Selling Points

We had two parties come and look at the house today. One was a husband and wife who came, saw, and said they'd be in touch. The other guy came. Walked through in a thoughtful way. He liked the pocket doors. I explained to him what our thoughts had been on the kitchen. He listened quietly. He ran his hand over the gas fireplace and marveled over the copper fender that Tim had discovered that very day down in the basement. We went upstairs and he was glad to see the completed drywall. He was thrilled with the rough wiring. He is rough wiring a house right now and he is not having fun. 

I left him go up into the attic by himself to save my knee. 

He came down and we stood in the bathroom. He looked at the clawfoot tub. He said, "I'd probably pull this, actually. Tenants tend to overfill them. It just makes an awful mess." 

"You'd rent it then?"

"Yeah," he said. "That's what we had intended..." 

He walked down in the basement. By that time, Tim was done with the couple so he was able to give the man the highlights.  New hot water heater. New forced air furnace. New duct work replaced old radiators which no longer worked. 

He and Tim stood outside talking. He said, "Do you know how old the roof is?" Tim said, "Yes. That was the first thing we did was replace the roof. New sheeting too." 

The man said, "Let me get my phone. I want to take my wife through." She is a local realtor in town. 

We sat in the living room as he took his wife through a virtual tour. We heard snippets of his conversation. "Foundation's great. New furnace and hot water heater. Yeah. Heat upstairs. The rough wiring is all done." He went upstairs, still talking. "The staircase is great." 

He was upstairs for quite a while. 

We waited in the livingroom. He went outside and walked around the house. Tim said, "He's really pleased with the hardiebacker board siding."  He stood in the back yard talking for several more minutes. 

Finally, he came back in. 

He said, "So...I imagine that you're wanting to move on this quickly."

I said, "We've got someone coming tomorrow who seems pretty serious, so no, we're not going to rush." 

It was the truth. A woman loves the house, has done renovation work before, was talking to her bank about how to finance it that day, was taking a half day off work to come tour the house Friday. 

"So...no..." I continued. "We're comfortable waiting to see what happens. What we're not willing to do is start negotiating a price at this point. We had a woman who felt our starting point was too high and began telling me how much it would cost to finish up the house. I didn't debate it with her, but we're not desperate, and we know how much work we've put into it too." 

He said, "You're right. Your price is very fair. The rough wiring...I'm doing that in my house right now. I hate it..." Tim said, "Yeah. It takes forever." He said, "My house was all knob and tube." Tim said, "So was this. It's gone now." The guy gestured up at the lights in coffered ceiling. "I don't imagine that you changed these out." Tim said, "Yes. That's been replaced." The man looked surprised. "It has?" (Tim did it through the exterior walls when he was working on the front porch and the second story bedroom floor above the livingroom.)

The man said, "We are very, very interested in this house," and "I want to come back this weekend and bring our contractor with me. She's from down state and couldn't come today. I want my wife to see it too. Is that possible?" 

We agreed to it. I told him his wife had my number, and that they could call whenever they wanted to set it up. He looked around and then he said the thing that Tim had said five years before. "You know, I really don't think this is a rental. This is a beautiful house. I think it would have to be a flip." 

So, I don't know what is going to happen for sure. But we seem to have one solid, another potential solid, as well as two brothers who flip houses who are discussing it, and another flipper who is in Florida but wants to see it when he gets back. 

It looks very promising at this point, but we're not counting chickens before they are hatched. 

Someone wondered why we were working so hard. It's like this. We've been doing this for almost 20 years now. We started this during the last recession. We bought our first house for $1500. It was awful. Unlivable. Holes in the floor. It's a two unit rental now, and never sits empty. That investment has paid itself off many times over the last 15 years. 

But Tim sees houses and he knows. He absolutely knows what makes a house good. Those are the houses that we flip. We have bought some doozies. It was a couple years of hard work, on each of them, minimally, but we've always, always made big money off the sale of these houses. He has the knack. 

I strongly argued against this last purchase because I simply did not want to start another big project. I mean, we knew that he wanted to build a retirement home. He'd already bought the property. All this rehab was going to do was to delay our plan for the new house. 

But Tim wanted one more last big deal before riding off into the sunset. He argued his point and did not back down. I gave in. 

When Tim bought this last house, the very first thing we had to do was to make it weather tight, so windows and a new roof were the first priority. That was quite an undertaking. It was a hoarder's house, and it was every bit as bad as the houses you see on reality television, so once it was sealed up against the elements, we spent months hoeing it out. We found treasure though, so we had to go through it carefully. Only then could we start working on the place. 

Then Tim got sick. And then he got sick again, very sick, so that delayed our work. 

And after years of trying to arrange it, we had someone to pour concrete for the new house. Amazingly, we were able to get someone to dig the basement as well. When the stars align like that, you have to move on it, because it may be years before it happens again. 

Again, the rehab went on hold. 

And then Tim got cancer. 

Another delay.

Long story short, we ended up having the rehab for far longer than we'd ever expected. Five years. The insurance company gave us a year's extension because of Tim's health problems but they told us that they would not insure an empty house for any longer than that, so we had a deadline to have the rehab done by November, which really put the pressure on, especially since we knew I was having a knee replacement in May. 

And we had all this stuff we wanted to do on the new house but couldn't because of the deadline, and shit started getting tense, and then I had my big ol' hissy fit, and...well...

That's what happened. 

PS: Everyone get remember to get their post cards mailed out on the 15th!