A Long Road Home

“Janna & Evan”

This is a very long story, so I will skip to the good parts. Janna and Evan had gone through a bankruptcy years ago. They had since purchased another property with some friends but were looking to move on to a place of their own, in order to have more space for their children. The previous bankruptcy caused credit implications which could potentially complicate another purchase.

Janna initially contacted me about a home in Webster Township that was under contract with another buyer. We discussed their needs, and I setup a search to get them a list of available homes. Janna called back after reviewing the homes, and we arranged a time to see three houses. None of the initial batch were quite right, and none of them were in Webster Township. I ended up finding them a nice house in the city of Chelsea, and they absolutely had to see it. It was a home that had been recently renovated and looked great. It was just what they wanted. Easy, right? Wrong!

After intense negotiations with the seller, we had a deal. An interesting, thinking out of the box kind of deal, but a deal. Both sides were happy. Until… the contractors’ inspection of the home revealed major structural problems with the framing of the home. It could collapse at any time! Oh, my! The buyers were crushed. The seller was shocked, as he appeared to have no idea it was that bad. The buyers were willing to purchase the home at a price that would allow them to complete the needed repairs, but the seller decided to take the home off the market instead. We moved on.

Janna and Evan are very confident in their skills to renovate homes, and they love old houses. They liked every house they saw, from Chelsea, to Manchester, to Ypsilanti. At one point, I was able to convince them to look at a new construction home. They were tempted, but ultimately wanted an older home. We went through seven houses, many unsuccessful offers, many inspection issues, and even some appraisal issues. None of this was anybody’s fault, just incredibly bad luck and bad timing. There were moments when they thought that they just weren’t meant to own a home again. “The right home is out there, and when it is meant to be, it will happen”, I reminded them often. “We just have to be patient”.

It took a year of looking, and navigating the ups and downs, but we finally found a home for them. It was not perfect, but Janna and Evan knew it was the right home. We negotiated our best deal and worked through some inspection issues.

The financial implications of their past did indeed present some problems along the way (this is putting it rather lightly), but we had a strong, diligent, local lender who handled that end for us.

They have encountered some interesting things since purchasing the home (Janna hates bats now) but are very happy.