Here’s the story of the house we bought last year - which took us 6 years to find.
My wife and I had been looking for a nice house in our area. We moved here just before the pandemic and we knew the prices around here, and they were within our reach at the time.
Then the pandemic happened, house prices went through the roof and never went down.
On top of that, our village in particular tends to be gentrifying at supersonic speed: this used to be an isolated village, but the big city nearby is expanding, so now it’s turned into a fashionable place to live that’s not too far from the city: the lake is now managed, so it’s not a putrid mosquito-invested swamp anymore, we have two supermarkets, solid bus service… Wealthy folks buy old houses here, tear them down and build new, super-expensive mansions on top of what is now prime land.
Before the pandemic, houses here were still affordable(-ish). Nowadays, it’s minimum 3x as much for the cheapest old house (to destroy and rebuild anew, remember!), which are getting rare, and new ones are running into half-million territory.
So we had been watching for houses in the area like hawks on the various local realty sites for 6 years, not holding much hope for this village, but still including it in our search, because why not.
And one day, this house turned up at a surprisingly low price - the one we’re in now. Long story short: it was so poorly advertised by the realtor that nobody bid on it. But I knew it because I had seen it before while riding my bike in that street, so we bid immediately and we scored it.
It’s one of the last old houses, but it’s in perfect condition for its age, because the previous owner was in the construction industry and built it to the most modern standards of the time. And it’s located in one of the most highly sought-after streets in the village, with direct access to the lake, gobs of land, and located 200 yards from the stores and the bus stop.
Our house is insanely great and we got it for cheaper than pre-pandemic prices!
Why you ask? How does something this lucky happens?
Because the previous owner, a nice little old lady, sold it for cheap because she got tired of her children bickering over who would inherit it after she dies, how much profit they would make if they sold it, and trying to move their mom to a retirement home so one of them could move in early, or convince her to sell it now so they wouldn’t pay the tax on property inheritance.
The lady literally told them “Fuck the whole lot of you!” She put the house up for sale at bargain-basement price in order to sell it and move out as quickly as possible, so none of her kids would get anything at all after she’s dead.
And that’s how we got to live in this increasingly posh neighborhood without really having the kind of money to belong here 🙂
The lady literally told them “Fuck the whole lot of you!” She put the house up for sale at bargain-basement price in order to sell it and move out as quickly as possible, so none of her kids would get anything at all after she’s dead.
legend. I’d have her over on christmas every year.
We invited her - not just for Christmas. She doesn’t want to come because this whole affair was a heartache for her, and she misses her old house enormously. We maintain good relationships but we don’t push her.
We bought our house (20 years ago) from a 95 year old lady. Her family was trying to get her into a home for years and finally convinced her. They put the house on the market at the price the came up with when they first started talking about moving her so the price was about $80k out of date. I guess the family got really pissed at the agent because we bought it the second it got listed and they thought they should have got way more money. So we got lucky too. Except our house is a bit of a shit box and had lots of stuff wrong with it. It had cardboard plumbing for fucksakes.
Orangeburg pipe (also known as “fiber conduit”, “bituminous fiber pipe” or “Bermico” or “sand pipe”) is bituminized fiber pipe used in the United States. It is made from layers of ground wood pulp fibers and asbestos fibres compressed with and bound by a water resistant adhesive then impregnated with liquefied coal tar pitch
Oof, that sounds like it was a fun project to remediate
For me it was the other way round sadly. We lived in a house (rented) in a city district that was basically dubbed “the little cozy village right in the city”. We had the prospect of buy this house one day for quite cheap, but then the gentrification happened very fast before we could do that. There were many old houses in that area - often times so old, that the only real way to deal with them was to tear them down and rebuild. Even those were sold at sky high prices. Don’t even think to stay below 800k to 1M. And that before all the additional construction needed. Since this price hike only took about ~1 year to reach this point, we hadn’t really time to realize what was going on. We even got a very good offer to buy the house, but with all repairs and such needed, we’d have still been on the hook for an estimated ~900k total.
I understand that the old lady was in some sort of emotional frenzy but odd that she didn’t sell the house for its market value, it would have sold quickly anyway. And good thing (I guess) one of her kids didn’t swoop in and buy it at the low price she listed it for. 🤔
Yeah it was weird. I bought it for the under the price of the land alone. I think her idea was to buy herself another place somewhere with the money (which she did) and leave her kids skint.
And I don’t think she would have agreed to sell it to one of them - not to mention the family feud that would have ensued if one of them had tried.
Here’s the story of the house we bought last year - which took us 6 years to find.
My wife and I had been looking for a nice house in our area. We moved here just before the pandemic and we knew the prices around here, and they were within our reach at the time.
Then the pandemic happened, house prices went through the roof and never went down.
On top of that, our village in particular tends to be gentrifying at supersonic speed: this used to be an isolated village, but the big city nearby is expanding, so now it’s turned into a fashionable place to live that’s not too far from the city: the lake is now managed, so it’s not a putrid mosquito-invested swamp anymore, we have two supermarkets, solid bus service… Wealthy folks buy old houses here, tear them down and build new, super-expensive mansions on top of what is now prime land.
Before the pandemic, houses here were still affordable(-ish). Nowadays, it’s minimum 3x as much for the cheapest old house (to destroy and rebuild anew, remember!), which are getting rare, and new ones are running into half-million territory.
So we had been watching for houses in the area like hawks on the various local realty sites for 6 years, not holding much hope for this village, but still including it in our search, because why not.
And one day, this house turned up at a surprisingly low price - the one we’re in now. Long story short: it was so poorly advertised by the realtor that nobody bid on it. But I knew it because I had seen it before while riding my bike in that street, so we bid immediately and we scored it.
It’s one of the last old houses, but it’s in perfect condition for its age, because the previous owner was in the construction industry and built it to the most modern standards of the time. And it’s located in one of the most highly sought-after streets in the village, with direct access to the lake, gobs of land, and located 200 yards from the stores and the bus stop.
Our house is insanely great and we got it for cheaper than pre-pandemic prices!
Why you ask? How does something this lucky happens?
Because the previous owner, a nice little old lady, sold it for cheap because she got tired of her children bickering over who would inherit it after she dies, how much profit they would make if they sold it, and trying to move their mom to a retirement home so one of them could move in early, or convince her to sell it now so they wouldn’t pay the tax on property inheritance.
The lady literally told them “Fuck the whole lot of you!” She put the house up for sale at bargain-basement price in order to sell it and move out as quickly as possible, so none of her kids would get anything at all after she’s dead.
And that’s how we got to live in this increasingly posh neighborhood without really having the kind of money to belong here 🙂
legend. I’d have her over on christmas every year.
We invited her - not just for Christmas. She doesn’t want to come because this whole affair was a heartache for her, and she misses her old house enormously. We maintain good relationships but we don’t push her.
Please chrish that old woman in stead of her supposed children
We bought our house (20 years ago) from a 95 year old lady. Her family was trying to get her into a home for years and finally convinced her. They put the house on the market at the price the came up with when they first started talking about moving her so the price was about $80k out of date. I guess the family got really pissed at the agent because we bought it the second it got listed and they thought they should have got way more money. So we got lucky too. Except our house is a bit of a shit box and had lots of stuff wrong with it. It had cardboard plumbing for fucksakes.
From wiki:
Oof, that sounds like it was a fun project to remediate
For me it was the other way round sadly. We lived in a house (rented) in a city district that was basically dubbed “the little cozy village right in the city”. We had the prospect of buy this house one day for quite cheap, but then the gentrification happened very fast before we could do that. There were many old houses in that area - often times so old, that the only real way to deal with them was to tear them down and rebuild. Even those were sold at sky high prices. Don’t even think to stay below 800k to 1M. And that before all the additional construction needed. Since this price hike only took about ~1 year to reach this point, we hadn’t really time to realize what was going on. We even got a very good offer to buy the house, but with all repairs and such needed, we’d have still been on the hook for an estimated ~900k total.
I understand that the old lady was in some sort of emotional frenzy but odd that she didn’t sell the house for its market value, it would have sold quickly anyway. And good thing (I guess) one of her kids didn’t swoop in and buy it at the low price she listed it for. 🤔
Yeah it was weird. I bought it for the under the price of the land alone. I think her idea was to buy herself another place somewhere with the money (which she did) and leave her kids skint.
And I don’t think she would have agreed to sell it to one of them - not to mention the family feud that would have ensued if one of them had tried.
Good for her.
If those were my kids I would kindly tell them not to contact me again.