The best deal you’ll ever do
About this time two years ago I wrote to you about a house that I was trying to buy for Ashley in a column titled “Don’t get emotional when making offers.” That was the one where I did get emotional and offered the seller double what he was asking for it… you read that right.
The reason I got emotional was because it seemed like it was the house of Ashley’s dreams. It was a huge 3,000 square foot farmhouse, with a wraparound porch nestled on over three acres at the foot of Johns Mountain over in Sugar Valley. It had fenced in areas for livestock and a huge 60×40 shop. But the thing that made it most attractive was its back line was formed by a creek that was fed from the same sources as the Pocket on John’s Mountain.
I took Ashley and the kids over to see it and they loved it. They played in the creek and dreamed about how this could be our new home.
Now, the house was not in good shape. It was an old farmhouse that was close to 100-year-old in some areas. It was one of those houses that had been added onto many times. While I was there I noticed funny things, like boulders under the floor system used as piers instead of brick. That coupled with the additions made the house have a very uneven floor system that would need to be remedied.
It needed a roof, updated electrical, and the floor plan needed to be rearranged because its current set up made no sense. This was once again due to the additions. But the square footage allowed for things to be rearranged well.
Like I said, this was going to be a big rehab. And two years ago, I estimated it would cost around $140,000.
With that information, I knew I couldn’t really pay cash for this house if we were going to live in it. I needed to make the seller an owner finance offer so we could pay to fix the house up. So, I offered him double what he was asking for it if he would take payments.
Now, I looked at the house on Wednesday, but didn’t make my offer until Sunday because I wanted to get it right. When I did give him the offer, he smiled and said he loved everything about it. I was thinking, “I just got Ashley her house!” Then came the “but.”
He said, “I’d really like to take this offer. But I shook hands with a fella yesterday and my word is my bond. So that is what I’ve got to do.” He even went on to say he wished he would’ve waited. I told him that I wished he had too, and to let me know if anything changes.
That buyer was a man of his word too because the sale went through.
Ya’ll, I have been kicking myself about that house ever since. You see, I felt like if I hadn’t dragged my feet and had gotten my offer in quicker I would have been able to buy Ashley the house I know she deserves.
This got brought up again this week. We went to go look at a 24-acre lot over in Oakman. It had a beautiful creek on the backside of it, too, with a house that needed a ton of fix-up. Ashley and I prayed about it and then walked back to the car talking about potential offers as we went. Ashley said if we want it, we needed to get an offer in asap because, to quote Jack Miller, “You don’t steal in slow motion.”
After further inspection of the area, I just wasn’t feeling this one. But I was feeling those emotions from the Sugar Valley house hard and heavy.
When we left, we decided to take a ride to get the baby to sleep and found ourselves driving past that house. What I saw lifted my spirits.
The person that bought that house still owned it. But they must have found something terrible during the rehab because half of the house had been demoed and rebuilt. The roof line was completely different, the foundation had been rebuilt and inside I could see it was still down to studs. And that is two years later.
The reason that lifted my heart was because I thought I lost “our” house. But that’s not what happened. Yahweh had directed my path and kept me from getting in over my head in a rehab that was going to cost way more than I had projected because of COVID, had bigger issues than I had thought, and before we knew anything about the health issues we were going to face with both Ashley and my son this past year.
The guilt of losing “our house” dissipated and was replaced with sheer gratitude for how He guided me past that and saved me from the financial struggles we would have incurred.
Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “Trust in Yahweh with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. Know Him in all your ways, and He will make all your paths straight.”
They say the best deal you’ll ever do is the one you never did. And now I know that that house in Sugar Valley was the best deal I never did.
Joe and Ashley English buy houses and mobile homes in Northwest Georgia. For more information or to ask a question, go to www.cashflowwithjoe.com or call Joe at 678-986-6813.