My Real Estate Nightmare (Part 3)

It took only 4 days after the disastrous turn of event on the purchase of my home to see another offer come our way. The selling of our home was truly turning out to be a real roller coaster ride of up and down emotions (which, as of this writing, has yet to end). In what was another "meant to be" moments I'm trying to infuse into this whole situation, we actually signed a new Promise to Purchase with a new buyer that was willing to pay more than our previous offer -- $2,000 more.

Well, that was exciting now, wasn't it?

Lesson 4: Never get excited until the money is in your bank account.

As before, we had to wait again until the home inspection was carried out on our home, however, this time around, we didn't have to wait the arduous 7-day period + 3-day reply to get the confirmation of a sale. By now, the exposed basement wall was completely covered by a fresh new layer of drywall and paint, so there was no longer any evidence of the latent defect that my home suffered with.

The 2nd inspection of our home was a little more thorough (although I've yet to actually see the report). In the end, only one major defect was uncovered: the roof. The shingles on the back half of my roof, which faces the sun most of the day, were beginning to curl. The inspector estimated only a few good years of life left, and would then have to be replaced. As such, the value of my home suddenly dropped. In an instant, I lost the $2,000 extra that I thought I had gained with these new buyers.

We then received word that the buyers wanted to take possession of our home 1 month earlier, and effectively "rent" our house back to us until we moved into our new home at the end of July. So we signed an amendment that on June 28th, our home was no longer ours, and I would be living "mortgage free" for one month.

Ok, so we were back to the $298,000 sale price that we thought we had a few weeks prior. Still not so bad, and we stood to make a $20,000 profit after taxes and commission. At least the house was sold.

Or so we thought...