A followup on my earlier post

[quakerboy]

the "should I buy it" one.

It was a condo.

And apparently the answer was once again no. We have been searching since last February. We've toured literally hundreds of places. We've put in offers on dozens. And its always something. Despite being in a dead market, despite Realtor after Realtor saying "nothings moving", virtually every time we put in an offer, someone else does within 24 hours, and ends up stealing it out from under us. Ive been told by my Realtor(and friend from long before I knew he was a part time Realtor for fun) that this has not happened to anyone else he has helped in the last year. My parents old Realtor friend says she has not had a second offer on any house she has worked on since 2008. the Realtor helping my grandpa sell his place said the same.

Out of literally dozens(multiple dozens) of offers, the only places that have not had that happen turned out to be short sales or bank owned, where the bank never bothered to respond to us. With one exception, which ended up going through crazy convolutions, until it turned out the bank that was selling the place didn't even happen to own it.

Too many frustrations, combined with 2 major expenses and the attendant lack of money, took us out of the market for a while. For the past couple months, we took a break from looking. In the mean time, Ive had 4 different friends Start looking, make an offer, be accepted, and move in. In all four cases, the whole thing from starting looking to moving in took less than 3 months. And we finally back on our financial feet, able to contemplate things, so last week I got online to see if anything new popped up.

It did. A new condo in a complex we had looked at before had dropped into our price range a month ago, when I wasn't looking. A little run down, but nothing some elbow grease couldn't make livable. And at a price where, if we could scrape together the down, would end up having total payments, HOA and taxes lower than our current rent. Awesome.

Except that after having sat for 9+ months, through several price drops, with not even a hint of interest, within 4 hours of submitting an offer, someone else did the same. With a better offer than the asking price.

What the hell. Maybe this is the universe confirming that we should hold what little cash we have and prepare for a move to my wife's home country. Or maybe its just the worlds way of confirming that I should truly be a cynic, a stoic, and a prematurely grumpy old man. With apologies to those invested in the continuing success of our country/world/etc, for the evening, I will be contemplating my desire that the markets should have a second crash, resulting in anyone with a spare hundred being able to purchase a home outright, and that all these speculators/investors buying these homes to make rent or cosmetically improve and sell to make a buck should loose everything plus some. And, given that the ownership and sales records are available online, I know for a FACT that is what has happened with the majority of the places we didn't get.

GAAAA. I just want a place to live, affordable, with no rent increase or landlord hanging over my head. If possible one with a few feet of outdoor space, enough to sit in the sun, and maybe even grow a few veggies. But apparently that is too much to ask of existence.

Thanks for listening. Or reading. Or feeling, if you happen to have a machine that converts the net to Braille.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. My dear quakerboy...

Wow, what horrible luck (if you can call it that) you're having...

I have absolutely ZERO advice.

All I do have is this: :hug:

[quakerboy]

3. Thanks

My wife is sleeping it off. This really sucks. Don't know why, but we were both feeling lucky this time. We even made the very unusual (for us) choice of offering over the asking just to make sure it went smoothly.

This is not a good day to follow my grandmothers funeral yesterday.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

5. Maybe my little story will help...

Back when we were house-hunting, we looked for months. We didn't have the kind of "luck" you're having, but every time we saw something, there was something wrong with it.

Finally, we decided to look in a neighborhood that wasn't our first choice. The house was too big, and so on. We walked in, and it was almost literally love at first sight.

We put in a bid, only to find out that someone else had gotten it before we did. I was terribly disappointed. We talked to the owners, and they really wanted to sell it to us, esp. after they found out we would meet a key condition. They told the first buyer "sorry" and proceeded to sell it to us.

So, don't give up!

I'm sorry too, about your grandmother...You are way overdue for a run of very good luck.

:hug:

[quakerboy]

6. Thanks

we keep hoping. But its hard when it feels tossed back in our faces. Some of the situations have certainly appeared downright malicious.

I think, with further apologies, I will hijack my own thread and I will make this my venting thread. On top of having discovered my nose hair trimmer is missing in my hour of need, I have been completely unable to sell a single one of the things I have listed on CL. And I have to stay up late tonight and pick my MIL up at the airport. Which means that she is back home with her daughter. Which means my wife will have to go back to playing mediator between 2 bipolar people. Which means her stress will be back up after a blessed month of break from that. I think I have definitively decided that I do not like this week.

[quakerboy]

7. The other thing thats getting to me

well, the other two things.

a) looking back at the public records, many of these places sold for within a whisker of what we offered. Occasionally less. But investors have cash. Must be nice. We are looking well below our theoretical means, with excellent credit, all the ts crossed and i's dotted. But cash wins anyway.

b) Our ability/willingness to toss in what little we have saved rests largely on the tax credit returning something to our accounts later. Without that, we would be throwing ourselves in a hole with out any backup plan, and that I will not do. So in reality, this was probably our last gasp effort for the next ten years, unless the market really does crash and bring houses ridiculously low, or it majorly recovers and we both start making a whole lot more. Or something else equivalently unexpected, like winning the lotto despite never having bought a ticket.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

8. Your only other recourse, I think, is to move to an area where

housing is still depressed.

The midwest, for instance...

Have you considered "rent to buy"?

I'm so sorry...

[quakerboy]

9. Its hard to leave a fairly stable and morally worthwhile job right now

If we were to move, it would be to my wife's home country, Canada. But BC still seems pretty bloated from the Olympics, so we were hoping in a few years it might become slightly more affordable to live there.

Ive thought about moving to the Midwest. Detroit has houses for sale for what we would have to put as down payment on a really cheap place here. The question is what would I do when I got there? That would take all we have plus a little. And I would still have student loans to pay and food to buy. I am not a leap then look sort, I gotta have a plan and a contingency. And right now, I feel negative about jobs, negative about my skill set, and just overall negative.

No need to be sorry. I appreciate it though. Soon enough I will call an end to my little pity party and move on. We still have our savings, and my wife is thus that much closer to potentially going home. That's nothing to frown at. I just have to look at it through those glasses, not my "but I want a stable physical home" glasses.

[one_voice]

2. Wow...

Sounds like things have been tough recently. It's so hard to know if it's just the way the cards are falling, or is there more..like it's not meant to be..at least right now.

Don't really have any advice except to say keep your head up, and don't give up. If it's meant to be, it will be. I know that doesn't make it any less frustrating or discouraging but that's the best I've got right now.

[quakerboy]

4. Thanks

What I said to CP above. Plus I just noticed my nose hair trimmer is not where it should be, nor where it normally is. And I have need of it now.