How (Not) to Buy a House Part II

            Trying to buy my first house was a big learning experience, so I felt more confident when I started the process this time. The process actually started a year ago, when I put my condo up for sale, and that was a whole new process I had to learn, although it was a way easier to trying to sell a house than buy one.

            The first time around, I found out that before even looking at houses, I needed to be preapproved by a mortgage lender. So I reached out to Alex Masterpol, the guy who I went through last time, and told him I was going to be looking to buy again, and that I wanted to get my pre-approval. When we talked, he also gave me two realtors that he trusted, so I could find someone to sell my condo.

            This was my least favorite part of the process. I basically had to interview two candidates and decide which one I wanted to sell my home. So on two separate days, realtors came over and looked at my condo and discussed the process of selling it. Honestly, they both seemed like perfectly viable candidates, but I ended up choosing Nello, and before I knew it, pictures of my condo were up, and I had received an offer. It was for a couple thousand under my listing price, and he got them up to one thousand below my listing price.

            In a world where it seems like there is a bidding war over everything, it was sad that I only got one offer, and that it was a little lower than listing, but the condo market is not nearly as competitive as the housing market. Thus, only receiving one offer. The good news is that I only had my condo for a year and a half, and I sold it for about $15,000 more than I bought it for, which I think is pretty good, but it also shows how wild the market is that in less than two years its worth had grown so much, considering I had done nothing to it to increase its value. The bad news is that due to closing costs my net gain was so minimal that I did not even have to pay taxes on my gains. Obviously, not paying taxes is good, but it would have been nice to make a large enough profit to have the chance to pay some taxes.

            Anyways, the whole reason this started is because I started to date Mya, and she has Zoey, so if we were to live together, we would need a living space big enough to house the three of us, and my one bedroom 700 square foot condo was clearly not big enough to do this. So we started looking for three-bedroom two-bathroom houses with air conditioning and hopefully a washer and dryer that comes with it. Our goal was to spend under $225,000. This is not as easy as one would think, especially the air conditioning part.

            One of the first houses we looked at was up by Velasko Hill and Bellevue Country Club. It had a very spacious backyard, and it had four bedrooms. Two big bedrooms on the top floor, and two small bedrooms on the main level. They also had two full bathrooms, although the bathroom on the second floor was a clawfoot tub, and it had a shower faucet that had to be held in your hand to shower, so it was not ideal, but it looked nice! The bad part was the basement. It was dry, which is a lot more than can be said for many of the houses we looked at, but it did have radon, so it needed a special vent to blow the air out. It also had some asbestos tile, which I learned is identifiable by its 9x9 size, but only becomes a problem if you try to tear it up. It also had a small spot of black mold on a wall, but it was very minimal. It was listed at $190,000. We loved how big it was and the backyard, so we offered $200,000 with an escalation to $225,000. So $35,000 over the asking price, and we lost!!

            The next house that we looked at was one that we loved the most. It was up in Brewerton in a small little neighborhood. It was only two bedrooms, but it had a beautifully fenced back yard with raised garden beds already in place. There were no homes behind it either, so it was private as well. It also had two bathrooms, and it had air conditioning and a washer and dryer. The basement was not finished, but it had the potential to be finished easily the way it was set up. It was listed at $195,000. We bid up to $225,000. It did not have a third bedroom, but it had everything else, and it was yellow with a green door.

            Again, we lost. When you lose, they do not tell you what the winning bid was, but Zillow will tell you after they close. So as it turns out, despite biding 225, we lost to a bidder who bid only 215. The issue, I am assuming, is that we had a contingency on our ability to buy that my condo had to close first. So after losing multiple times, and at this point, I was about a month away from closing that sale, we decided to take the contingency off our offers. Assuming everything went well with closing my house, we would have the funds we needed by the time the new house we got closed.            There was one more house that we tried to buy. This one was in Solvay, and its siding was red. Its backyard was minimal in the fact that most of it was paved as an extended driveway, but the little space that was there was nice. The inside was updated, and it had three bedrooms and one and a half baths. The bad thing about the half bath was that it was in the kitchen, and that can be kind of gross. The other weird thing was that to get to the attic, there was a staircase in one of the bedrooms, and that staircase was littered with bug carcasses. The attic itself was fine, but that also seems like it could lead to a serious draft with both hot and cold weather depending on the season. Nonetheless, we still went for it. I think this time we even went up to $230,000.

            We lost. At this point, our two months were basically gone for when I was going to close on my house, so we needed to find a place to live asap, and even if we got a house, it would be two months of not having a place to live, which would not be fun. So we did a quick apartment search, and we ended up back at Grenadier Village, where I had lived before. Sadly, the two bedroom we ended up in was without AC. I went there because my one bedroom had AC, but we did get a half bath off the master, so that was nice. It costs $1675 a month.

            So our home search was suspended temporarily. At that point, we were in a one-year lease, and we needed a break. Mentally, I was so defeated by continually bidding so far over asking price and continually losing. I never actually stopped looking. I do not even want to know the total amount of time I spent on Zillow. It was a lot though.

            In December, I went to a few open houses, and I was largely disappointed. The price point was about where we had been looking, but it seemed like the inventory was significantly worse. It was also winter, and less houses go on the market then in general. So we waited and waited. On the bright side, we did not have to turn on the heat in our apartment because we were over the laundry room that they heated. So our apartment was always warm.

            Eventually we called Nello back up and started to look at houses, but it felt like we were looking at worse houses. There were more occurrences where we would arrive, and before we even got out of the car, we were like this is not what we were expecting. The pictures can be so deceiving. This was true even when we first started looking too. Realtor pictures are just too good, and now they even use AI to put furniture in that is not there, so be wary.

            There was another yellow house in East Syracuse, just minutes away from where we worked. It also had an incredible fenced in backyard with raised gardening beds, and it even had AC. The problem was that it was missing a basement, so the room for storage was super minimal. They also had it listed that they would not close until June, which was perfect for us, because that would get us close to the end of our lease. So we bid a little over asking price. I was hopeful that since the closing was so delayed that it would limit the competition, but sadly this was not the case, and of course, we lost.

            Then we got stuck in a pickle. There was a house in North Syracuse that was nice on the inside, but the outside had a couple of small issues that I questioned, and in the basement, when I felt the boards under the first floor, they felt wet, and that concerned me, but it was well laid out inside and spacious. Then we went and looked at a townhouse right around the corner from where we live in Grenadier Village, and it was also nice on the inside. It was a tall three floor structure, but it only had two bedrooms, but it was one of the nicest houses that we had looked at, and it was affordable. The problem was that they did not set a deadline for the townhouse, and we ended up missing out on it, and I was too scared of the other house to bid.

            Finally, something popped up on my Zillow that looked promising. It was a three-bedroom townhouse in Village Green. It has two full bathrooms as well. The outside is weird, but I like it. It is brown wood, and the entry way looks like a weird arch. In the entry way, there is a bench under an overhang, that is perfect for taking off shoes after a run or relaxing outside in the shade. The backyard is minimal, but it is very private. There are woods and a stream out back. It ins peaceful.

Also it is very nice inside, especially the ground floor. Everything is new. It also has a deck and a walk-out in the basement. There are two bedrooms upstairs, and the basement is finished and considered a third bedroom, but it can also be a rec room. It has air conditioning, and many of the important things were new like the water heater. It was listed at $190,000, and we bid $205,000, and FINALLY our offer was accepted! (but that makes me think that we could have gotten away with offering less and getting it, because again, condos and townhouses do not get bid on as much. Oh well it was nice to be done with it.)

            Everything was relatively going smoothly, but then we did the final walkthrough, and there was a new leak in the roof, and when I touched it, my finger went through the ceiling. It was not a massive leak, but not what you want. After negotiations with their team, we got $750 to cover the expenses of the repair. While we were signing the closing documents the next day, our attorney said that we did not have to sign the documents, and that we could wait until it is fixed, but at that point we were most of the way through signing, so we just finished, but I wish that we had not, because this just feels like such a hassle.

            Also when we were collecting our funds to close on the house, I was going to wire some funds from my bank in Georgia. I had to be on the phone for over an hour with them to try and get the funds transferred. I had to send them a paper, and I had to pay a fee to them and a fee to the real estate lawyers, so it was going to be 75 extra dollars to wire this money. Then I had to cancel it anyway, because they kept calling because of mistakes. So when we were at the attorney’s office to close I had to just tell them to cancel it. We ran to Mya’s bank and got another certified check, and I Venmoed her the money while we were in line. It makes no sense that I could transfer a large amount of money to her in an instant, but I had to fight through paperwork and phone calls all day to get the money wired. So dumb.

            Anyway, we finally closed! So we have the keys, and we have been slowly moving in. The HOA was about to put a new roof on our unit anyway, so we were told not to fix the inside until the new roof was put on, and in the meantime, the roof was patched and has stopped leaking. So hopefully it will end up not being a big deal, and in a couple of months we will be happy in our new home, and all of this will be behind us. So did I successfully buy a house? No, but it is the size of a house, and it does have a leak, so I would not suggest to buy a house this way, but it is done!