why do you dislike the house so much?
Is this a recent purchase? and how did it end up wrong?
Here's a little background on the house (get ready it's long!):
When I was 22, I was living in an apartment with a friend from college. It was costing us $1500/mo ($750 ea) plus utilities to live in an average new-construction apartment building. It was definitely for young professionals, was in a high end town and had amenities like central air conditioning but was by no means considered a "luxury" building. I realized at some point that we could spend effectively the same monthly if I bought a house, and in the meantime I would be able to build equity and have a little more space. I found a small house in the same town, my dad helped me fix it up and I got two roommates (and they effectively paid my mortgage for me!). Fast forward 2 years, and my girlfriend had moved in and the roommates had moved out. I wasn't smitten with that house because it was 3 houses removed from a main road and thus I could hear some traffic noise. Also the yard was very small and had no room for outdoor entertaining. Lastly, the garage only fit 1 car, and I wanted to get into some weekend car DIY stuff (hence the old BMW mentioned earlier). So we made the determination to either a.) cash out the ~$60K in equity in the house and buy a cheap condo while she finished grad school or b.) rent an apartment or c.) buy another house that could theoretically be our home for the permanent future.
In the end I was convinced by my parents that buying a condo is a bad investment and that I should either rent an apartment or buy another house. We started the house search in earnest during the most competitive time of the year (we wanted to list the other house when it was guaranteed to sell but this put us in the unfortunate position of needing to search for a replacement at that time). Due to my girlfriend's grad school status I set our budget at a max of $250,000, ideally wanting to be closer to $225,000. Either way our mortgage payment would be going up since I only paid $180,000 for the previous house that I was now selling for $250,000. $250,000 does not buy a palace in our area - it buys a 1,500 - 2,000 sq ft mostly older (as in pre-1965) home - for context. We put offers on two homes that were in "multiple offer situations" (realtor speak) and didn't get them. Finally a house in our price range, in a desirable area, popped on the market the Wednesday before Memorial Day. I went to look at it without my girlfriend before we left for a weekend camping trip to Vermont. It was nicely decorated by the previous owners though I did notice the landscaping needed some attention. The large windows on the southern exposure was a plus, as was the quiet nearly 1 acre yard on a cul-de-sac street. My realtor told me it seemed like a good deal and that he thought there was some buffer room to make improvements without losing the money invested. At the time he also suggested i consider putting an offer around $15K below asking price to gauge the sellers' negotiability.
That weekend while we were camping in Vermont we got a call from my realtor telling us he had heard from the listing agent that another offer had come in, and we would have to move quickly to put in an offer if we wanted the house. He assured me that the asking price was very fair and suggested I go for a full price offer (a reversal of his previous guidance to put a low offer in). Lo and behold we got the house. After we came back from Vermont I took my GF to see the house and she immediately fell in love with it (she initially had put a lot of trust in my judgement).
Fast forward three weeks and it's time for the home inspection. It's the first time I'd been to the house since taking my girlfriend for another 20 minute visit on Memorial Day to get her approval. At this point the sellers had started un-decorating the house and packing boxes for their impending move to North Carolina. Immediately the place seemed a little shabbier. It had also been rainy and the house smelled damp and musty, which seemed to be emanating from the basement. My allergies started acting up after being down in the basement for a while with the inspector.
As I followed the home inspector around the house my brain starting tallying up all the things i would have to fix and improvements I would want to make after we moved in. I noticed the sump pump in the basement, the worn finish on the kitchen cabinets, the messy caulk in the bathroom shower stall, the sloppy paint job in the living room, the dented garage doors. The inspector also pointed out a number of issues such as some dodgy wiring, poorly plumbed sump pump, old roof, and some wood rot on the shed that was attached to the back of the garage.
I was already a little leery having got accepted at full price and coupled with the work needed I started having second thoughts. As soon as I left the house and went back to work I explained the situation to my friend. He suggested I either ask for a huge concession from the sellers or back out entirely. I called my GF and told her that the house was bothering my allergies and needed more work than I had originally thought.
Now here I must explain that the summer of 2018 was possibly the most stressful summer of our lives. Around the time we were looking for houses my GF's dad had been diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. By Memorial Day we weren't sure what stage it was, essentially what his prognosis was going to be. In hindsight it was a very, very bad time to upend our lives and sell a house but that was in the works long before his cancer scare began (by the way he's in remission now, thank goodness). Either way my GF was under a tremendous amount of stress and probably couldn't be entirely rational. When I was explaining to her that I was considering backing out she got very upset. She said the issues sounded minor, her heart was set on that house, and either way "Where were we going to go? Our house is already under contract to be sold!"
Next thing I know I get a call from her dad. He made light of the issues, saying a "House is a shelter over your head, not an investment" and "[She] needs some stability, do you think you really need to back out?" Basically I allowed myself to be talked into going forward with the deal and paying the second deposit. We did get a concession of $4,000 from the sellers in regards to certain items that came up on the inspection report. Normally I would have sought the advice of my own dad, but he happened to be out of town on vacation through the entire thing. As it turns out, once he came back and had the chance to go take a look he was vehemently opposed to me buying the house but I was several weeks into the transaction at this point and was not sure if it was worth it to blow up my relationship with all the stakeholders (
this is my biggest regret - up until the day of closing I wanted to call off the deal but with everything going on I couldn't build up the courage to do so).
Why I want to sell: (get ready for a story that is probably so crazy it's unbelievable, but trust me it is 100% true)Another few weeks go by and we move in. Immediately I'm bothered by the constant musty smell that invades the house every time it's damp outside. The worn finish on the kitchen cabinets itches at my brain. My mom came to help with the landscaping one day and summed up the place pretty well, "You need to clean it up around the edges." At this point I might sound like a perfectionist - I don't deny that, I like things to be crisp and clean though I'm not bothered by things that are considered out of date. I think anyone would be irritated to feel like they rode the crazy train from a perfectly buttoned up, albeit small, house to a house that had fundamental annoying problems from Day 1. The day of closing, on the final walk-through we found that the sunroom had been invaded by black carpenter ants ($). Ants continued to be an issue for the rest of the summer necessitating hiring a professional exterminator service ($$$). This was also a harbinger of rotten wood issues to come. Two weeks after we move, a 90 ft pine tree that was planted alongside the driveway got hit by lightning and struck the side of the garage on its way down, also shorting out a garage door opener and the crucial effluent tank pump that keeps our septic system operating ($$$). Later that summer we voluntarily spent some time remodeling the filthy tile floor with un-cleanable grout in the kitchen and painted the cabinets ($). Early that winter brought an ice dam on the roof that stained the ceiling in one of the bedrooms ($). In January I came home from work after a rain storm to find 5 inches of water in our entire basement caused by a failed sump pump, necessitating a pump-out by the fire department and an insurance claim, and leading to a total tear out of the 1970s paneling in the finished side of the basement ($$$ - albeit paid by insurance). In February to avoid the potential for future issues caused by the massive pine trees, I paid $5,000 (the balance of the insurance settlement) to have them removed. In March we discover that the concrete front porch had not been properly flashed to the house, leading to a month-long DIY project to jackhammer the porch, remove the aluminum siding on the entire front face of the house, and have the rotten wall structure repaired from the outside ($$$$). I was advised that once aluminum siding is removed, it cannot be put back but I had no choice in order to fix the rotten wall studs and sill plate. Options were to replace with new aluminum (apparently very expensive and hard to come by and would not match what we had) or replace with vinyl (also would not match). Instead I opted to strip the house of all the 1970s aluminum siding and restore the original cedar shake-style siding that was dormant underneath. My step-father and I stripped the entire house ourselves over the course of 2 months, but I had to hire a painter to replace some damaged siding and do the finish work ($$$$). Ancillary projects that stemmed from the siding removal include the replacement of a warped side entry door, replacement of the two garage doors (were very damaged by the previous owners) and the demolition of the hopelessly rotted storage shed that was built as a lean-to against the garage ($$$$ many thousands). Even though I did nearly all of the labor myself and with the help of family this still cost me thousands of dollars in essentially unplanned repairs. Now we are dealing with a roof flashing leak that was exposed by the removal of the aluminum siding and the only way to fix it properly is to replace the 21 year old roof. Coincidentally with that project I also had to dig a 125' trench in my backyard to properly route the discharge from the sump pump (something I had no idea was going to be as big of a project as it was when I was buying the house - everyone made light of the sump pump). My yard has a water table that is only 18" down and very poor drainage so the town would not approve a traditional dry well. Nor do we have storm drains to discharge the nearly 3,000 gallons / day (!!!) that gets pumped in the springtime. The only option was to dig a trench into the woods behind the house and discharge the pump there ($$$).
All in all I am utterly disgusted by the house. I'm mad at my realtor for being overly optimistic and doing his part to convince me to "go easy on the sellers when asking for concessions" and to go ahead with the deal. I don't blame my girlfriend or her father as they were going through a lot and aren't as knowledgeable about houses as I am. I mostly blame myself for being naive, for not doing my due diligence and for putting my financial future in the trust of others. I wasted every free hour for the entire summer of 2019 working on the house and still the musty basement smell is something that I cannot eliminate. The house was not built with "soffits" where the roof intersects with the walls, so it is extra prone to ice damming in the winter and other forms of water infiltration at the drip edge, not to mention water streams down the windows when it rains. The foundation only has around a 5" reveal above the soil level, so when it rains water splashes dirt onto my precious cedar siding, leaving it susceptible to rot. Finally, there is no insulation in the walls (typical for a house built in the 1940s) so we have to bundle up and deal with being cold all winter (not wanting to keep the heat above 65 degrees for cost reasons).
Last fall, before the rotten wall reared its ugly head I consulted with three new realtors on the possibility of selling the house as-is at that point. They were all shocked I paid $245,000 for the house when I did in the condition it was and said they would not be comfortable listing it for more than $220,000. At the time the prospect of losing $25,000 before realtors' fees was too much to bear so I decided to keep it (within the next 2 months the basement flooded and I had to rip off the front porch). Because I know someone will ask about this - yes, it did appraise for more than $245,000 and no I have no legal case against any party. I consulted with an attorney who told me that the appraisal does seem questionable but because they technically work for the bank I can not bring liability against them. He said I could try to sue the sellers for lack of disclosure but it would be hard to prove they deliberately misled us. He said my realtor is really the most at fault but isn't liable for anything either.
So now that I've prettied up the exterior, remodeled the kitchen, and dealt with the sump pump properly I could possibly foresee getting $250,000 if I sold the house. Obviously I am still looking at a significant financial loss via realtors' fees as well as the cash I have been forced to invest into the home since buying it. I have considered the possibility of renting the house out for at least a year prior to selling it to be allowed to claim the loss on my federal income taxes, but not sure if the risk of renter damage / issues occurring that year outweigh the potential ~30% tax savings on the loss (advice here is also welcome).
Apologies for the length of this post but since most people were focused on my desire to sell the house I figured the detail would shed some light on my thought process and the reasons why I feel I would be justified in dumping the place for a loss come springtime.
I also hope that this story can be somewhat of a warning to other young people who are inexperienced in homebuying to really do your due diligence - even though the various actors in the process seem like they have your best interests at heart -
they don't! They are in it simply to make money.
