And now for something completely different

Gilday and I put an offer on a house on Thursday.

A few Fridays ago my Mom called me and told me to go to Realtor.com. She gave me some general search markers to plug in, and then like magic, a listing came up with a photo of the house I grew up in. It was on the market for a ridiculously low price, and I had to know more. She told me that the family friends that she sold it to after my Dad died 2 years ago, were supposedly in a divorce situation and had to get rid of it fast. She also said that the foundation of the house, which was supposed to be fixed by them when they bought it, wasn't. So the reason for the ridiculous price was that it was in need a new foundation. New foundation = mucho dinero. I then called our Realtor, Eric (the coolest guy in the world) to find out the real deal on the house.

He called me back that night, and we chit chatted about the house. It turns out its actually in foreclosure. My old house. A foreclosure. The people never disclosed to their mortgage lien holder when they bought the house that the foundation was cracked. They never told their insurance company either. When they had the house for about 8 months, an insurance guy came out to the house to do a routine inspection. On finding the cracked foundation, they gave notice to them that they had 30 days to repair said foundation or they would cancel the insurance. No insurance means no mortgage.

Did they fix the foundation? Nope. The insurance company notified the bank about the loss of insurance, and then the bank demanded that they either fix foundation, get another mortgage company to hold the lien, or foreclose and be subject to a "short sale". They chose the short sale.

Gilday and I were going back and forth about it all that weekend. The price was super low, we knew the history of the property, we don't currently own a home, and again, it was priced low. We’ve handled renovations before and with the aid of a trusty contractor, we might be able to whip it into shape. So, last Monday, I called Eric back and told him that we’d like to go and see the property. He managed to snag us a Wednesday evening appt.

When we got there that night, I was in for a shock. The house, even though I lived there for 19 years, seemed so foreign to me. My favorite oak tree which was in the middle of the yard was chopped down and the house looked so small. As we entered the house, we found that they had refaced the cabinets (terribly), and painted every room blue (and it wasnt even an interesting blue.) They had covered up the hardwood floors that Gilday and I had refinished with the most awful looking carpet you can imagine. Permanent marker was proudly displayed on all the walls in multiple pigments. Let’s not even talk about the bathroom.

As expected, the back wall of the foundation that is up against a mountain slope was bowing in. The house never had a finished basement so it was in plain view for all to see. There also was a fresh pool of water on the basement floor which you needed waders to get through. The garage door was no longer there, but replaced by large foam insulating sheets. I knew that my family house had seen some hard times as my father was getting sicker, but this was just ridiculous. As crazy as it sounds, when I was in the basement standing in the puddle of water, I could almost hear the house’s soul crying out to me. After much deliberation, we’ve decided to try to rescue the house and rehabilitate it.

Fast forwarding to the present, we are now waiting to hear if our offer is going to be accepted. Some might think we’re crazy to take on such a project while we’re both in graduate school, but for us, it just feels right. And, the beauty of the project is that when we’re done, we’ll be able to pick the people who end up buying it. Not that it’s a guarantee, but at least we’ll know the house my father built with his own bare hands, will no longer be with those who are content with it crumbling away beneath their feet.