Below is a detailed report of what my father and I went through from 2006 to 2008 regarding our home that we lost. I keep it posted here as a reminder of that journey for myself and family. I’ve learned so much from this experience, and I’ve walked through the coals as a better person, in a better life.

In late 2006, our landlord of 29 years (give or take) died. He left behind 3 farms, no children, and no will. In August of 2007 an appraiser finally came to appraise the property from just a brief outside/inside glance for $200,000. Anyone that has ever been in that house, knows it’s not worth $200,000. The walls were made of cardboard, it had one bedroom (dad slept in a closet all these years), a dirt basement, and the septic hadn’t been looked at in at least 29 years if ever.

Needless to say the house was condemnable, the only thing worth anything was the land itself.

In January 2008, the lawyer for the estate called and said they were definitely selling the property. He would be sitting down with the appraiser and letting us know anything before they move forward with the sale of the house. They wanted to give us the first option to buy, which I thought was nice of them.

In April 2008, I made an offer of $100,000 on the house given it’s present condition. I asked the nephew of the estate to give me till the end of the year to pay off my car and then we’d be interested in buying it. He said that should be fine, and that he would let us know before they move forward with the house.

Only a few days after, I received a reply to my offer stating that they could not go any lower than $175k and that the land alone was worth $100k (this amused me because the house is worth nothing, so my offer of $100k should have been just right).

I sent another offer of $150k and explained some of the heftier problems with the property that explained why I was offering that amount.

On April 28th I finally got ahold of the estate lawyer after 3 separate attempts to call and he reiterated that they would not be going below $175k. He also reiterated that they would not do anything with the property without talking to me first.

On June 30th 2008 we received an eviction notice on our door stating that since they had not heard anything further (despite our last conversation) about our interest to buy the property, that we were to be out in 30 days because they want to settle the estate by mid-August.

Dad and I took several days to think over buying the property for $175k, and originally we were going to try. But after really looking over our finances closely, the mortgage for that would only leave us $200 leftover every month for gas and food, which is not enough. So we decided to start looking at other properties.

I called the nephew of the estate and asked for an extension on the eviction notice, but he declined. They absolutely needed to settle by August 22nd 2008.

So dad and I started the process of trying to move everything in 30 days. Dad started taking all of our livestock to auction, he plowed up all of our crops because he said he wasn’t leaving anything for the vultures. Those that know us know we had tons of things to pack, and this was an amazingly daunting task. But we got everything packed within 25 days, leaving loads and loads of trash behind (which actually felt very good). Most of it we did all by ourselves.

Then we moved in with Aunt Susan and stayed with her for 2 months exactly. During that time, we attempted to work with realtors in finding houses in the area around $150k. There were none in Maryland, so we started looking in PA. I went through at least 5 different realtors before I got hooked up with one that would actually show us houses. The amount of effort I had to go through with the realtors was ridiculous, and after bidding on and losing one we really liked, we found our perfect house in Gettysburg.

As far as our house goes, we found it was actually -listed- for sale (we figured a builder was interested in it which is why they wouldn’t lower the price). They listed it as a “Handyman Special” at $185k. This was back in September. Since then I hear they’ve lowered it to $149.9k as of November 2008, but still no sale. Update: At the end of January it was listed at $124.9k :) Final Update: It sold for $100k. Serves them right!

One guy came who buys and builds regularly to look at the property, and when he was told by one of the neighbors that we had offered $150k for the property, the guy said “And those idiots didn’t take it?” He said he’d have to pay $40k just to tear down and clean up the property. Then you have to build a house on it for whatever amount of money (Lets say $150k). So you’d have to build and sell a house for at least $370,000 just to break even.

Incidentally, the greedy nephews and nieces of the estate are unable to receive any money until the sale of our old house.  That includes the 6 million dollars they got for our landlords other two farms :)

I will probably update this with more facts as I have time.