6/18/2007

Condo confusion....

I'll blame my lack of posts as of late on condo confusion. Here's the deal, as you may or may not know Crystal and I moved into a new condo in Worcester the week of Christmas. It is an old 2 decker that was gutted and rehabbed to be converted into three condo units. We moved in under the agreement that the condo docs would be ready within a few weeks to a month and that would live in the unit at no charge until closing.

Well a couple weeks lead to a couple months, which in turn lead to 4 months, which lead to 5 and then to 6. Every few weeks we were told a different story... Problem with the condo dcs, problems with the survey, problems with the deed, problems with the lawyers. We heard 10 more days 10 times... And then last Friday out of nowhere we got a letter from the seller's attorney stating that the deal could not be done and that we needed to be out of the unit within 48 hours or begin paying rent. If we wanted to stay past july we would have to sign a year lease. This was in one hand a suprise, but on the other hand sort of expected as this thing had been dragged out far too long. Obviously we are in the market to buy at this point not rent so we are moving on at the end of the month.

Unfortunately over the past 6 months we have painted every room in this 1,100 square foot place, installed an IKEA Stolmen walk in closet system at a cost of $500.00 into a room that otherwise would have been an office or a craft room. On the bright side we haven't had to outlay any rent money since moving out of our last place back in November.

So basically we were thrown right back into the housing market without much notice. Good thing that we both have continued to pay close attention to the housing market in the Worcester area since moving into this place since pretty much all the properties/lofts/condos that we looked at back in November/December are still on the market at a nice discount to what the asking prices were back 6+ months ago.

On Thursday we put in an offer at University Park Lofts which is a new condo conversion in an old Crompton and Knowles mill building up against the railroad tracks in what is considered the seediest part of Worcester. Crystal and I are willing to take our chances and hope that the rejuvination projects that are coming online in the area will bear fruit, and 3 to 5 years down the line when we go to sell we will have bought in at a nice discount. The building contains 37 units and they have less than 10 sold or under agreement since December, so the seller should be very cooperative in terms of making a deal and getting the unit sold.

So since last weekend we have been busy boxing things up and moving them out. We got a storage unit on Friday along with a PO Box, because even if this deal closes asap we will still be without a permanant residendence for a couple weeks as they do final touchups to the unit and financing gets squared away.

So things have been crazy and hectic as all hell. We just moved into this place 6 months ago and didn't expect to get uprooted like this. But live and learn, a deal uisn't complete until all your I's are dotted and your T's are crossed. We won't make this mistake again.

On the bright side of things I am on vacation all week and the weather is supposed to be good. I'll do my best to update a bit more frequently this week as I can stay up late and whatnot since I don't have work.

No comments: