Over the next several months, Todd and I kept an eye on the homes for rent, but continued to talk about wanting to get into a home of our own.
We discussed how there must be a lot of people in situations like ours--two solid incomes but because I'm a small business owner the bank feels like lending to me is too high a risk.
Todd started investigating creative financing options--learning about everything from the price of taking out a hard money loan (OUTRAGEOUS!) to a once popular, but now little used strategy, called an All Inclusive Trust Deed. I jumped into the mix and called a local real estate investor and asked him how deals were being done and learned about several other purchasing options.
However, the thing with creative financing options is that not many people are thinking outside the box in real estate. Agents want their commission that traditionally gets paid when the sale is completed, but with many creative financing deals there is no actual sale or the sale date is pushed out far into the future. Other agents didn't even want to show a house if conventional financing hadn't already been obtained.
We found that we were on our own if we wanted to make this happen.
As we were doing the research, we were getting closer and closer to when we had to move out of townhouse near the beach. The landlord was unwilling to allow the lease to go month-to-month, so we had a hard move out date. I started getting a bit nervous.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Friday, January 1, 2010
Backstory
It was a New Year and we set out to define what we wanted to create in 2010. We wrote out our goals and shared them with one another.
At the top of Todd's list: Own a home.
On my top ten list: Move into a larger house so that Todd and I could both have offices and we could have a dedicated guest room.
The Story of Silver Spur begins here...
Once upon a time in a land just 30 minutes from San Diego there was a town called Alpine. Nestled in the foothills at 2000 feet above sea level, this enchanted land of wildlife, just a short drive to nightlife, captured our attention.
On Friday evenings would pour over new Craigs List homes for sale listings and MLS postings. On Saturdays we would drive around ohhhing and ahhing and icking to determining which home interiors we wanted to see.
On multiple ocassions our journey ended at the guard gate of Rancho Palo Verde Estates. We were turned away because we weren't accompanied by a real estate agent. Most of those homes went on our "Want to See List."
We reached out to a real estate agent who had an associate show us the properties. When I first entered the Silver Spur Estate I hated it. And I do mean that literally. I walked in and had an emotional "yuck" moment.
The home had been empty for close to a year so there was no furniture covering what seemed like miles of dirty white tile flooring. Spiders had constructed elaborate cobwebs making walking through the house a mini-maze. Dust covered everything.
Then a weird thing happened. As I walked around the house, I started to see the possibilities and the little details that would be easy to miss if I focused only on the obvious items. I admired things like rounded corners, art nooks, arched entryways, high ceilings, carraige lights, built in shelves and cabinets in almost every room.
If I hadn't been warmed up to the positives of the house by then stepping into the backyard, better described as an oasis, completely changed my outlook and shifted my perspective on the home--it was stunning.
The next piece of the story is long and involved, but not that interesting, so to summarize it, our real estate agent couldn't create a deal for us that would work with the money we had to put down, the loan amount the bank was willing (or not willing) to give, and the offer we wanted to make. So we walked away from Silver Spur Estate believing that was the end of it.
In fact, we walked away from house hunting altogether thinking that the tight lending climate would prevent us from getting into the type of home we wanted and we headed back to Craig's List...this time for home rentals.
At the top of Todd's list: Own a home.
On my top ten list: Move into a larger house so that Todd and I could both have offices and we could have a dedicated guest room.
The Story of Silver Spur begins here...
Once upon a time in a land just 30 minutes from San Diego there was a town called Alpine. Nestled in the foothills at 2000 feet above sea level, this enchanted land of wildlife, just a short drive to nightlife, captured our attention.
On Friday evenings would pour over new Craigs List homes for sale listings and MLS postings. On Saturdays we would drive around ohhhing and ahhing and icking to determining which home interiors we wanted to see.
On multiple ocassions our journey ended at the guard gate of Rancho Palo Verde Estates. We were turned away because we weren't accompanied by a real estate agent. Most of those homes went on our "Want to See List."
We reached out to a real estate agent who had an associate show us the properties. When I first entered the Silver Spur Estate I hated it. And I do mean that literally. I walked in and had an emotional "yuck" moment.
The home had been empty for close to a year so there was no furniture covering what seemed like miles of dirty white tile flooring. Spiders had constructed elaborate cobwebs making walking through the house a mini-maze. Dust covered everything.
Then a weird thing happened. As I walked around the house, I started to see the possibilities and the little details that would be easy to miss if I focused only on the obvious items. I admired things like rounded corners, art nooks, arched entryways, high ceilings, carraige lights, built in shelves and cabinets in almost every room.
The next piece of the story is long and involved, but not that interesting, so to summarize it, our real estate agent couldn't create a deal for us that would work with the money we had to put down, the loan amount the bank was willing (or not willing) to give, and the offer we wanted to make. So we walked away from Silver Spur Estate believing that was the end of it.
In fact, we walked away from house hunting altogether thinking that the tight lending climate would prevent us from getting into the type of home we wanted and we headed back to Craig's List...this time for home rentals.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
