2007: A Real Estate Odyssey

[Sock Puppet]

Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love My Evil Multinational Corporate Employer.

Some of you might have accidentally happened upon my whinging, raging and moaning over my various real estate stupid mistakes misadventures. To make an agonizing story short:

I bought a starter home in the San Francisco Bay Area about 4 years ago, refinanced it poorly, and then compounded that mistake by buying another, more expensive home before selling the first. This was done by the equity-sucking magic that is a "private bridge loan" -- the down payment that I was supposed to get from the first home was put onto the new house via a special loan tied to both properties. Bottom line, we bought at the peak of a declining market and didn't realize that the home we were trying to sell was already on the decline. It took 7 months to sell the first home, and between depreciation, double payments, and racked-up interest, our equity was completely wiped out. We have zip. Nada. Even without the double payment, I'm still screwed with an ARM loan spiralling out of control.

Enter my gallant knight to the rescue: a manager in Houston decided he wants me to write contracts for his trading group. It's a better job on a real career ladder, rather than the Klingon-style (you get promoted when somebody dies) career ladder I'm on as a non-lawyer in a law department.

Our corporate relocation department is teh r0xx0r. They're paying for every conceivable expense, including commission for a topnotch realtor to sell the California house, a househunting trip, moving, you name it.

And now, we have an offer on the California house that is almost perfect. If they accept our counter-offer (we're not that far apart), it will be perfect. I'll still come out with nada, but I'll be free of the house with no liens following me to our new one.

In the meantime, I've got excellent financing on an absolutely ideal home, and all I need is 5% down. Which my wife is about to get from 2 cases she didn't expect to settle so quickly. We still have a great deal of debt from her dental expenses and other crap, but we'll have the cash free and clear for the down. The 95% is financed all in one fixed 30-year loan with NO PMI (mortage insurance normally required for loans >80% of a house's value).

So, we are friggin' SET. Bring on the summer heat and humidity, 'cause I've got dual air-conditioning units on a house I won't want to leave, and a short commute in an A/C'd car.

But anyway, I told you all that so I could tell the really dishy story of what happened on the house we didn't get. Coming up in the next post.

[ms_ann_thrope]

w00t! Seems that you will have a happy ending after all. Will keep my fingers crossed for you and the rest of the Sock family! :crossed:

[livius drusus]

What a bright light at the end of a very dark tunnel. I'm delighted for y'all, and delighted we won't have to hear you keening about the real estate shitmire in chat every week. :bundance:

[Sock Puppet]

We flew to Houston last Sunday, and began looking at houses on Monday. The very first day, we found a great house in Sugarland and wrote an offer contingent upon selling our present home. The buyers accepted with no counter whatsoever.

We still kept looking on Tuesday, and my wife discovered Sienna Plantation, a "master-planned" community that's an even shorter commute to downtown Houston. She started to regret our hasty decision, because while Sugarland is excellent (#3 best city to live in the US according to a recent CNN Money survey), Sienna is even better.

Still, we'd made an offer, the price was right, and the home was wonderful, so we were still planning on going through with the purchase as planned.

Then on Wednesday, we took the whole day off from househunting to meet my new boss for lunch, check out my downtown Houston office, and visit the Galleria. That night, right before bed, my wife checks our e-mail.

There are two extremely angry e-mails from the seller's realtor. What we didn't know at the time was that there was some mix-up about our agent's commission. The listing had said that they would get 3%, so that's what they wrote on the offer. The seller's agent, without so much as a howdy-do, scratched out the 3% and wrote 2%. No initials, no heads-up, nothing.

Our realtor called him and asked what was going on. At this point, we ourselves know nothing about it, and we shouldn't; this is between the agents. He gets belligerent and hostile with our agent, attacking her ethics and professionalism because she dared to suggest that she didn't think it was a valid contract with the unilateral alteration. Turns out, she's technically wrong because it doesn't involve the parties directly. However, it was a reasonable thing to say and this guy reacted like she'd just tried to defraud him.

So, he starts firing off the e-mails -- with a cc to US. In other words, he's attacking our agent's ethics while engaging in an ethics-violating communication to us. We didn't even find out what the dispute was until we asked our realtor to explain it.

Then, the next day, he sends a third e-mail, again copying us, intimating that we're fickle, lying scum for considering backing out (which we have every right to do before contingencies are removed). That was it. The ink wasn't even dry on the initial contract before he starts trying to intimidate us. We said screw this, terminate the contract. I've had enough of incompetents, liars and bullies, and I won't do business with one if I can smell him on the way in.

So, we got the better house in Sienna Plantation. On Friday, after we'd received acceptance of our offer on the new house, the seller of the Sugarland property himself e-mailed us. He was very polite, and was practically begging us to reconsider, regretting the misunderstanding, yadda. I e-mailed him back, just saying yes, it was a great house and I'm sure he and his wife are good, decent people, but because of what their agent had done, we just couldn't go through with that transaction. I made it clear what the guy had done and why it was a deal-breaker.

My heart goes out to them, seriously. I've been in such a similar situation to theirs that if it weren't putting my family into such a dangerous position, I would have gone through with it just to try to give them some peace. I feel terrible for them, but my family has to come first. They appear to be stuck with their agent until his contract runs out, but if they need any help in making a case for getting released from it, I'll cooperate. I'll testify to the Texas real estate authority if it means this guy doesn't get to scare off their buyers anymore.

So, we're back home, and despite that little hiccup of unpleasantness, I feel better about our future than I have ... ever.

[Sock Puppet]

Thanks, ms_ann!

What a bright light at the end of a very dark tunnel. I'm delighted for y'all, and delighted we won't have to hear you keening about the real estate shitmire in chat every week. :bundance:Nope, now you have to hear me gloat insufferably. Might as well put me on ignore right away, it's gonna be hell.

[livius drusus]

Your gloat threats don't scare me. Worst case scenario I'll just send wei's dog over to do unspeakable things to your pristine wall-to-wall carpeting.

[Watser?]

:snoopy: :toiletdance: :cowdance: :martini: :cowdance: :toiletdance: :snoopy:

[wei yau]

That was some tale, I never heard of one person encountering so many pitfalls and vipers out there in the real estate world. The fact that you came out, not only clean, but so far ahead of the game must mean that you earned some kickass karma.

Either that or the karma is the reward for your long-suffering wife.

[Sock Puppet]

Either that or the karma is the reward for your long-suffering wife.:yeahthat:

And the karma, kismet, grand providential hoohah, whatever, ain't even through yet.

The offer on the California house fell through after several nickle & dime counters. The buyers got cold feet. Their agent confided to mine that this is the second time they've done this. At least we didn't get into contract and waste a lot of time.

But back to good news: Last week, my finance broker told me he would propose paying off half the remaining bridge lien in payments, in exchange for forgiveness of the other half. It was already reasonably good news, since I was getting the all-important quitclaim before my current house closes.

He left me a message yesterday, and I just talked to him. He sounded rather curt at first, so I thought something was wrong. Then he says, "Are you sitting down?"

"I spoke with the bridge lender, and I told them all about your hardships and how I'd made you my special project for the year. Then, I proposed to them...

... that they forgive the [I]entire amount and file a deed conveyance. They accepted."

Then he told me that they could file it at closing, or immediately. I told him that immediately would be better, since my company stands in the middle of the transaction and they want everything handled ahead of time.

QUITCLAIM!

Bridge-loan burning party may commence. :fuel: :hands1: :partyhat: :partyhat: :hands1: :hands1: :linedance:

[livius drusus]

I don't really understand any of that terminology, but the smilies and giant font totally made your point clear anyway. Yay, Sock! And yay, Sock's finance dude because you seriously rule, buddeh. :yahoo:

Take this, bridge-loan. :firemage:

[Sock Puppet]

Forgive = don't owe any of it anymore. Zip. Nada. Just the normal mortgages that still mean I won't see any proceeds, but the final nail in that coffin means I owe thousands less than I might have.

Quitclaim, deed reconveyance, etc. = The bridge loan company has no claim of any kind against the house. No screwy paperwork at closing. Once we execute some in-advance documents, we're done. We just agree to an offer and watch it chug along. No last-minute, frantic calls at the title company, none of that :shit: .

[livius drusus]

Oh, I got that the debt is no longer. It was the specifics of the debt and alleviation thereof I didn't quite grok.

One this is clear as day: you're rich as a motherfucker. Once you get settled in Houston I expect to see you spend ridiculous sums in our CafePress store.

[Sock Puppet]

I'm not as out of the woods as I thought I'd be, but at least the move is still going to happen on schedule.

It turns out that my first mortgage on the California house has a prepay -- a real one this time. One the bastards flat-out refuse to waive. So I can't close on my sale until the end of April. However, the lender handling my new home purchase says that I can still close and fund, as long as I'm not waiting for equity from the sale (yeah, right. I'm just waiting to find out how much cash it will cost me to sell).

So, my only remaining hiccup is to make sure my buyers are okay with the delayed close. If I have to put them up in an apartment for 6 weeks, or let them live rent-free in the house until closing, it'll still cost me less than that ridiculous prepay penalty. So, we'll do what we have to do, and life will go on. Sucks that I can't yet make a clean break, but at least I'm in contract, with no fugging bridge loan.

The movers come tomorrow, as I'm about to post about in the Member News thread.