Housing Slump Stumper

We put a contract in on a house this past Friday. Ed and I were really excited, it had 4 bedrooms, a huge kitchen that opened into the living room and a “split floor plan” which is a big deal in Florida. You get a master suite on one side of the house and your other bedrooms are clear on the other side. It’s nice for visitors because they can have a little privacy on the other side of the house (even if Isabelle’s room would be over there too).

This house we put a contract in for was even better. It had 4 bedrooms with a three-way split. So we had a master on one side, 2 bedrooms in the middle of the house, and then a 4th bedroom and bathroom on the far end of the house behind a doorway that led to it’s own hallway. It also had an exterior doorway, so this was a built-in in-law suite which is so perfect for all you fine folks who WILL visit us if we ever get settled.

We’ve widened our search beyond the original town of Safety Harbor for a few reasons. 1) There wasn’t a lot on the market over there. 2) The houses were all built in the mid-80s and needed new roofs if we were going to get a decent price on homeowners insurance (which is exorbitant down here!!!!). 3) Because of the lack of supply, and the steady demand, there are actually bidding wars and escalation clauses occurring over there. Have we regressed 10 years? What’s going on here?!?!

So we widened the search to the zip codes all around Safety Harbor. We’ve discovered some really great neighborhoods but don’t know “too” much about them. So we ended up in Ed’s mom’s backyard in a neighborhood called Westchase which is everything I swore I’d never buy. But once you start hanging out in the neighborhood and seeing all the amenities that come with home ownership, it’s hard to pass that lifestyle up considering we’ll be paying the same price for a home that we just left in Maryland. Yet we’ll get 3 neighborhood pools, clubhouse, tennis, golf, and all kinds of activities.

The neighborhoods are pristine, some are gated. The grounds are maintained like a country club. After coming from Selby (which we LOVED, by the way), we’re kind of looking forward to NOT seeing a few things like huge piles of wood in neighbor’s front yards, broken down cars on cinder blocks, boats on trailers blocking the streets, any kind of vehicles blocking the streets, lawn ornaments from a holiday that took place 3 months ago, chain link fences, pit bulls, dirt bikes whizzing wheelies down the street at 11pm (or any hour for that matter), a clubhouse that really exists (not just in the figment of our imaginations or an empty future promise by a Board of Redneck Directors). This is what you get for “master” planning. So what if our mailbox has to be the same color as everyone else’s? And we’re not allowed to leave our garage door open? You know the Truman Show was filmed here in Florida, right?

But alas, that house was not meant to be. We never heard one word from the seller or seller agent past the first day. We got the disclosure documents and HOA contracts to review, and the seller agent assured us the seller was prepared for a quick settlement but beyond that, they never replied and stopped answering calls from our agent. Very odd. The contract had a required answer date of Saturday May 26th or the next business day (which would have been yesterday). So we move on, I suppose. That house wasn’t meant to be. We have appointments today to see some other houses. We’ll let everyone know when the reservation books are open!