Lord of the Castle

After I my wife and I drove by two more houses with my wife this morning, we had a little time before we met with the realtor to go inside four more houses. On a lark, I drove by the house that mysteriously went off the market. What if I could meet and talk to the owner and find out why he took it off the market?

You’ll never guess what I found when I pulled in front of the house…

the owner feeding his dog! What are the odds of that happening…in the middle of the morning?

He took it off the market because his father was admitted into surgery for quadruple bypass surgery in Lebanon and he might be flying to see him if things don’t go well.

If his father comes through the surgery, he is going to do what he does every winter-close the house up and head to Laguna Beach, CA for the winter! My guess is that he doesn’t really NEED the money…

Anyway, we talked, toured the house (it was beautiful) and tried to work out a deal. In the end, the best we could do was a good deal. But if I am going to ask my father-in-law to loan us money, it is going to have to be a GREAT deal!

The house hunt is getting interesting. As I mentioned in my last post on the subject, the house that really has taken the lead is in foreclosure. Our realtor informed us today that the listing agent already has two offers that they are submitting to the bank today!

Oh well, if it is meant to be ours, it will still be there.

We are going to look at three more properties in a neighborhood that my wife really likes tomorrow morning. Tomorrow evening, we will make our decision and then talk to my father-in-law.

My wife had the day off so we headed off with the realtor to actually go inside six of the houses that we have driven by. One of the houses is BEAUTIFUL! I mean, a dream.

One was in very bad shape. Three of them were small country houses that were advertised as 3 bedrooms but really had 2.

And one of them needed to have the exterior painted, the deck needed to be restained and sealed and it needed new carpet. But it was a very nice house: 4BR/3.5BA with a real office/library, a walkout basement with high ceilings and full size windows, a view over the valley from the kitchen, a big deck, a HUGE master suite, etc. And it is currently in foreclosure so it is priced 25% below market value.

We have at least one more to look at tomorrow. We’ll see.

I’m sick of looking at houses. I am tired of reading maps.

I plotted the positions of 65 houses on 45 pages of printed Google maps that cover 15 square miles and I have looked at nearly every single one of those houses in the last few days.

And none of them seem to be an exact fit!

There is the absolutely beautiful, brand new house with a 4 car garage that has never been lived in and is in foreclosure! However, it is priced $150K above our highest target price!

Then there is 2.5 of the most beautiful wooded acres but with a small 3BR/2.5BA house that needs to be completely updated.

There is the nice house on 4 acres. The only problem is that power lines, not telephone poles, POWER LINES run over the property. My wife says that she doesn’t want to look at that! Can you believe that? (LOL)

Then there are the multitudes of houses well within our budget that are so close to one another that you could ask your neighbor for a roll of toilet paper without really leaving the bathroom!

Anyway, the Lord’s Day starts tonight. I’m done for now!