Selling The House
Some idiot of a real estate agent convinced Dragon if he would spend 5K on cosmetic changes (new paint & carpet) that they could get 80K for the house, and that it would be easy to sell because it's in the best school district in Hades.
Dragon refused to listen to anything I had to say. To any logic I tried to insert he would reply YOU ARE NOT A REAL ESTATE AGENT! OK, I am not a real estate agent, but I have been a home buyer and I know that 1.) I want to pick out the color paint and carpet for my new home. You are not going to score brownie points with me because you put fresh paint on the walls and new carpet on the floor IF it's not what I would have picked out. I am still going to try to get the house for less so I can change the color scheme to my choice not the previous owners. 2.) The only people who care if a house is in a good school district are people who have kids or are planning on having kids. In other words people who will be using the schools. People who have kids or are planning on having kids want something larger then a small one bedroom, one bath house. They actually want room for their kids or potential kids.
So Dragon gets a 5K personal loan behind my back to fix the house up and goes to Hades for a month to remodel it. The house is finally ready to be put on the market. Three months later a potential home buyer makes an offer. An older single woman on a fixed income who is depending on a HUD loan. Big surprise, the house doesn't meet HUD requirements, there is some structural damage to the house, which will cost more money then Dragon has to fix, until it is fixed HUD will not loan money for the house (Dragon assumed that since his Grandmother had a HUD Loan, and the real estate agent led him to believe that since that was the case, it would meet HUD requirements -this is not true).
6 months later, no other offers have been made on the house. In the meantime we are still having to make payments on the 5K personal loan.
A year later Dragon is offered 70K for the house. The same real estate agent that told him he could get 80K if he would spend money painting it, and putting new carpet in advises him to take the 70K. The potential new owner doesn't like the color paint or carpet Dragon installed, so she isn't willing to pay more, since she insist it will have to be redone. Dragon accepts the 70K offer. The money barely covers the cost of the real estate agent, the remainder GIL owed on her mortgage and repays the personal loan Dragon took out, what little is left over goes to repay the credit card companies and the title loan company GIL owes money too. Dragon is crushed that MIL and Aunt CC aren't going to get anything from the sell of the house and our marriage is in shambles. Now in HINDSIGHT, he wishes he had let the title loan company have the car (instead of wasting his time and money fixing it up to sell), now in Hindsight he wouldn't have wasted his time and money fixing up the house. He even admits he should have listened to ME!!!
At last the nightmare is finally over and we can get back to our lives.....................................
1 comment:
He really should listen to you. He's applying MIL or SIL type logic: no cosmetic changes make NO difference, because why? Every house gets inspected, top to bottom and they tell you EVERYTHING thats wrong with it. So a coat of paint and a new carpet really does mean squat.
The HUD thing should have been his first clue.....I mean, you should have been the first clue, but of course he doesnt listen.
Good news is that the loan got repaid out of the sale. I mean just imagine if it didnt after the sale of the house.
The real good news is he did realize you were right. So maybe, just maybe, he'll listen again some day BEFORE it all goes to hell.
Maybe.
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