Wisconsin Sunrise: Racing to a Dead End

Yesterday evening we met our real estate agent at her office so we could sign the Buyers Agent papers. Before driving to her office we passed a newly listed Ranch in Hartford for $145,000. I grabbed the address and texted our agent. She had details of the property for us when we arrived and she set up a showing for this morning at 10 am.

Immediately we noticed the house didn't look as nice in person as it did in the pictures, and it was smaller than what the listing implied, because they included the "finished" basement in the square feet.....which had water trickling in behind the paneling along the back wall.

Our agent's husband showed us the house (they are a team), so we spent some time talking about what we are looking for, and what we noticed about the house we were looking at. We discovered that it is possible to buy a house that needs some fixing, but which is not actually a "fixer-upper". However, we didn't like this one at all, and it was agreed that it is worth much less than the listing price. Plus...that foundation wall....need I say more?

We no more than got back home and my daughter was texting me that a duplex for $160,000 just listed 15 minutes ago and there were no pictures. She gave us the address, so we drove over to look. A man was walking around to the front and we asked if we might take a picture. He said of course. It turned out that he was the owner, and he invited us to view the property.

We were astounded. It is immaculate, fully updated, sturdy, well built, strong, clean, gorgeous woodwork. Every inch of that house said "Welcome Home", from the downstairs enclosed porch to the upstairs kitchen and balcony. Already we were living there in our hearts. We were mentally siting on the balcony watching sunrises or sunsets. I was nearly in tears.

We wanted it, right then and there. I called our agent. She needed to see it, and since she was driving from Menomonee Falls, it was only a short detour. She called us as soon as she was heading to West Bend, and we took off to meet her there.

She looked at the loan approval we had. Something was confusing, so I called our loan officer. He talked to me, then the agent, then me. The numbers were different because it's a duplex. First time homebuyer credits only work for single family homes. We were $4400 short for closing costs. Our loan guy crunched numbers, he went through every program they have. There was nothing he could do.

Our loan guy felt bad. Our agent tried to console us by telling us something else will come up. She said she sees a lot of disappointed potential buyers who miss out simply because 6 offers might come in on a property all at once. So we thanked everyone for trying so hard to help us and we vowed not to give up hope.

Here are a few pictures I took of the duplex.

Balcony