The Hunt

 .   I was in my mid 50's and tired of renting homes.  Don't get me wrong, my last landlord was great as were most of the others before him. But my dream has always been to have a house and a garden, I was tired of not being able to paint rooms when and what color I wanted, I could not put nails in the wall and until out last place, I was tired of neighbors over or under me.

My last landlord wanted to sell me the house we were in, The price was great, He was willing to do rent with option to buy and I liked the house, except it was too small for 3 adults. (Well 2 adults and a college student's stuff and sometimes the student.) I looked at expanding it, I really tried to make it work, but all the contractors I talked to said it would cost as much as the house or could not be done the way the present structure was, of course for more than the house would cost me they could fix that..

So, after trying to figure out a way for 2 years, I gave up and started to look.  My father was a strong advocate for my buying a house and offered to help out with the down payment.  That decided me, While the economy was just starting to recover, housing prices had not yet risen much in our state.  I saw a "steal" a house with 7 bedrooms for 98K in Athens, Ga.  I called the real estate agent listed as the the seller.  After a rather lackluster conversation, I decided to wait. Obviously they were not interested in buyers who were looking for around 100K or less. So I put it aside for a while.

About a year later that house was still listed, so I called another agent.  Never got a call back. Then a 3rd. This one was the charm.  I had contacted Keller Real Estate.  The team lead's name was Jennifer. A day later I got a call back from someone named Stephanie. It seems that Keller sets up teams, part of the team deals with the buyers other parts deal with the sellers. That way there is no conflict of interest in a sale and the buyer gets the attention they need as do the sellers. Thus began the long haul to home ownership.

Stephanie checked me out to see how serious I was.  I explained our situation and that I was serious but not desperate.  It was June and our lease was not up until November.  For that matter, I could wait another year or two, The house I had called on interested her as well. 7 bedrooms for 98K? were they closet sized?  Was the house an old fraternity house maybe?  Maybe it was termite ridden or the neighborhood was a war zone?

She suggested I get pre-approved. While this should be anyone's price range, maybe there was something amiss.  I called my bank and thus began the red tape. To give you a bit of a spoiler, when we finally closed on a house the lawyer said this was one of the smoothest closings he had ever had and he was very experienced.  That worries me.  As stressed and annoyed as I was through the whole thing, I can't imagine what others had that made it more difficult.