If There is No Place Like Home, Then Why Can't We Find One?

We finally, officially, started our house hunt last Saturday. We couldn't have been more excited to start seeing the insides of the homes we had been looking at online for so long. It was a rough start, and a pretty rough end to the weekend. It was definitely overwhelming and quite a bit disappointing. We are looking for a house in a great neighborhood, somewhere that is pretty young. Something with a yard, and preferably a basement. Those were our only perameters starting the weekend. We couldn't have been any more confused after seeing 20 homes all over Gwinnett county last weekend.

We started at this house, and it was one of my favorites from the pictures. We got to the house and the lockbox wasn't letting Kay in. She called the listing agent and he told her he had three offers and didn't care if anyone else saw the place. Of course this place is in foreclosure so every single one of those offers could blow up...but whatever makes him happy. Stop 1: FAIL!

We pulled up to this house not exactly sure what to think. It's a small lot and didn't look like a lot of house, but we were trying to be optimistic. Kay said she left a message with the listing agent the night before, but wasn't sure if she got it because the voicemail greeting wasn't spoken in English...it was some sort of Chinese possibly. When we got to the house there was no lock box so she tried the listing agent again. She told her who she was and that we were trying to see it, the listing agent screamed, "FORECLOSURE" into the phone and hung up on Kay....strike 2!

I was most excited about this house, and was convinced we were going to end up buying it after the weekend was said and done. We were thinking lucky number 3. We ended up finding out that there was $20,000 worth of repairs that needed to be done to the outside before we could move in, even though the price did not reflect that. Every room needed new paint inside and new carpet throughout the house, and still the price was high. The builder that built it went out of business and is known for horrible work all over the US...not who you want to buy from.

We showed up to this house next and there wasn't a sign in the yard. Kay had spoken to the owner the night before and set up a time to show it. We went up to the door, noticing there were cars in the driveway, to see if it was still ok to show it. We ended up waking the owner up by ringing the doorbell...it was 2 pm people!! He told us he had decided that morning not to see anymore and had trashed the sign...without telling his realtor.

Let's just say retention pond as the backyard...and there were 5 like them that we saw.

I loved this house, and still do. The bank is loosing so much money by putting it up for short sale that they just can't negotiate on the price. I think that it will end up in foreclosure because it's still pretty high and then we might be able to re-visit. However, we ended up looking at 8 foreclosures in this neighborhood that were all horrible. One house people were still living in in sleeping bags even though the bank had turned off the electric and water. Let's just say it smelled that way and leave it at that.

It's really unfortunate what is going on in this housing market. It seems like most of the inventory isn't moving because of the amount of work that needs to be done to the homes. The ones that actually are good deals are selling within days and most of the rest are sitting empty for months in foreclosure. They are marketing these to first-time homebuyers, and we just don't want to take the risk on an investment in a neighborhood where almost everything is in short sale or foreclosure, and from the looks of things everything else is not too far behind it. Pretty depressing if you ask me. But with prayer I know we will find the right home...it's a patience game I think.