We had been looking for a second home, and were about to make an offer on one when we were out there in September. Then the Colorado floods happened and we had to put our energies elsewhere. At that time there were lots of homes on the market as it was still dominated by foreclosures and short sales. The house we were looking at went under contract at full asking price in about 5 days. We put things on hold but continued to look.
Flash forward. A week ago Friday I was looking on line and a couple of houses popped up. The requirement was for a pool or a lot big enough to put one on and no (or minimally invasive) HOA. One was under lease until January 2015 but had a good cash flow, etc.
The other was about 2 miles from our target area and had a large cul-de-sac lot. Our friend of almost 30 years who was our neighbor in MA drove by and there happened to be an open house. Her report was favorable and we were on a plane on Monday, toured the house and made an offer on Tuesday that was accepted (just slightly over asking price since they had a bundle of offers). It has a huge lot that we can put our own pool in, the HOA seems to be just for common area maintenance. The house is a little bigger than I would have liked but my wife has her eyes on about 1/2 of it
We toured the first house but as a rental it was pretty trashed, had an unrealistic asking price if it was new, but would have needed about 70K of repairs and remodeling (black tile and toilets! yech) so we passed.
What I noticed between September and now is that the market has absorbed most of the foreclosures and short sales. I wouldn't say that the percentage is "normal" but getting close, and inventories of all properties have fallen. When we looked last fall there were probably 20 homes in the immediate area of our target, now there about 5 so we had to expand the search area a little. The market there is definitely recovering with a long upward cycle to get back. We decided this was the time and pulled the trigger.
So now the process starts. We have some work to do on our place here to get it ready for showing - tons of stuff is going to the dumpster or Goodwill. And we want to get the pool started and probably get some painting done on the new place while it is empty. We'll probably make a few trips to bring some things out
I hope that we are there permanently long before the Rally!!! If not I'll bring the GT out anyway since I don't want to try to move it much past early September.
Flash forward. A week ago Friday I was looking on line and a couple of houses popped up. The requirement was for a pool or a lot big enough to put one on and no (or minimally invasive) HOA. One was under lease until January 2015 but had a good cash flow, etc.
The other was about 2 miles from our target area and had a large cul-de-sac lot. Our friend of almost 30 years who was our neighbor in MA drove by and there happened to be an open house. Her report was favorable and we were on a plane on Monday, toured the house and made an offer on Tuesday that was accepted (just slightly over asking price since they had a bundle of offers). It has a huge lot that we can put our own pool in, the HOA seems to be just for common area maintenance. The house is a little bigger than I would have liked but my wife has her eyes on about 1/2 of it
We toured the first house but as a rental it was pretty trashed, had an unrealistic asking price if it was new, but would have needed about 70K of repairs and remodeling (black tile and toilets! yech) so we passed.
What I noticed between September and now is that the market has absorbed most of the foreclosures and short sales. I wouldn't say that the percentage is "normal" but getting close, and inventories of all properties have fallen. When we looked last fall there were probably 20 homes in the immediate area of our target, now there about 5 so we had to expand the search area a little. The market there is definitely recovering with a long upward cycle to get back. We decided this was the time and pulled the trigger.
So now the process starts. We have some work to do on our place here to get it ready for showing - tons of stuff is going to the dumpster or Goodwill. And we want to get the pool started and probably get some painting done on the new place while it is empty. We'll probably make a few trips to bring some things out
I hope that we are there permanently long before the Rally!!! If not I'll bring the GT out anyway since I don't want to try to move it much past early September.
