I didn’t find real estate. Real estate found me. Kind of.
Several years ago, my wife and I were served notice that our rent was going to go up nearly 20% for the second straight year. We didn’t have a ton of money, but we had saved enough that I figured we could squeeze in a 3% down payment and some closing costs to avoid tossing away our money at landlords for another year.
But our mission would not be simple. We weren’t sure at the time if Greenville was where we really wanted to stay and bring up our family, and we also weren’t sure when the recession that had deeply impacted both of us would actually end. So, we thought, we needed to find a home that had a tremendous amount of upside and equity – one that, even if the recession carried on indefinitely, would not hinder our ability to leave Greenville should another opportunity present itself.
The result was that we were picky buyers. REALLY picky. You should probably say a few belated prayers for our real estate agent at the time (Paul: if you’re reading, know that your sacrifice was not forgotten).
We saw *a lot* of houses. I lost count, but it was close to 100. We put offers in, but many of them were lowballs to ensure we got equity, and they either weren’t accepted or we were outbid by someone else. The ones that weren’t lowballs were homes that already had equity but that turned into bidding wars that we couldn’t win. And then there was the home that we won at auction, except the auction wasn’t legally binding, and so the seller was able to back out of our crazy-low buying price.
Long story short, after looking at multitudes and myriads (re: a heck of a lot) of homes, we finally found ours – a tri-level from the late 70s that had a lot of issues but was in a desirable (and simultaneously up-and-coming) Eastside location. We didn’t love it, but our agent thought this was a good lowball opportunity as the home had been under contract twice and the price had dropped from $130,000 to the low $100s. We offered $80,000 plus 3% closing costs, and HUD – the seller – accepted.
So what does this have to do with real estate, besides it being our first home purchase? Well, in looking at all those homes, I discovered that I actually enjoyed looking at homes. I also found that finding deals in real estate came naturally for me. So I filed the experience away in the “when you have more money, do something with this knowledge” folder. I did, and a year or so later, I purchased my first (of many) investment property. The rest is history.
Oh yeah, one more thing. We’re now planning to stay in Greenville for a while.