Buying a house is so frustrating!

[Mike Chance in Iowa]

Awesome news Brian. Your search is finally over!

[Matt Meiser]

Congrats!

We're 20 days in. Our contractor has a 2-story foyer, small "den", and the basement stairs left to paint and some touchups throughout. Probably the better part of a day's worth of various trim. Tomorrow my office floor is going down. And a list of small stuff that is him or me, whoever gets to it first. We're all thinking he'll be done about this time next week. We're planning to get our POD unloaded this weekend.

[Jim Becker]

Closing went just fine and I now own the house. I am heading over there to start working on the house. The contractor plans to start Monday.

Congratulations, Brian!

[Shawn Pixley]

When we bought our first house in Seattle, it was from the original owner who had lived there for 60+ years. It hadn't been mucked up too badly. When we did the title search we saw the highly redacted terms of the original title (incredibly racist and predjudiced). The realtor was a piece of work. Eventually, the owner agreed to sell it too us for our offer as we planned to live there with our then young son.

We upgraded all the building systems and remodeled / restored the arts and crafts house to a largely original condition (coved ceilings, picture rails, etc...). I had drawn the house up into plans and had designed a remodel of the garret and back porch. When we sold it, I gave the new owners the plans and the drawings for the addition. We never met them.

We never met the second owner (Hollywood lawyer going through a messy divorce) of the house we live in now, but we know and speak regularly to the original owners. We have the plans and occasionally ask the, about certain design details. They made largely good choices when building it (architect designed custom house) though the contractor slipped a few questionable items in (plastic flat roof drain pans) - DAMHIKT. Closing on this house was contingent upon four house sales closing concurrently. We pulled it off.

i think realtors are reluctant to have the two parties meet to avoid seller's remorse or worse yet, some predjucial action that could end up in court. It probably doesn't happen that much, but it is cautionary.

[Shawn Pixley]

Closing went just fine and I now own the house. I am heading over there to start working on the house. The contractor plans to start Monday.

Congratulations!

[Rick Potter]

Whew!! Congrats, I know what a stressful time it has been for your family.

Rick P

[Rich Engelhardt]

LOL! Misery must love company

I thought we were all done buying houses since we made the final payment on all our houses (primary and 4 rentals) in November 2014, just a couple weels before my wife retired.

Now my wife tells me she wants another rental,,,,,,so,,,,here we go again!

& man oh man, this thread is so spot on!
Finding a place is really frustrating.
The decent places go as soon as they hit the market. I've seen at least three houses go to "pending" between 6:00 am when I get a copy of the new listings and 9:00 am, when I can contact my agent.
You really have to be fast on the trigger!

I've spent the last few days driving around the neighborhoods where I'm interested and looking for driveways that show no signs of the snow being cleared or driven over.
I copy the address down and pull it up on the county auditor's site and check for overdue taxes or water or sewer bills to see if it may be going on the market soon as a bank buy back or something.

[Chris Padilla]

We've lived in our home since 1999. From the last half of 2014 to today, we've gotten 4 unsolicited letters from various real estate brokers asking us if we're interested in selling our home as it is the perfect size, location, etc. for their clients. The previous time we've gotten exactly zero such letters.

I keep asking my wife if we should sell and she grabs the letter and tosses it into the recycle bin. I guess it's good to know we have a high demand home and/or location!