Let’s back up and I’ll explain why we decided to make an offer on this property. Like I said in my first post, when this particular house came across the MLS (Multiple Listing Service; a service realty companies use to list properties for sale), we were immediately attracted to the land and location (somewhat). Since we made the decision to stay in NKY almost a year ago, we have been looking for a fixer-upper with land, to no avail. We made offers on several properties that fell through, so we were constantly on the hunt. We knew we preferred to stay in Boone County (although we really wanted to be in northern Boone County and this house is in the southern portion of the county) and we wanted some land. Although it wasn’t in our perfect location, it was still in the county and in a good school district, so we decided to take a look.
Going in, we knew that the listing photos and property description would be deceiving, because they almost always are…and they were. We had already seen the property disclosure (a document that a seller has to provide to potential buyers that discloses all known issues, repairs, and existing features of the property), and structurally, the house seemed okay on paper. Once we got there, the land the house sat on was beautiful, which was a pleasant surprise for us. Many a time we had found houses we thought were on the perfect piece of land, only to get there and discover a train, a freeway, or five neighbors in the back or front yard. This one was not like that, so that was encouraging to us. The house has cedar siding, so we knew right off the bat that would need replaced sooner than later. It was in bad repair and we thought that it looked like it hadn’t been touched in years…and we were correct. Upon combing through the property with our trusty and faithful realtor, Dawn, we knew that there were several things that would have to fall into place to make this property a “go” for us, but we were willing to give it our best try.
This was the condition of the pool when we saw the property the first time. The listing said that the pool “just needed equipment and a new liner”…
To be completely honest, we actually never expected to secure a conventional bank loan and receive a fairly clean inspection report on the property, let alone close on time. I’ll explain why. When we went through the house the first time, several things were red flags to us that we thought would probably be flagged as high-risk by the loan underwriters, but we were going to try anyhow. (Side note: an underwriter is someone who goes through a contract with a fine-tooth comb to look for and analyze any potential risks for the lender, and ultimately helps the lender decide whether they can afford to furnish funds for the buyer) The two major hurdles we’d have to get past the bank underwriters were the absence of the back deck and the giant, gaping hole in the ground that used to be a swimming pool. In our experience, we thought for sure that those two items would be too large of a risk for a lender to take because they could be a) dangerous and b) costly.
Notice the set of white French doors on the back of the house and no back deck (Photo courtesy of listing)
Besides the absence of the entire back deck (which had two french doors that opened and walked out into an 8ft drop) and a very dilapidated swimming pool that had a makeshift fence around a portion of it, there were other things that we knew needed fixed and other changes we’d have to make in order for this house to be a good fit for our family. After we left the house, Gabe and I got to work. We made a list of everything we’d need to do and started estimating worst and best-case scenario costs and a projected timeline. We ended up breaking up our renovation list into three phases. Phase 1 would consist of running a water line to hook up city water to the house, pumping out the existing cistern and switching the entire house from cistern to city water, extending the family room by converting the existing garage to living space, gutting all three bathrooms (two full and one half), tearing out all carpet/padding/linoleum in the entire house, stripping all wallpaper (and there is A LOT), panting the upstairs, gutting the kitchen, installing new carpet in the upstairs bedrooms, and reinstalling a new full bath upstairs. Phase 2 would consist of removing several interior walls, beaming weight-bearing walls, re-siding the whole house, installing a new kitchen, installing hardwood floors throughout the house, backfilling the swimming pool, and opening a wall between the existing sitting room to expand and reconfigure the master bedroom/bathroom/closet area. Phase 3 would consist of constructing a new garage with possible breezeway, constructing a new back deck, pouring a concrete driveway, and several years down the road, adding a three seasons room on the back of the house.
The further we got into our rather extensive list, the more overwhelming it got, but at the same time, we felt like we were up for the challenge. We planned to do 90% of the work ourselves, which is what we did on our existing house, except this time, we knew a lot more going into it. We knew what we were capable of and what we needed to contract out. Non-negotiable contract work would include the garage-to-living space conversion and new siding. I’ll talk about both of those in a future post, but the current living room has a vaulted ceiling that would need carried into the garage space, the garage floor needed raised to meet the current living room threshold, and we wanted to construct a mudroom and office in the garage space, as well. Since cutting into tresses and raising the floor is major structural work, we knew we wanted to rely on a professional. Same with the siding.
After lots of talking, praying, arguing, texting our poor realtor, and running every number 500 times, we decided to go for it, putting our trust in God, that if it was meant to be, somehow the slim chance that this possibility would become a reality.
And it did!
Going into this contract, we knew we wanted to request a 45 day close (a typical closing timeframe is 30 days). Since we knew this was essentially a distressed property, a 45-day window would give us a little more time to finish up craft show season, and run numbers, get quotes, get our inspections done, and basically buy us a little more time in the event that something unexpected came up on one of the reports. The inspection came back with few surprises and the underwriters signed off on our loan.
We closed on the house on December 12, 2019, then literally right after we closed, went out of town for a family Christmas for 4 days. When we got back, we hit the ground running.
