the place and they’re just going to have to keep being disappointed. (And if they keep being annoying about dogs barking more than 30 seconds at a time during the day, I’m going to get CHICKENS and roosters SO THERE.)

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  11. This was so heartbreaking to read 😦 This is exactly what Mike and I ran into. What we can afford and what we can get approved for are two very different things. Sometimes, being your own boss really sucks. I’m so sorry 😦

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    1. I’m pretty depressed over the whole ordeal. We figured once we got the financing secured it would be fine but nope. Back to looking and everyone tells me I’ll find something even better and while I’m sure I’ll find something eventually it is still really hard to swallow right now

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      1. I relate to that too. We found the perfect farmette in the perfect location and within our “budget”. Lost it. People keep saying we’ll find the right situation, but it doesn’t feel likely 😦

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  12. we had the same thing happen (Tho we were lucky our crazy ass pants seller showed her true colors BEFORE we spent out on inspections). That perfect farm. Yep didnt happen. AND she relisted it and My husband kept saying should we make an offer and i said F*CK no each time (Sailor here too) AND guess what she pulled it off the market AGAIN so yay me (But seriously get the heck out of my farm lady). UGH. I was so disappointed too. We would have closed on it on october 12th. We have found NOTHING else to buy. I am so tired of looking at crap houses. We should have a virtual drinking match together.

    I am so sorry you are out the money and you have the heartbreak as well. I hope the right place comes soon!!

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    1. Well, once the dust settles and everything clears I’ll tell you the drama of this past weekend replete with threats of being sued by seller and all. It was a fun weekend. Nothing else in our budget is coming up worthwhile so back to the drawing board although we have one hopeful place to look at today and then time to sit on our hands and wait for something to pop up. I’m sorry you had to deal with this too. It’s not fun and it should be fun to shop for your dream place.

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      1. ohmygod. yes we were told we were being unreasonable and she texted my realtor at 3 am each nite to say we were unreasonable. Lady you took our offer and we gave you 60 plus days for closing. GO take your unreasonable and shove it where the sun dont shine LOL! Sorry you had hassle from the seller…UGH UGH UGH

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