Welcome Home!

We arrive at our new house about 330p. Not bad, it's sunny out and we have lots of great natural light. When we pull up top the house, we realize we have a circle driveway, and the best part of that is that it's concrete and goes around the back of the house, instead of the customary front circle drive. Oh, I love that already! What a huge perk that its concrete! 

We pull around back, I open my email to get the lockbox code, and we enter the house. It's clean, no trash laying around. No squatters, no animals, no rodents, no sign of mice or roaches or anything! What a relief! Good deal. All the what if questions went flying out the window.

We walk around the house. The pictures we had previously seen couldn't tell you the layout of the house, and it's quite interesting. You can walk from room to room, in a circle jerk, and end up right back to where you started (all with the exception of one bedroom). Interesting. Unique. I like it's character. 

There are original hardwood floors throughout the house, Amazing. I had no idea. What a great surprise. The cabinets in the kitchen are custom built, and built well. Reminds me very much of the custom cabinet work in my first house, when people took pride in craftsmanship. Not like the shit these days. The bedrooms all have unique color themes. One bedroom is painted like a football field, another with wide teal/purple stripes. The master is plain as is the other bedroom, with the exception of the camo ceiling fan. Lol.

There are two full baths, and OMG, they have probably not been remodeled since before I was born, or around that time! The hall bath is baby blue. Ok, not my choice on colors. but it isn't just paint. The entire bathroom including the shower, floor to ceiling walls and the ceiling itself are all done in 4x4 tiles. Eeww. No. The interesting and exceptional thing about this bathroom though is more custom cabinetry work. Like a space where maybe you throw you dirty clothes. Almost like a laundry shoot but on the same floor. Neat. The master bath, gold, and more gold. Gold tub surround, gold double vanity with globe like light fixtures hanging from a chain off the ceiling in each corner of the vanity. Classy. Not. But as someone I met said, "You know when the guy who redid the bathroom was done, he stood back, looked at it and thought, I cant wait for everyone to see this!". Well said. you know the guy was proud, and I am sure at the time, it was great. Just not anymore. 

What else about this house? There are surprises around every corner, and they aren't bad surprises. We find out that we have natural gas! Wow. I would have never expected that in the boonies. I haven't had natural gas in 10, almost 11 years. Damn. That's such a bonus! We also have a gas fireplace in the living room. I love that! Funny side note about the natural gas; I had to go to the gas company, about 1 mile from our house, and fill out a paper application to have it turned on. OMG, I think we are moving to Mayberry!

We also find that we have an underground storm shelter on our property, just outside the back door. Awesome. And it's a great size too. Plenty of room for both of us, our dogs and neighbors too! 

On our 10+ acres (still not exactly sure what the exact size of the property is as that info has also been conflicting), the grade of it goes way up just after the storm shelter. The elevation is not something that any of the pictures we previously viewed gave away. Ok, not the end of the world. We have a lot of space to explore.

We find an old chicken coop with the roof  blown off, another building with a door and lock on it that we don't have a key to, a well house (what?!?), a workshop that's huge, and who knows what else yet. That's all we immediately see. There's lots of other land to explore still.

Beep! Beep! Time To Hit The Road!

We officially closed on December 6, 2023. You bet your sweet ass, we left here at 4am on December 7th to head that way. The drive is about 9.5 hours, and I wanted to get there during daylight hours. Just in case.

Here's some fun facts. The town we are moving to, population is about 4,000. In the entire county, the population is about 16,000, and it appears to be a decent size county. Here we come, small town! It's perfect. Just what we wanted. Peace and quiet. 

I had already found out about utilities by calling the city. I had the electricity turned on effective December 6th, and the water was due to be turned on December 8th (we wanted to make sure we were there when the water was turned on to ensure that if there were any leaks or faucets on or anything else, we wouldn't arrive to a flooded house). Good call, no thanks to my husband. I am glad he mentioned that because that would have never occurred to me.

So here we are driving to our new house. So many things we discussed on the way. So many thoughts, from both sides. Then a light bulb comes on, and I think, oh shit. What if we have squatters in the house? We dont know how long it has been empty. What if there are rodents or animals in the house? Like a nest? An infestation? What if there are roaches? All the things we wouldn't want. Fuck. What will we do? We will deal with whatever comes our way. I am already ready to book an AirBnb if necessary. But we are prepared to sleep in the house on the air mattress we brought with us.

We are both excited the entire ride, anticipating what we bought. A house somewhere around 1,500 - 1,600 square feet or so, on 10+ acres, with the cutest front porch that's covered, the house has a steel roof (bonus), a garage and some buildings around the property we aren't sure of what they may be. Oh the anticipation. The ride goes quick. It's a sunny day, the dogs are sleeping their day away in the car. Perfect.

Ring Ring..........Ring Ring

Yahoo, I finally got the call I have been waiting for. The bank finally signed the deed and we can set a closing date. It's about damn time. Now, fair to say, and I also didn't mention this previously. The contract did say approximately 30 days to close, but I was thinking it would be a lot sooner. I am sure with the Thanksgiving holiday, that slowed things down some, but whatever. Closing date was set. We closed at day 28. No shit, they were pretty spot on.

We get the information that we need to close. Great. I am thinking, hell, this will be easy and quick, and it was. Good thing I am a planner though because there were things I couldn't anticipate. Like when I sat down to send a wire, my bank wouldn't let me do it online. What? I just did this a few weeks ago. WTF is the problem Carl? (Don't worry about Carl, you don't need the back story). So I call the bank. What's the issue? Oh you have to come in in person to request the wire. Well, fuck me. Now I have to go out when I wasn't planning on it for some bullshit. Thankfully the bank isn't far and I get that all wrapped up. As it turns out, the bank puts a limit on a wire transfer you can perform on your own, and they make you come into the branch to make sure there is no kind of fraud going on or anything out of the ordinary. Ok, thanks, I get it. Thanks for watching out for me.

I get the wire transfer completed, call the mortgage company to let them know it was sent and received confirmation they received it. Then I get the email that says, here's how to access your property. Awesome. Let's go.........time for a road trip.

Congratulations!?!

I get an email saying Congratulations, you won the auction. I am super excited and nervous all at the same time. I get several emails. It tells me what all the next steps are; sign the contract, send the escrow amount via wire, send proof of funds, send a copy of my drivers license, hurry up and then wait.

Ugh. Waiting. For what? I don't really know how all this is going to work, but I am in the process of finding out. I read the contract, and it isn't exactly what I expected. My husband looks over it too, and we call auction.com. We have questions. 

What questions do we have? The first and most important one for us is why the contract states we cannot have an inspection done. We are told this is because buying the house at auction means you accept it as is. Done. Oh, wow. We ask if we are able to back out of the sale. Yes, we can, but we will have to pay $500 in the future should we choose to use auction.co again. Ok, fair. They don't want a bunch of people bidding out of boredom or bullshit. Fair enough.

So we discuss it. We go over the pros and cons. We agree to move forward. I can't wait to close, let's get the show on the road. We sign the contract and send it back. Sent in all the other required information as well, and wait some more.

What are we waiting on? Title check. The bank has little to no information they can really give us about the property. Hell, we have found conflicting information online as to the square footage of the house and also about he year it was built. Ok then. We have no idea how long it's been vacant, how we can access it, who the utility providers are, etc.  Congrats and good luck!

I reached out to the title company. They stated that they will check title, and assured me it won't take long. Not in Alabama (I forgot to mention that's where we ended up buying), it's pretty quick. Awesome. So we wait more. Thinking that all we were waiting on was the title check, I was thinking we would be able to close in about 2 weeks. Nope. Wrong. We also had to wait on the bank to sign the contract which could take up to 10 days. Thankfully it didn't. The bank signed the contract the same day they received it. Cool. What's next?

I thought we were done. Bank signed the contract, title check was complete, so tell me how to pay you and what I owe and then we're done, right? Wrong again. Of course. Now what? Now we are waiting on the bank to sign the deed. The bank only signs deeds on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Of course. When do I find this out? Wednesday late in the day. And don't count on it too soon since there's a holiday next week (Thanksgiving was coming up). Fucking great!

So I get the "I'll call you when the bank signs the deed and we can set a closing date". Ya, I had already talked to this guy in the past and found out he wasn't a man of his word. I would probably fall off the grid before I heard from him. So what do I do? Wait more.

It's Auction Time!

I had 5 days to consider if I wanted to rethink "my max price". That 5 days also gave me the opportunity to find out more about the property itself too. My husband and I both did digging and found out quite a bit. Cool. With the information we found, we said, yep, let's bid again and win it this time!

Bidding started. 48 hours to go. I placed my first bid. I don't recall what the opening bid was, but whatever. It wasn't the reserve price. The bank placed a bid, and ups the ante. And back and forth we go. I wait, because I don't want to be too eager, and I also don't know if someone else has any interest in the property, so I may not only be going against the bank.

I place my final bid, just $1 over the reserve price.......and that was it. I won. Wow! I just bought a house, sight unseen, in another state. Now what?

Take The Risk Or Not?

I am a risk taker and always have been, with lots of things. I am still that way. So I say, yes, take the risk. And I did. I placed bids on a few different properties, 4 in all I think, at different times. I would bid and bid again, always having "my max price" in mind, and never going over that. 

It's hard to determine what something is wroth, especially a house, when you can't see it in person. So I bid on this house and that house, but didn't win the auction. That's fine, again, time wasn't working against us. We can really wait this out as long as needed. 

The other factor in all of this is there is a reserve set. If you are unfamiliar with what a reserve price is, it is the minimum amount the seller will take for whatever you are purchasing, however, only the seller knows what this amount is. So it is always a guessing game from the buyer's perspective. I've done this many times in the past on eBay, but now we are talking about a lot more money.

I think I had bid on my 4th house when I get a phone call. The phone call came from auction.com, and not only did one person call, but two people did. Hmmm. Why? I didn't answer the phone either time, but they both left voicemails. Both left the same message. The house I was currently bidding on that was due to end that evening, well I was really close to winning, and if I bid one more time, I would win the auction. Hmmmm. Sales tactic? I dont't know, but I didn't take the bait. I had set "my max price" and had bid my last bid. Perhaps too bad so sad for me. Needless to say, I didn't win the auction. Back to square one.

The curiosity that always kills me, ya, I keep looking. Well this time my looking paid off in a big way. With the houses I had previously bid on (by this time one was actually sold on auction), I was able to find the reserve price on each one! Holy Shit! Someone fucked up, and in my favor. Lucky me! I don't know how this happened, but it did. So I took a screen shot of each one so I could double check my memory, and shared the news with my husband. 

As it turns out, the most recent house I had bid on, the one I received phone calls about, ya, they weren't lying. I was damn close to that reserve price with my last bid! But now I had to wait. Because houses are on for 48 hours then off for 5 days, and it repeats. Excellent, because this gave me time to consider if I wanted to buy any of these houses, now knowing what each one would cost.

The New Journey Begins.....My Second Life Journey

My new journey began as my cancer journey ended. Officially, my cancer journey ended with my last procedure being on December 15, 2023. I had to healed from my final surgery in September, and I was no longer under restrictions. As 2023 was ending, so was my cancer battle. What a great way to wrap up 2023, pushing forward into 2024. But I am getting ahead of myself a bit.

So what is this new journey I am on? We decided to move across country, again. Who does this more than once in their lifetime? Clearly, I do, we do. We had talked about moving for some time, buying some land, but with my cancer diagnosis, everything was put on hold. I had the best doctors treating me for my cancer, and I wasn't willing to give that up. For the last year or so, maybe longer (I don't honestly remember), I was casually looking for property, in many states. I wasn't sure where the right place to land was, but I was keeping my options open. I know I wanted to stay south, because I like the warmer weather. So north into the snow and cold, was out of the question.

After doing much research on the states I was maybe considering, I did a lot of homework on each state to see what the cost of living was, what the income tax rate was, property tax rates, sales tax rates, and on and on. This significantly reduced my list. Some states have more cons than pros as far as I am concerned. So as the list got shorter and shorter, I kept looking. 

Houses were flying off the market as soon as they were coming on. We went, in person, and looked at many homes, but we just didn't find "the one". It is what it is. We have time to look. There is nothing urgent in terms of a reason we need to move, so we can continue to take our time looking. So every day I looked online to see if any new houses came on the market. And every now and then one would appear here or there that peaked my interest. Sometimes I would call about it and other times I would just sit and wait and watched what happened with it. And in all of this searching, I came across something very interesting. A website called auction.com and it grabbed my attention. 

So you want to know more about this auction.com site? It is literally a website where properties are auctioned off, banked owned properties. Interesting. I don't think I really knew something like that existed. I was hesitant about it, skeptical because I wasn't sure if it was legit or not and if I should move forward exploring it. I did, because like a cat, the curiosity killed me. 

It is a legit site. I registered on it, which then allowed me to make bids on properties. Wow. Talk about having a bid to place! Some of these house auctions start at $1. Literally ONE dollar. This cannot be. The bidding increments vary, anywhere from $5k - $50k, and they can go up and down from that amount. It depends on how high the bids get, sometimes they lower the bid increment amount. There is always a starting bid, which normally isn't $1, but they really are all over the place. 

The other thing about these auction homes, is either they can currently be occupied or unoccupied, and the listing info tells you this, so with that in mind, most of the time, you only have the option to see the exterior pictures of the home. Think about what you could possibly get yourself into buying a house and not being able to do a walk through before hand? Seems risky. Seems really risky. So what do you do? Take the risk, or not?

Starting Over, At 46 Years Old

Starting over at 46 years old, doesn't seem all that bad, right? It's not. At this age, many people have been divorced, have kids that are still at home or grown, perhaps even have grandkids. Maybe thought about going back to school, could be a widow(er), moved crossed country, who knows. The possibilities are endless.

None of these are the case with my story. My life is starting over at 46 years old because I was diagnosed with cancer at 44. Breast cancer, an aggressive form at that. For almost two years I went through chemo, physical therapy, many surgeries, and came out cancer free! I couldn't have asked for anything better.

Now I feel like I have a second chance at life, and it is amazing. I am 46 years old, a mother of one grown son, a grandmother of one grandson, a wife, a sister, an aunt, a friend, and many other things. So what am I going to do with my second chance at starting life over? 

A new journey is beginning. A journey I am so excited about.