What Would You Do?

[Jim Koepke]

We close in two weeks.

May good luck and the grace of God be with you.

We bought our retirement "dream house" in Southwestern Washington a little over 7 years ago.

I am not one for enjoying snow, but felt I could deal with a little. Last year it didn't snow. Looks like this year will be the same.

Enjoying the dream,

jtk

[Todd Willhoit]

...Armpit Iowa... The OP considered living aboard. I know something about it. Do you?

Armpit Iowa? A bit harsh, eh? Plenty of places "abroad" as you put it, which are far less desirable.

[Mike Ontko]

We close in two weeks.

Congratulations are in order then!

[Pat Barry]

This is going to sound like I'm crazy but it's only a small part of our reality in trying to become sufficiently knowledgeable in the realities of nailing down the facts.

The insurance agent came back to us yesterday and gave us a flood quote 1/3 the previous one that knocked us out of the game. (insert head smack) That previous quote was based on the absolutely worst scenario. She just failed to tell us that. But I have no idea where it came from because when we ran all the worst case numbers, she couldn't even come close to that.

My SO owned an insurance agency for 25 years and has been asking all the right questions. The people in the insurance office have remarked how impressed they are, based on these questions. (2nd head smack) And no, it's not just this agency. The three priors were worse.

So we spend the rest of the day making certain what we hear over the phone and what we see in the contracts is the real thing and isn't going to change... again. We locked in the contracts and are moving forward. Then the agent said, "This has been such a great learning experience for us all. It's the talk of the office!" (is your forehead starting to hurt?)

To give you a more complete idea of what we've been dealing with... Our realtor calls and asks me to educate her on the law and ordinance issues we've been talking about. (forget the head smack and go straight to the bar) I spent 35 minutes giving her a class and offered to give a lecture to her entire office.

We close in two weeks.

You go girl! Now find yourselves a nice little sailboat and enjoy life. (not too little though )

[Julie Moriarty]

Thanks for the Congrats! I think?

The owner invited us over for margaritas and nachos yesterday. The lanai really is beautiful in the evening. I kept asking myself if I deserved this. Did I work as hard as I could have? I wasn't doing a very good job convincing myself I did. Guess that was my dad in my head.

[Tom M King]

This is going to sound like I'm crazy but it's only a small part of our reality in trying to become sufficiently knowledgeable in the realities of nailing down the facts.

The insurance agent came back to us yesterday and gave us a flood quote 1/3 the previous one that knocked us out of the game. (insert head smack) That previous quote was based on the absolutely worst scenario. She just failed to tell us that. But I have no idea where it came from because when we ran all the worst case numbers, she couldn't even come close to that.

My SO owned an insurance agency for 25 years and has been asking all the right questions. The people in the insurance office have remarked how impressed they are, based on these questions. (2nd head smack) And no, it's not just this agency. The three priors were worse.

So we spend the rest of the day making certain what we hear over the phone and what we see in the contracts is the real thing and isn't going to change... again. We locked in the contracts and are moving forward. Then the agent said, "This has been such a great learning experience for us all. It's the talk of the office!" (is your forehead starting to hurt?)

To give you a more complete idea of what we've been dealing with... Our realtor calls and asks me to educate her on the law and ordinance issues we've been talking about. (forget the head smack and go straight to the bar) I spent 35 minutes giving her a class and offered to give a lecture to her entire office.

We close in two weeks.

Great Work!!!!! and congratulations!!

[Robert Engel]

Have you checked insurability?
If you can insure it for replacement value seems to me that's a big factor.

My brother has a waterfront house in the St Pete area and the insurance is crazy expensive.

[Ian Moone]

Not Florida, But I lived on a canal for 3 years!.

If I were YOU - I'd see if you could maybe Rent it with an option to buy it in 1 or 2 years time!.

Canal livings not what its always cracked up to be....

It took 2 or 3 years living on the Canal - to "find out from the neighbors"... what the "problems really were that non of the realtors mentioned when trying to sell us a place on the canal".

For entertainment we'd invite family and friends down to watch the neighbors boats sink at the dock when they fill with rain, batter runs flat operating the bilge pump - the tide comes up and sinks their boat tied to their waterfront dock!



Money can't buy entertainment like this!.

Watching them for 2 days drunk out of their skulls trying to re-float it 9diving into the freezing water in winter in their underpants) I could have charged admittance!



75 ft of dock on 3 sides - nice outdoor entertaining area between 5 x 3 house and dock.



Private slipway alongside the house + covered 3 car/boat garage for working on boats and cars!



Entertaining area under 3 feet of water on an unexpectedly big tide! - Woke up to find my BBQ and roasting Kettle floating off down the canal along with the patio furniture. Funny - that wasn't in the sales brochure.









Dock underwater & the boat floating on top of it. Lucky its an alloy boat and not fiberglass!.

These canals were built so long ago (more than 20 years) they had silted up and on low tide were only a couple 3 feet deep - the Australian Standard is 6 meters (20ft).

My boat only drew about 6 inches so no big deal.

BUT the developers dun new canals fed off the old canals... and sold them for around a million each block of ground. New ones dredged to code at 20 ft deep!.

Investors bought them build expensive double and 2 & 3 story water front homes and put their 40 ft yacht in the canal out the front of their house - you know the yacht that draws say 4 or 5 meters!! (!2 to 15 feet) with the deep keels.

Just one problem... non of them could reach the estuary and hence open ocean - coz the access channel leads off the old canals which are only 3 foot deep! Oops!

I could go on.... there were many other issues - lanmd values that went up from 500K to $1M speculatively within 12 months and back to 400K within another 6 months.... with the economy ups and downs - values vary wildly in short periods of time!

You should ONLY buy at the very bottom of the market.

One of the neighbors places had a sunken lounge. When the water flooded over their slip way & into the house, the sunken lounge really was - sunken - like with 3 feet of brine estuary water in it including all the electrical circuits. 6 months later it was back on the market around $2Mil... to some unsuspecting sucker.

I've lived on canals - I've lived on islands...for YEARS & I never had to buy any of them... great fun but not sound investments mostly!.


Lived and worked here on and off over 15 years


Just a week or so here!





Spent a year living and working on this Island!

You can have the lifestyle without playing the mugs game of buying the joint!.

Invest somewhere safe and use the returns to pay the rent on a canal and see how you like it first!.

That's what I WOULD do!.

Your Mileage May Vary.

[Julie Moriarty]

Well, we moved ahead with the deal. Then about a week ago the seller was missing a document the title company needed. During this whole we have gotten to know the seller and we are often aware of what's happening before the realtors, lawyers or other parties involved. We've even had a couple of evenings at her house enjoying the view from her lanai. It's been a nice respite from vacation home rental life.

Anyway, this document must be found or she has to go to court and have them rule in the absence of the document. Her lawyer says 3-5 weeks. We were supposed to close Friday. I hope I make it. This place we're staying was designed by a mad man. It flows so poorly it's like living in a maze. I think it was intended to drive people crazy.

[Julie Moriarty]

Well, we still haven't closed. A title cloud needs to be cleared. I think this may end up on a real estate soap opera. We've already had to move once and in less than a month we will have to move again.

But today there was hope. The trustee has finally contacted the title company and says he should be sending the docs to clear the title cloud. We may be in the new place before Christmas. I'm keeping my fingers crossed but I'm not holding my breath.

[Shawn Pixley]

Best wishes. What a pain

[Bruce Wrenn]

Julie, the 50% rule is the law here in NC. That's why a lot of renovations are done in several smaller steps, one permit at the time, none of which is 50% or more.

[Julie Moriarty]

I'm beginning to think someone doesn't want me to buy that house.

Yesterday I get a call. The trustee finally sent the documents to the title company. The seller and our realtor were positive this was it and we'd be closing soon.

This morning the seller calls, not at all happy. The title company said the docs sent were only part of what was needed. Now the trustee, who was first notified about this two months ago, will have to find the rest of the documents and submit them. And in two weeks we have to clear out of this rental.

Remind me again why I thought moving to Florida was a good idea.

[Ian Moone]

Down here we call it BF Alaska!

[Julie Moriarty]

And, like a tennis ball, I'm hit back to the other side of the court. Got two calls and two emails this morning. Looks like game, set & match. All the docs are in. The title attorney is happy. Now the title company has to give it their final blessing.

I'll believe it when I see it.