Ridgetop - our place and how we muddle along

[Baymule]

I hope the family with 3 kids can keep their ponies there.

 

[Ridgetop]

So do I, but worried about zoning. They sent us pix of their family with a letter. Very sweet family and would love living on property.

 

[Bruce]

If the second person liked the privacy and it has a barn as big as it does, how many acres and why would it be zoned to not allow horses?

 

[Ridgetop]

The city of Yelm incorporated the acreage next door, our property, plus several other properties in order to extend the city lines. This was to allow the acreage next door to be converted to a housing development. DS1 found where you can keep 3 pygmy goats (2 or 3 wethers or does) and 6 chickens or ducks - no mention of horses. We really don't want this couple (and their small children) to buy the property without making sure they can have their 4 horses on the property. I know it sounds crazy when there are horse keeping properties on the other side of the housing development! We countered their offer with another one requiring them to check the zoning. They wanted to drop the price if the appraisal came back lower and we refused that, We have received a counter offer from the potential buyers now offering to come up with another $7000 to cover any lower appraisal up to that amount.

It may become a moot point anyway, since we are expecting another offer to come in. We had a 3rd showing today - a young woman who does flipping and rentals. She was thrilled with the shape of the house, and also discussed with me the potential for adding a bathroom to the 2 room bunkhouse and converting that into a 1 BR rental. She also said she could rent out both barns to people looking for storage and enclosed places to work on cars, etc. She also liked the potential for subdividing. We will see what her offer is since DH told her we already had an offer for $412,000.

The closing time and ability to get the loan, etc. will come into play here too. I won't respond to the first buyers' counter offer until we see the next offer.

I am surprised that we have been up here barely 5 days and 3 different buyers have come to view the property! Does that seem as if the agent and broker were trying to keep our property off the market until they could buy it? Seems fishy to me. DH and I will come back to stay here if necessary to watch the place until it sells. DS1 reminded me that we have extra furniture in the Connexes that we can bring up to use while we stay here. We will just camp out.

In the meantime, we have been getting a lot done at the property. The house is clean and looks good. Luckily there was no destruction to the house except the rear door window. Here are some pix of the house.
Bathroom Took these pix after finishing reno for MJ. Other than the mirrors and shower curtain being removed by tenant, it is in great condition.
Dining area

(with MJ's antique wood burning stove - still works) kitchen is the same - no damage. The wooden dining room set was locked in the bunkhouse building which was broken into by the tenant. We also had tools and other belongings locked in there which have disappeared as well. I did find the extra leftover carpeting from when we had the new carpets installed. I kept it since it is enough to redo the hallway if we did remodeling to install a washer/dryer OR changed closets around. I also found the extra vinyl planks from the new kitchen floor. I always keep at least half a box of planks in case I have to replace damaged planks.
Living room This room is in good shape too.
Office and bedroom are good and all carpet is nice and clean - in great shape. Not even in need of cleaning! What is crazy is that the house was well taken care of while the yard was completely filled with trash! The tenants never had trash pick up for any of their household debris - just bagged it and tossed the bags in the yard!!!

Got to post this and do more pix on next post.

 

[Ridgetop]

Now pix of the cleaned areas Dirt areas are where the 4' high pile of garbage was in the front of the house. This is the view from the front windows to the street. This is the view from the front windows across the driveway toward the field.Very pretty, very private. Again the dirt areas are where the garbage bags covered the front yard.

Front of the house showing garbage finally gone. Rear area of house and around root cellar is clear now.

The bunkhouse is clear of junk. Note the antique 100 year old linoleum "carpet" on the floor of the main room. Crazy paint on walls! The second half of the bunkhouse has a concrete floor.
One bay in big barn completely cleaned. 48' deep x 15' w. Second bay almost cleared. Showing old cabinets still in back of barn. Stuff still on top of loft.

Third bay almost cleared. Cabinets removed, but still more stuff to remove and take to dump. We have gotten rid of most of the rotting junk wood now, 10 old cabinets, 5 sets of bifold closet doors from the top of the loft, old kitchen sink, plywood, etc.

While we were showing the 3rd potential buyer the property, DS1 rushed home from his second trip to the dump and quickly loaded one last load to try to get it to the dump before they closed at 4:45 pm. The last of the junk wood, the last of 17 tires, hazardous waste, TV, and miscellaneous trash in garbage bags. To the accompaniment of DS1 shouting to get in the car, DH and I jumped in the truck. We roared down the road on the 20 mile trip to the dump arriving at exactly 4:47 pm - just as they locked the gate! Tomorrow we will go to the dump first on the way to the property. I will rake and shovel up the final loads of stuff from the barn into garbage bags while DH and DS1 load the metal into the trailer or truck. We are not sure whether it will take 1 or 2 trips to the metal yard to get rid of everything.

Tomorrow the electrician returns to replace the stolen wires, box, light, etc. DS1 dug the trench for the electrician where he wanted it. DS1 arranged to dig the trench in return for a $500 reduction in the bill. Hopefully he will get most or all of the work done tomorrow. The glass man returns on Wednesday or Thursday to replace the glass and repair the rear door. Hopefully we will have everything finished by Friday since we have to return home by March 1. We have to get our second Covid shots on March 2. Then we might have to return to Yelm to guard the house even though we have a security system. Can't face having to do this clean up again later!

At least everyone who has come to look at the property loves it. I used to love it too, but now it has become just a worry about who will break in next and destroy the property.

 

[Baymule]

3 offers already! What a surprise! And yet those CRIMINAL REMAX realtors never showed it once?? Really?? Thieves. Liars. Trying to steal your property after they let it get in horrible condition and did NOTHING. Report them to REMAX, the state board, everybody you can think of. Don’t stop until their license is revoked.

 

[farmerjan]

A

3 offers already! What a surprise! And yet those CRIMINAL REMAX realtors never showed it once?? Really?? Thieves. Liars. Trying to steal your property after they let it get in horrible condition and did NOTHING. Report them to REMAX, the state board, everybody you can think of. Don’t stop until their license is revoked.

Agree You may be tired out from all this, and just want to be done, but you HAVE to go after them and make them pay for this so that they cannot do this to some other unsuspecting person.

Totally amazing that this place "all of a sudden" is so desireable.... I would go after the real estate company for misrepresentation of the place too.... Really, Remax has a good reputation here, you need to make sure that the national Remax company knows about this so that they can make it a real issue.... I agree that this local group needs to lose their license...

 

[thistlebloom]

That's a cute house! I love the kitchen stove. I can appreciate all your hard work, you guys are amazing.
Our first house must have been lived in by your tenants relatives, it was horrendous.
We filled the biggest roll off dumpsters twice, and made more than a hundred trips to the dump with the pickups. But all that sweat equity was worth it for us, we bought the house fairly cheaply because of it's condition, and it was in a great location.

Sounds like selling it will be easy, maybe you can get a bidding war going!

 

[Bruce]

Maybe people are looking now that they know the property isn't actually an illegal landfill I'm glad that at least the interior of the house wasn't badly damaged.

Note the antique 100 year old linoleum "carpet" on the floor of the main room.

It may not be linoleum. The room that we are using as a laundry room had been a bathroom until the people we bought from bought the place in 1999. During the renovation (due to lots of rot they sellers chose not to disclose) I removed layers of flooring in that room. Originally it was part of the house with a porch, the floor slopes down in 2 directions! There were 3 layers of wood floor, the top was oak, below that was a lot of shimming made of pretty much anything whoever put it in could find. Below that was another pile of shimming. Below that was the original wood floor with several layers of stuff that looked like linoleum but on the backside it is an Armstrong product. In ALL CAPS it says "NOT LINOLEUM". I guess they were trying to suggest it was better stuff. I've found it was popular in the 1920's



Regarding the "antique" woodstove. More likely "Vintage". From my reading I'd be pretty careful using it.
Schrader wood stove link

 

[Mike CHS]

Bruce - I have renovated several houses but I don't remember ever seeing that many layers of anything.