I don't know that this compares to not having any interest in your house . . . but it's almost as bad!!!!!!

We put our house on the market in January of 2006. We had very few interested lookers. At the end of May 2006, we finally had an interested party, or so we thought! They viewed the home, showed us their pre-approval from the bank and made an offer. The offer was of course less than we wanted, but at this point we simply wanted to sell the house! The catch was that they needed to move in in two weeks! So after months of waiting, we now had two weeks to pack up our cats, our toddler and the remainder of the house and find "the house of our dreams".

Within a week, we found the house we loved, we made an offer and were in luck because the sellers had another house ready for them to move into, so they could accomodate the quick move. Two days before closing at the end of June 2006, we received word that one of the buyers had shattered his ankle and therefore would not be able to work, and since his wife was a stay at home mom, with no income, the bank would no longer approve their loan . . . . . . . . we were devasted! The moving truck was full, the utilites all taken out of our name, the house insurance changed over and an appointment to sign our lives away for the new house the next day. Through some fancy footwork we quickly came up with an alternate plan to rent to them with a one year lease that would terminate at the new closing date and aimed for a date of September 1. Once again, all seemed fine. We moved to our new house and they moved into "their new house". As July and August progressed, we received word that the buyer was now cleared for work, but the job they had moved here for was no longer available to him because of the medical leave he needed before he started, but we were told not to worry, they would do everything in their power to find jobs and still make the closing in September, but now we may have to look at changing the date to the end of September.

Well, September came and neither of them had jobs, we agreed to push the closing date to the end of November 2006. We started to worry a bit when we had to start stalking them in order to get any rent payments, but again were assured they still had their downpayment and were very close to finding a job. I believe it was October of 2006, we were told they both finally had jobs and all looked good for November. Well, the beginning of November came and we learned they both quit their jobs! We also learned that their credit rating had plummetted over the last six months due to lack of work and the bank was no longer going to approve their loan, but their realator assured us that they would find another program that would approve them and we could still close. About a week later, we found out, purely by accident, that these "renters/prospective buyers" had a moving truck sitting in the driveway and were planning on hightailing it out of town despite the contract to buy the house AND the one year lease they signed. I quickly filed small claims court paperwork and had them served by a sheriff before they could leave. They left, and as we got in to see if they had damaged the house, we discovered they broke the lease NUMEROUS times, they bought a puppy that left many nice little puddles on the carpet, painted a bedroom bright green, took down the wall borders we had in place and allowed their dog to dig up the backyard . . . . . . then in the garage, we discovered they decided to leave everything they could not get into the moving truck!!!!

We took a deep breath and put the house back up for sale in November of 2006 and now not only were making double mortgage payments still, but now had double utilities and had to fork out money to fix the mess they left. The holidays went by with little interest in the house. Our small claims court date came and they had the nerve to show up for court and challenge the amount we were requesting for breaking their lease and for damages by saying we kept their $1000 earnest money! DUH!!!!! They also claimed to the judge that if he found in favor of us, they would be forced to file bankruptcy and really thought that they were doing the right thing by leaving suddenly and without notice because this way we could put the house back on the market. Then they had the nerve to blame their realator and claim she told them that they were signing a one year lease, but that it really was only valid for two months, so they assumed they were no longer under a lease. (To this the judge simply rolled his eyes!) The judge ended up ruling in our favor . . . . but good luck to us in collecting the $5K they owe us! So January, February, March, April and May of 2007 go by and we have people interested in the house, but everyone of them had something to nit-pick about it and thought it was a "nice house" . . . for someone else. Well finally at the end of May 2007, an offer came in that was below the bottom of our barrel. After a year and a half of this mess, we opted for whatever we could get and decided to cut our losses and accept his offer. ONCE AGAIN, two days before closing, we received a call from our realtor saying there was a problem and the bank was now not going to give him the loan they pre-approved because they decided he didn't have enough credit . . . . . EXCUSE ME! To end a very long saga, I will say that this young man's father raised holy %$*#@ with the bank and at the final hour the bank came through and we were FINALLY able to close with him two days later than anticipated. So here were are a year and a half after putting our house up for sale wondering how the heck we lost so much money in this deal!!!!!! We do adore and love being in our new house though so have decided to chalk it up to experience and NEVER move again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Back to the Woe!