Our City House Sold!

Hi, Friends,

How are you? I hope you are well and spring is on the way where ever you are.

We are vastly relieved that our house has sold!  I thought I'd share the story with you. In part, because I want to remember our tumultuous sale. 

We had the listing photos done in mid-October and I moved out of our house on October 29th 2024. 

We left it partially furnished. 

The listing went live that afternoon. 

We showed it quite a few times the first week it was available and we went under contract on November 13th. We were thrilled. We accepted under asking but we got more that we hoped for. It is a buyer's market. It was a cash offer and we were set to close on November 26th.

The inspection came back with 42 pages of repairs and our buyer backed out of the deal.

 By the time we found out, we had given away beds, chairs, sofa. We had packed up most of the house including the kitchen. Some of the items in the inspection report were very valid but some of them were things that would bring the house up to code. We didn't have to do that because we weren't remodeling.

 We'd had the roof inspected in May and the inspection report found needed roofing repairs. That roofer would not have been invited back if we were staying in the Arlington area. At some point in the last months of living there, the seal around the dishwasher failed and it caused damage to the narrow cabinets on either side of the dishwasher. We put in a new dishwasher and Bill had someone come out and rebuild the interior of the cabinets. I'm so glad we were able to find someone to handle the repair without ripping out cabinetry. 

There were other repairs which included brickwork, plumbing, electrical, drywall and exterior trim. There was a tiny hole under our cantilevered window in the primary bathroom. When they went to repair it, they discovered extensive damage. The windows needed to be rebuilt and the entire side of the house needed new siding. It was a lot. 

The fabulous cabinet repair person was not a fabulous painter. Bill Face-timed me pictures of some touch ups done by this guy and it looked horrible. In 2013, I neglected to paint behind the washer and dryer. He took light gray paint and repainted behind the appliances but the walls were white. 

He did some touch ups elsewhere in the house and it looked horrible. It did not match our asking price. 

On December 8th, we decided to suspend the listing since it alleviated the pressure of showing it in the midst of repairs and painting. No one was looking at it anyway.  

On December 31st, the listing went live again. 

We showed it five or six times during the first week of January. The feedback was positive. People with young children didn't like the back yard. Older couples didn't like the second floor primary bedroom. One couple wanted to garden. My yard had very little full sun. 

We received a lowball offer on January 9th from a couple and his mother. Our house was perfect because there was bedroom and full bath downstairs for the mother. The couple having an upstairs primary was a plus. Based on the other feedback we decided to countered back. We went back and forth for several days and went under contract on January 14th with a February 12th closing date. The second inspector said there was an issue with the guest bath drain and that there was water in the ceiling. At this point we were exasperated with all the repairs so we gave them a plumbing allowance even though the sale was "as is". Our house sale was now pending. We heard that the appraisal was fine and they got a new survey. 

In the midst of all of this my brother went into the hospital for quadruple bypass. 

A week before closing, the title company informed us that we didn't have a release of lien from the original mortgage back in 1993. It was never posted with the county. Our documents were not all centrally located at the new house and we couldn't the release of lien anywhere. We tore through every file and Bill came to the conclusion that it was thrown away in November when we cleaned out the house for the first buyer. Thankfully, Bill has had 11 years experience doing title searches for his bank. He did forensics and discovered that the original mortgage ended up with Chase. 

Chase found it within hours of the request which was amazing.

We kept hearing that our buyer was pre-qualified and that he had plenty of money. 

The buyer had the ability to withdraw from the contract due to loan approval on February 4th. On that day, he asked for a three day extension because he wanted to put his mother on the loan. We agreed. The three days passed and we didn't hear anything else. 

On February 10th, we heard that our buyer no longer qualified for the loan because his credit score ended up being blown due to a vet bill and an engagement ring. The deal was off. 

I was a basket case. We would have to address the leak in the guest bathroom and have to start the process all over again for the third time. We were mindful that a third inspection would unearth other issues with a 33 year old house. We were also very ready to get rid of the empty house. My sister said to take a day off from worrying about the house and to take a nap. 

At the end of the day on the 12th, our contract with the second buyer had expired and we were entitled to his earnest money. Our house would go back on the market on the 13th. It was a holiday weekend and we really wanted to capitalize on that traffic. The buyer wouldn't initial the document so that our house could go back on MLS. He finally signed but if he hadn't, our house would not have been able to go back on MLS for 2 weeks. It was about to be prime selling season. We needed to get our house back on the market. Our house showed 5 or 6 times during President's Day weekend. 

On Sunday afternoon, we got a text from our realtor that the glass on the front door was shattered. 

 Sometime between Friday afternoon and Saturday evening something happened to our front door. 

We were worried about vandalism. 

Bill jumped in the car and headed to the house. We no longer felt safe having an empty house. 

The glass could not be fixed so we ended up installing a new front door.

The new door. 

He dealt with the door and on his way back out to East Texas our realtor called and said that the buyer had fixed his credit score and we could proceed to close on Friday the 21st. Because of the liability of an empty house, we said yes. We would give him his earnest money back and be done! 

Late Thursday, we hadn't gotten the "clear to close" from the mortgage company. 

We discovered that the buyer was using a loan broker. The loan broker's software was saying that he qualified but the mortgage company's software didn't agree. Friday morning they were trying to work it out but it became clear that we weren't closing. We had another weekend in limbo. 

The buyer had to come up with a substantial amount of money. We weren't sure he would agree to it but he did. The new contract with buyer said that we had to close Monday the 24th. The clear to close came around 9:30 that morning but we had no word from the title company. At noon, I went to Bible study. I left the church at two o'clock and there was still no word about the closing. 

Bill came bolting out of his office at 2:30. We were closing at 3:00 at our bank here in town.  

Our notary had been at cards with her friends. She called to say that the bank lobby was closed. She had to go home and print the documents and that she would meet us half way. 

We ended up closing at a gas station in a little town. An hour later we heard that the buyer had signed as well. 

We cracked the champagne and sent out massive texts saying that the house had sold. 

Bill retired exactly 4 days later. It was all a little too 11th hour for us but we are so relieved. 

In all, we showed the house 21 times. 

It was on the market for 30 days total before going under the two contracts. 

The total time from listing to closing was 119 days. That is not bad in this economy. 

I have a couple of thoughts in conclusion. 

There is no such thing as an "AS IS" sale in a buyer's market. 

 If you can help it, never leave an empty house.

"Pre Qualified" means squat! 

A home inspector will find problems in order for the buyer to have an out. 

What you love about your house, doesn't mean a thing to somebody else. 

We loved that there wasn't another house behind us. In the feedback that we received, nobody mentioned that as an asset. 

I admit that I did not have an "it will all work out" attitude. I worried about the house a lot and I tossed and turned many nights during this process. 

However, by the end of it all, I no longer missed the old house. It was just a shell without us in it. 

It wasn't ours anymore. 

Going into the listing, we knew that our big retaining wall needed repair. Neither inspector said a thing about it. We disclosed it on the seller's disclosure but it might have been a problem if this buyer fell through and we needed a third inspection. 

Selling a house is stressful. 

We were waiting for the house to sell in order to finish up some things here at the new house. 

We are loving it here!

I will talk about that in another post. 

Thanks for stopping by,

Katie 

My Little Sewing Room

Hi, Friends, How are you?

I hope you are well.

I wanted to show you my little sewing room at the new house. 

On the plans, this room was supposed to be a storage room for my seasonal and holiday decor and it was going to house the hot water heater.  

We are lacking storage at this house but we will remedy that when our house in town sells. There is not a tall enough pitch to the roof to store anything in the attic and we do not have a garage.  Right now all my pretty seasonal things are in the old shed. We got a tankless water heater and put it in the attic which created more space. Thank heavens. 

Getting light into the butler's pantry and kitchen was a priority so we added a window to the plans. 

As this addition progressed, we decided that the room would be best used as a small craft or sewing room instead of one used just for storage.  

It was difficult to gage how big the room would be from the plan. It looked bigger during the concrete slab and framing stages. It ended up being smaller than we imagined but it still has great function. 

I am using this room as a vanity and craft supply storage. I have only sewed in here once so far. 

Upon emptying the other house, I had a choice of four desks. 

I chose this one for the time being but I'm looking for a better desk. I've decided that antique desks are too low so I may order something new once the other house sells. 

The bottom half of an old hutch stores some crafting supplies. I will probably craft in the kitchen, however. 

If you have been around, you might remember my doll house build from my 65th birthday. 

All of the rooms were "wallpapered" and one of the rooms was a darling sewing room/office. 

I decided that my little office needed to have wallpaper. 

Leland's Wallpaper is right around the corner from my house. They service the entire country so check them out if you want wallpaper. Michelle has shipped wallpaper to England. 

Wallpaper is expensive now days, just FYI. 

The paper we chose is the Lydia Blue by Magnolia Home. It is a lovely blue that reads robin's egg in some lights and Wedgwood at other times. It's reading gray blue in these photos. Either way, I felt like it would coordinate with anything that we did in the laundry room and bathroom. 

It was quite beastly to hang but I muddled through. 

I adore it. 

Originally, the big cabinet was on the longer wall but in the end,

I flipped the cabinet and the desk which makes the tiny room feel a little bigger. 

This room takes the place of a vanity room, one closet and part of our old garden room.  

I had a craft closet at the other house. I used the kid's bathroom as my vanity area once they all moved out 

Waiting to purchase a desk until we were in the space was a wise move. I know now that I want it on the long wall and I have a better idea of the storage needed for make up and such. 

The glass fronted top of the cabinet is being used as display. This piece was in the garden room and it stored seeds and various garden related collectables and books. It's decorated much like it was at the other house. 

I'm sure rather than decor, I could use the top for storage but I don't love the look of supplies on display. 

All the craft supplies were pared down so that they would fit in the bottom half of the hutch. 

The crystal chandelier was a garage sale find several decades ago. It was 50¢. It hung in our daughter's room. I was thrilled to use it in this house. 

I made the little cafe curtains out of panels from our room. 

The rest of the window remains unadorned so that light pours through.

Ideally, we could have done a wall of built ins. Now that we've hung the wallpaper, it would be sad to cover it up with built ins. 

Bill and the contractor made a doorway into my closet so that we can get from the laundry room to the bathroom through this room. 

We love this on laundry day. 

It does make my closet seem smaller however but it also forces me to keep it tidy.

We used a French door so that light spills through to the other rooms. 

I love that the wallpaper creates a sweet design moment that can be seen from the laundry, butler's pantry and kitchen. 

That's all for now. 

I think I still need to give you a tour of our bathroom. We still need to finish the butler's pantry but we are still working on that. I have added a few little Valentine's Day touches that I hope to show. 

Have a great day! 

Katie