By Living Room Realty, August 11, 2020
Every sale has a story and this one centered around a 2011 Hyundai Tuscon. Jamie is the daughter of two of my favorite clients turned friends, Mike and Amy. Their family lived across the street from my go-to lender, Jen Bell. Mike and Amy bought a house with us in Concordia a few years back and have become regulars at the bar I work at, Sloans Tavern. Their daughter Jamie and her boyfriend Evan have been saving up for their down payment and were finally ready to buy this spring.
We went out on our first tour right at the beginning of Covid and found the house they wanted. The market was very insecure at that moment in time and cash buyers were pulling out. I’m pretty sure that’s the only reason this house wasn’t snatched up yet. The house was ROUGH but the location is 17th and Morgan, right in the heart of Dekum and their parent’s house is only a mile away.
The back story is that the woman who owned it was an addict and when she died it was squatted in for another year while her brother who lives in Hawaii was trying to get her affairs in order with probate. I imagine this was very much a hassle for him and he wanted it over with.
There were lots of personal items left in the garage, one of them being an older SUV. It was hard to tell what it even was in the dark and what condition it was in. When we made our offer, the agent called and asked me if the buyers would throw in an extra $8k to buy the car as well. The tone of her voice implied that, because the seller was in Hawaii and the estate was a pain for him, he wanted a buyer who would take both off his plate. Had it been a classic car or something cool they might’ve been tempted but it was a ratty old 2011 Hyundai Tuscon. We politely declined but got our offer accepted anyway. What we didn’t know was this car would come back to haunt us.
Inspections were daunting, every system of the house needed replacing. Evan and Jamie were optimistic that the seller would contribute something toward the amount of repairs needed but he refused. The one piece we leaned hard on was the sewer repair, something a seller almost always automatically does for the buyer. The bid we got was about $7k to replace it. The seller’s idea was to trade the car for the sewer. It was so absurd it was frustrating because it’s not even legal to incorporate a vehicle into a real estate transaction. The buyers really did not want this car but the seller wouldn’t budge. We called their bluff and said we were terminating and still the seller wouldn’t budge.
With everything this house needed Jamie and Evan were the perfect buyers because they are young and crazy enough to take this on to get that location. And now they are the proud owners of a 2011 Hyundai Tuscon. For the record, we had to get creative and the car was not part of the real estate transaction.
Congrats my dudes, we pulled off the impossible and ridiculous in a pandemic! Can’t wait to see what you do with it.
