History Part III

History Part III:  Knowing When to Quit

When we last left our farm buying adventure we were searching for a buyer for Cottage so we could purchase this lovely 18 acre farm in Germantown.  Although the contract had expired on March 31, the seller had verbally told us she was waiting til the end of April before she did anything like relisting.  Cottage is a lovely first-time buyer house and the federal tax credits were extended to the end of April.

Unfortunately, while we had quite a few showings, the end of April came and went without a solid offer.  A week before we had discovered we could put my house up for loan assumption and while that generated interest, not enough to bring a qualified buyer to the table.  We spoke with the seller on the phone and found out some interesting information.  Turns out that the price tag she was adamant about reaching for the sale of the farm included not one but 2 loans -- the mortgage and a $40,000 personal loan.  So while we agreed that we could simply do a loan assumption on the mortgage, we still needed to find a way to come up with $40,000.  We spoke at length with the loan officer at Farm Credit and devised a plan -- assume than refinance to get out equity.  Unfortunately after doing some serious investigation, there was no way that plan would result in the entire amount we needed... at best, we'd still be looking at needing $25,000 (and looking at the plan in hindsight, we doubt we'd be able to cover much at all given the market).

It was at this time that I personally began to try and let go of the Germantown farm.  I had tried to offer the seller a payment plan deal on the 2nd loan, but she turned that down flat.  Aside from winning the lottery, there simply wasn't a way I could see that we could swing the financial end of the deal in order to buy the farm.  Much less that we still needed to sell Cottage in order to do it and had NO qualified prospects on the horizon despite constant listings on Craigslist.

2 days later I saw an ad on Craigslist for a farm in New Lebanon.  Needed to just drive to think a bit and figured I would drive by and see if it was worth dragging everyone else to see.  When I saw the place, it looked nice enought that I stopped to pick up a flyer... that's when the owner invited me in for a "tour".  2 hours later I left the farm, vowing to bring the family back the next evening knowing they'd be wow'd.

and they were.  That tour lasted 2.5 hours.  It's an interesting house, interesting seller and interesting deal.

Stay tuned for History Part IV... the end of the history lesson and where we catch up to the here and now....