Note: this is part one of my posts about my real estate experience. This one covers all the trials and tribulations I went through, while Part Two will address all the mistakes I made and the lessons I learned from them.
I am ecstatic to announce The Dingle House is sold and not my problem any longer!
I haven’t been writing much about the property as I was afraid to jinx it.
Well, I should have just written about it anyway as there were gremlins mucking up the process. Me writing about it couldn’t have jinxed it anymore!
I decided to sell at the end of June/beginning of July. I was getting calls from all the neighbors complaining about the tenant. He was throwing late night parties, harassing people from the front porch, selling drugs and probably other things I don’t know about were happening as well. I would get these messages and be helpless to do anything about it as I was 6 hours away. I have a property manager for a reason, but I could never get a hold of him. They also lost 2 employees out of about 6 people, so they weren’t doing so hot either and it showed.
I also realized the house needed a ton more work. I was probably going to have to completely redo two out of 3 bathrooms, redo the gutters, and properly paint the exterior. That price tag was roughly at $50,000 which I definitely don’t have.
I messaged a bunch of people about a pocket deal, but there were no takers so I went with an agent to list the house. I’m glad I did as he convinced me to put the house up for about $10,000 more than I was thinking. He told me we could’ve gotten more for it, but I just wanted the property gone. He put the house up for sale and I started getting messages about a typo in the listing.
He fixed it but this was about the time I started really wishing a way to intravenously inject alcohol was on the market.
I put the property up for sale for $99,900. I bought the property for $82,500 with $5,000 down 18 months ago. 6 days after it went on the market, I had an offer for $90,000 plus I pay closing costs and 3% of his prepaids. I countered with full list price plus his demands, and he accepted.
Then it was time for the inspection and getting it ready for close. My realtor worked well with my property manager and got all the necessary repairs done. The buyer wanted an outrageous list of things done on the property which, after some fierce negotiation, I managed to not have to do the most expensive repairs. Those were all windows to have screens and storm windows, the attic insulated, and the bricks in the chimney replaced where needed as they were starting to deteriorate. The windows are original wood windows and are therefore weird sizes which meant custom made screens and storm windows. No thanks. The attic is uninsulated right now, as is THE ENTIRE REST OF THE HOUSE. No way was I putting insulation in the attic when the rest of the house didn’t have it. As for the chimney, well, it really only existed in the basement and attic. Everywhere else was blocked off and non-functional.
I did agree to remove some vegetation from around the house, get rid of the carpenter ants, fix a leaky sink and fix a broken downspout on the gutters. All in all, it cost me about $1600 to do all the fixes.
I was ready to sell by our close date of August 17th, but the buyer wasn’t ready to buy. Our closing got pushed back to the end of August so they could get their paperwork in order. The buyer lives in California, to further complicate matters. I was pissed, but what can you do? Not much, so we pushed it back two weeks.
The end of the month was fast approaching when my realtor and I started hounding the other side for details. The other realtor was nearly impossible to get a hold of and provided no progress updates at all. We literally had no idea if we were going to close on time until my attorney emailed us the buyer had signed the paperwork.
According to them, professionals who do this all the time, it was a highly unusual way of doing things. So I drove down to the office 6 hours away, signed my end of the paperwork, and waited for a phat check to magically appear in front of me.
It was not meant to be.
The other agent needed to be there to sign the closing docs. As the next day was the Friday before Labor Day Weekend, they doubted it was going to happen but I kept my fingers crossed.
An entire week went by with no word. I was literally in the dark on the whole process until my realtor texted me to tell me he got his check and I would get mine in the mail the next day. I figured, a check worth that much was well worth overnighting.
I couldn’t sleep that night. It was like Christmas. I knew that metaphorical present was under the metaphorical tree.
The next day, my boyfriend worked from home and looked out the window of our office room. He made a sound and pointed. I looked and there was the big, beautiful, brown UPS truck outside our house.
I scrambled down the steps like puppies released from their pen and got the envelope from the guy. No way was I going to risk him taking it back with him.
Seriously though. Look at this picture. Happier than a kid in a candy shop!
So that afternoon I biked my way downtown to the Charles Schwab office, opened an account and deposited the money. The 900 million pound gorilla was off my back and I felt like queen of the world.
I then called the utility company, the water company and my insurance company USAA. Since I was on a budget billing plan (to lessen the impact of $500 winter bill months), I actually got a credit on my account when I closed everything down! Woo! That’s the first time they’ve ever given me money so that was awesome.
I had to pay my final water bill but it was like, $100 so no biggie.
Then, I called USAA to close out the rental insurance policy I had. They gave me a credit of $900!! I should call and cancel things more often if I’m going to get that kinda money back!
Now all I have left to do is settle up with my property manager and see if I need to do anything for my mortgage (I had an escrow shortage).
This concludes Part One of my posts about The Dingle House. Be on the lookout for Part Two, where I cover all the lessons I learned from the many, many, many mistakes I made. Woo!
Thanks for reading! Have you had real estate go badly? If so, sound off in the comments below!
Gwen, so glad you got rid of this headache. I hope you learned some lessons that will sever you well in the future. Keep your chin up and keep grinding.
Thanks Drew. I learned a ton of lessons about what not to do in real estate!
Congrats on getting rid of it! I was wondering how it got the name dingle house sounds like a weird way to do the transaction but unlike us, you got to close and get it off your hands. Congrats again!
It was utterly bizarre but.… it got done so I can’t complain too much! Good luck on getting your property off your hands!
Congrats on finally getting rid of this thing. No more crazy renters who don’t pay you to deal with! Woo hoo!
WOOOHOOO!!!! I found it ironic I got more from my utility company and insurance company than I did from my tenants the last few months. Ugh.
Yay congratulations!!! And credits back — cherry on top for sure. So excited for you to finally be DONE.
THANK YOU!!! I’m over the moon right now!
YESSSSSS!!! A million zillion congrats to you! Reading about the Dingle House was giving me palpitations lol.
*HUGE SIGH OF RELIEF* I’m so happy to be done. Thanks for all the support!
Congrats on the newfound freedom!
Thank you Morgan! I’ve been sleeping very soundly through the night now 🙂
Can’t wait to read what you learned. And super excited you got out of a bad investment with a ton of ultra valuable lessons without having to lose a ton of hard $$$$. Also can’t believe the “dingle” house was in the description!!!
Soooo much. Warning: Long post incoming. I probably lost a little money all in, but not a terrible amount.
Congrats on the newfound freedom!
Reading about the Dingle House was giving me palpitations.
Thanks
Thanks for hanging in there on the journey with me!
Congrats on the end of this mess. All that stress is now gone. Hooray! You’ll probably address this in your next post part 2, but would you consider doing Real Estate again after such an experience? Thanks!
I’ll go into more in depth in the next post, but short answer is yes — if I find the right deal!
Congrats! I hope you made some money after all the fees and repair. Man, what a pain. Is this property in a good area? We had a 4plex in a crappy area and we had problems too. It’s best to buy in good areas even if it’s more expensive. I also want to know if you will keep investing in rentals. Good luck to the buyer as well.
I have money left over but I definitely didn’t make money on this ‘flip’. The house wasn’t in a great area and that was the root cause of a lot of my problems.
It sounds like that out of state buyer really has no idea what they are getting into.
I’m glad it is no longer your mess to deal with.
Is there a reason you picked Schwab? Perhaps another brokerage would have given you a signup bonus. 😀
When I sold my property, the escrow company just did a wire transfer into my credit union’s checking account. It was pretty cool to wake up one morning and see that large deposit.
Not a clue. Good riddance, and good luck to him! He’ll need it.
I picked Schwab for the ease of getting the money out. Other than that, no real reason. I wish they had been able to do that, but they would only do a direct deposit into a local account. #lame
Oof, that’s rough. But you did something the vast majority of people haven’t done, including me. You actually took action. As the saying goes, it’s only up from here!
Woohooooo, so glad you’re done with the stress of the Dingle House and that you managed to intercept the check the day it got to you!
Here’s hoping for less stress in the future 🙂
Oh, my gosh, Gwen. I’m so happy for you. Mrs. G and I tried landlording when we first move down to Charlotte and quickly found out we didn’t have stomach for dealing with dingle-properties and dingle-tenants. If you want to invest in real estate, but a REIT. Looking forward to reading Part 2. Cheers.
$100K for a house?!?!?!
Ya’ll are lucky over there… Canucks average home price is approximately $380K (USD).
Well done!