House Swapping - Part III
Well, the final post in this trilogy (sort of.. more to come!). We finally closed on our Galveston property we've owned for the last decade. I didn't say anything about it while still in the process of closing before, so as not to jinx it? Hell, I've got enemies out there that would probably have tried to undo the sale if they knew about it . But ... it's done!
When we put that up for sale, I thought it'd be for a lot lower price but the realtor we'd hired gave us a range much higher with comps; still .. I didn't really believe it. Three days after putting it on the market for what I believed was 'top dollar', we received an offer $5k over asking. Sold! Well .. almost. After the inspection, they found a few problems and .. that roof is older and probably should be replaced so we dropped the price $20k (they asked for a $30+k reduction) and moved forward. We were still WAY above what I thought it'd sell for initially. Ten days before closing my neighbor sends me a pic that some siding has come loose and laying on the ground. WTF? Call my buddy Mark B and he had it up and ensured siding around it ... is all secure. I did the minimum to make sure this was done correct, but didn't want to throw money into the wind at this point. Whew! This is an awesome house.. a solid house.. but..time to move on and I'm praying no more surprises before closing day! Since we've owned it, we've repainted it. New deck. Outside Elevator. Completely replaced the A/C / heating system. New Floor. All the TVs and some of the furniture replaced (that's to be expected). And all the maintenance that goes along with owning a home near the beach. And them high taxes and insurance! Well, when the smoke cleared, we recouped all and more. Score! Ten + years of good times and even made a buck. I never believed that when I eventually sold, it'd have been an 'investment property' but .. the man upstairs was smiling down on us.
Man ... I still remember when we bought this place a decade ago..... really changed up our life in so many ways. Week long beach trips throughout the year. Mardi Gras every year on the Island. Lone Star Motorcycle rally every year. Made some good friends around us there in the neighborhood. We began a love affair with the Strand area downtown. I found that house 'perfect' in so many ways, just wished it had a 2 car garage (or bigger!). Then .. we discovered our current, bigger, six bedroom further west... and .. the rest is history. This one became our rental .. but my sentimental attachment to it never waned.
Surprisingly .... my stress levels were up a notch towards the end. On Friday they did the walk through and had the cable TV equipment delivered. But, I kept getting emails on how the closing was moving slow due to Banks, their CD funding process (?), etc. Asked us several times if we wanted to remote close. Well, I needed to get my cable equipment out over the weekend and get all the keys together. Then this morning (Monday) we FINALLY get our closing time for 11:30 hrs..... that seemed like they were cutting it close? THEN... we heard tomorrow (Tuesday) they are remote closing from Vegas. So .... another 24 hours until this is 100% .....done.
We've still got our big house. More good times ahead with family and friends. But..... wonder how much that'd fetch?
We rented it out for several years and made some good income off it.. but... the folks that managed it became somewhat of a pain in the ass. All those promises they made early on, not so much anymore. Then I started crunching numbers and didn't agree with my cut/their cut. So we kicked them to the curb and rented it out ourselves to family and friends for a couple of years. It was no longer a 'money maker' but ... we had long term plans for it. But .. we changed up our long term plans so it went on the 'chopping block' to sell. On a positive note, when I add up the tens of thousands we put into it over the last decade .. the tens of thousands we spent on taxes and insurance ... when the smoke cleared at closing we were ahead of the game overall. So all those years we used it... our friends used it .. our family used it ... my niece living there for the better part of a year .... didn't cost a penny. In retrospect, a great investment considering we didn't buy it as an investment property. We bought it to enhance our quality of life.
So long my friend.... may you make the new owners happy as you did myself, my family and my friends.
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