Damian Way

Highlights:
• We put an offer down on a home in Richardson and it’s only the second best offer
• First place offer backs out, but we find major flaws in the house, we back out
• The seller wants to fix up the house and claims our agents soured the deal
• All repairs are done and seller lowers the price for us
• The house doesn’t appraise and we lose it a third and final time

As some of you are aware, Dianna and I have been in the process of buying a home. It has been quite the experience, one that has taught us a few life lessons.

We began looking at home in the Richardson area soon after Lucy was born. After about 15 homes, we decided that the first home we saw, 1709 Damian Way, was just what we were looking for. We put an offer down after a second visit, but it turned out to be only the second highest offer. Too bad. We decided to move on and continue our search, plus were really in no hurry.

A week later we get a call from our realtor telling us the first offer had backed out. Perfect! A few days later, however, we found out from our inspector that the house had problems. It had a lot of cosmetic updates, but the roof and plumbing were in bad shape. We contacted the seller’s agent and he brushed off our requests, as if to say “we have two other offers, we don’t need to help you at all.” So sadly, we had lost the house a second time (as well as a big chunk of money for inspections and other fees, phooey!).

Then…. Yes, then…. The seller calls and tells me our realtor’s got in a tiffy and caused the deal to go south. He was really interested in making the repairs to sell us the house! We felt sick to our stomachs. I only agreed to give it another shot if he would discount the original price, and if we kept the realtor’s in the background. He enthusiastically agreed.

The seller fixed everything we asked him to. A total of 63 items, including the roof and plumbing!

Seven days before closing, we get a call from the bank’s appraiser, “I can’t justify appraising this home for more than X.” X being over $30,000 LESS than the sales price! WHAAT?!?! As inconceivable as this sounded, we discovered, there was nothing we could do. We couldn’t assign a different appraiser because the type of loan we were getting specifies that you can’t change appraisers. The seller had two other offers to choose from, so he wouldn’t logically lower the price of the house. This is all despite the report from our agent (Big Grrrr!) saying the house was worth $20,000 MORE than the sales price and GEICO’s report saying the minimum insurance amount to rebuild was $50,000 MORE than the sales price. Everyone had a theory about why it didn’t appraise, but it didn’t matter to us anymore, we threw in the towel.

I called the seller and we ended on very friendly terms. Without our realtors in the way, we actually built a good, business relationship. That guy was great; he even bought little teddy bears for the ceiling fan in Lucy’s room! I could tell he even wanted to sell us the house, but he understood our exhausted and beaten emotions couldn’t take anymore. So someone else will get a great house in perfect condition (just as long as they can get it appraised).

We would like to feel that we learned a thing or two during this process, and that it happened for some reason. We learned about everything there is to know about real estate contracts and the real estate process. I even learned how to be an agent there for a while. We learned that it’s worth it to keep your integrity and having good business relationships is superior to “using and abusing” people for your own ends. We also learned that the Lord has other plans for us and maybe he wanted to teach us some patience too (although that is never fun to admit). We still have faith that in the future we will find another place to call home.