We bought the house in Grayson Valley with Jack, my former real estate agent. He approached us in 2008 and asked us to partner with him. We agreed, and it went wonky from there. We bought a home, splitting the closing and maintenance costs in half. However, at the time interest rates and loans were more complicated. Our payment was high. Jack was unwilling to pay the costs to refinance, so we didn't. When the home needed an AC, he wanted to finance one, which made no sense, but whatever. Meanwhile, Marty and I paid our share of the maintenance and insurance.
And, a few years into this, I presented Jack with a bill for his share of the expenses. This wasn't a shock to him, as he knew it was coming. But what was a shock was his reaction. He gave us the house. So, to put this in perspective, he owed us $1,400 for his share of maintenance and insurance and he walked away. I still don't understand. It wasn't the money, I know he had it. He just wanted out. As a coincidence, Marty and I were thinking about asking him if we could buy him out, as he didn't seem all that interested in continuing on, but he just gave us his share instead.
One of the more weird aspects of this home was, for the first four years, we had a different tenant every year. I had begun to swear the place was haunted, as the tenants were out at exactly month 12, without looking back. That kind of tenant turnover is rare. It wasn't hard to rent, as it was in a nice neighborhood and backed up to some woods and a golf course. The back yard flooded when it wasn't maintained. Also, there had been several outdoor snake sightings there, which meant I would never, ever live there. But all in all, it is a nice house.
The most unusual story I have about the place is when Jack and I owned it, he was showing it once to this woman. She walked in, asked where the attic was, looked up at the scuttle hole (as there was no ladder, she couldn't look in the attic), and then said it was "perfect" and she would take it. She didn't look at the kitchen or master bedroom. Needless to say, we didn't rent it to her.
Incidentally, once Jack was out of the way, we refinanced and we were cash-flowing. In fact, this house was extremely profitable. If I didn't have to lose this house as part of our closing our accidental business, this is one of the few I would have held on to.
1 comment:
The tenants probably left after the lease was up because you could never figure out how to make the snakes & snapping turtles (that migrated to this house from the pond over the fence in the golf course) pay their fair share of the rent. Beautiful house on a large private lot with a great layout....I love this house....but I'd never live there. Too many "visitors" for me.
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