The story behind the house

As I eluded to here, this post is all about the story behind our home. 

Tim and I began house hunting in October 2010. It all actually happened rather quickly when we saw a house we liked for a GREAT price on a Sunday afternoon. It had become habit for me to drive around and look at properties but up until this point, I had not contacted a realtor. Well, as soon as we saw this house, we called the listing agent to make an appointment. The next day, we looked at the house and put in an offer. It all felt super rushed but we knew there was another offer on the table so we had to move FAST. Needless to say, the house ended up going into a bidding war and selling for $21K over the listing price.

After that, we decided to continue to work with the listing agent of that property. She sent me lots of houses to look out but I was quite particular and was only willing to look at houses within a small radius. A lot of what we looked at needed far too much work for the price being asked. We ended up finding a house that we both really liked in Dunedin but the Master bathroom was so small that the door hit the toilet when entering. With no way to expand the bathroom, we decided to pass on the house.

Then one Sunday, after showing us a house on our list, our realtor said she wanted to show us another house that was sale on the same street. She showed us the listing printout and I immediately knew I would love the house. I also knew it was listed for $20K more than my “feel comfortable” price. Of course, we both fell in love with the house. My parents did too. The house needed a new a/c and the yard was a disaster. The realtor also thought the house was overpriced for comparables in the area. So we decided to give them a low offer, ask them to replace the a/c and cover 3% of our closing costs. We knew it was a gamble but our realtor said it was the best place to start.

The next day, I started pricing insurance etc. Even typing/writing out the address felt like it would be my home. That quickly ended when the seller countered our offer, stating he would replace the a/c and take $2k off the listing price. Clearly the seller was not ready to negotiate and we walked away from the house.

We continued house hunting almost every weekend. We wanted a house BEFORE the wedding so we did not have time to deal with any foreclosures or short sales. Our realtor would not even take us to look at any of those properties, knowing our timeline. Every house we looked at, we compared to “The” house. Nothing even came close. Every house felt like we would be settling. In the middle of November, we went to look at a house in Safety Harbor. It was the nicest house we had seen since “The” house. We had one more house to look at the day, which was just put on the market, on the same street as “the” house, but were considering making an offer on the Safety Harbor Property. While we were there, the seller of “the” house called our realtor, over a month later, and said he was now ready to negotiate. We put in our best offer and the seller accepted the next day!

The listing agent requested to be present during the inspection which we all thought was odd. It was the inspector, myself, my realtor and the listing agent for close to three hours of awkwardness! It was at this time that we learned the house was a flip. The inspector made some recommendations, including replacing the a/c, but nothing too major. He noted that the irrigation was not functional and that the electrical box was weird: added circuits that appeared to go to nothing. Even though the contract was signed, the seller then stated he did not want to replace the a/c but wanted to give me a credit to do so on my own. After some haggling, we agreed on a credit amount so that I could then get the tax credit for replacing the a/c.

Everything from this point on went rather smoothly! We had to have two appraisals since the house was a flip and we were going with an FHA Loan. The house appraised for more than our buying price so there were no issues. The week we were scheduled to close, I called to have the utilities transferred on the house. The water company was not a problem and required a standard deposit. When we called progress energy to have the electric transferred, we were shocked to learn that they wanted a $1000 deposit. When asked why this was so much, they informed us that it is based on the average of two months usage and the bills at the address were running over $500/month! At this point my anxiety kicked in because we could not afford that type of electric bill each month. Luckily, they were able to run my credit and waive the deposit. We had our final walk thru on 12/16 at which time we were given the keys to the house and then we closed the next day.

We knew at this point there were a lot of different projects that we need to be done to the house. Some we wanted done before moving in (carpets out, paint, wood floors, a new fence, etc) others could wait. It seems like we got started right away. Every waking moment for the next three months was spent at the house. We would be there at night after work and all weekend long. One night, shortly after closing, we were in the garage getting an estimate on the a/c replacement since this had to be done prior to December 31^st to get the tax credit, when two of our neighbors came over to introduce themselves. The asked if they could see the progress on the house because they hadn’t seen the house since "the bust". We had no idea what they were talking about and they were shocked when we asked them. They informed us that the house had been a grow house for marijuana and that the tenants were arrested for child abuse. They told us how the ceiling in the family room had been ripped out when the Sheriff’s office tore down the grow lamps. Of course at this point I was curious so I did a Google search and found the whole story. Apparently they confiscated 147 marijuana plants worth more than $250K. It was part of a drug ring with another house in Clearwater. I was then able to look up the previous tenants on the jail website. All were arrested on trafficking and possession charges. In addition, the two tenants at our house were also arrested on two counts of child abuse for having two children residing in the home where they were growing the marijuana. Of course, I was working in Child Protection at the time which made it even more insane to think about!

The crazy part is that everything kind of made sense now: the high electric deposit, the weird electrical panel, why the seller wanted to be at the inspection, and how the seller was able to pick up the house so cheap to begin with. We knew the druggies rented the house for at least 4 years, meaning that the house wasn’t taken care of during that time. All of this was confirmed by our neighbors who are just thankful to have “normal” neighbors again. The whole drug house thing is even weirder to think about when you consider the number of police officers that live in our neighborhood who were just as unsuspecting.

Knowing what we know now: the drug house, the flip, all the extra (unexpected) projects, would we have changed anything? Nope! We love our house and feel confident that we at right where God wanted us. We are just thankful it wasn’t  Meth or another drug that could be potentially hazardous to our health. We have wondered if our realtor knew about it and didn’t tell us. Technically, the seller did not have to disclose because the house was a flip and the seller never lived on the property. Which in my opinion is a funny little loophole.

So that’s it! The crazy (& long) story behind our beloved home :)

A rough picture of our house the day of our walk- thru.