When we purchased our first home (a two bedroom town home in Kirkland) we had a horrific experience with a realtor. We purchased the home using the seller’s realtor to save money thinking that it didn’t matter who we used. We were young and stupid to say the least. The realtor tried pulling some pretty shady things, wasn’t responsive to calls or emails and even his broker was terrible. Worst of all it was our first time buying a property and we had no idea what we were really doing. We didn’t understand the paperwork or the process. But it was back in 2005 and the real estate market was booming and things were selling fast. We did whatever we needed to in order to buy the house.

Immediately afterwards though I took a real estate course from a local community college. I learned so much in those 3 months of classes. It walked me through everything I needed to know about the home buying/selling process. At the end of it I could have even taken the test to become a licensed real estate agent!

Then in 2006 when we sold our town home and bought our current home in Sammamish I felt much more at ease and educated with the home buying process. That said, we still didn’t personally know any agents so we went to plenty of open houses and searched for an agent as well as a new home. And we were so very thrilled with who we ended up using. They actually found us our home and we purchased it without it ever being on the market!

Let me vent a little about real estate agents though…I have a hard time justifying an agents commission if all they do is show you a home and help you fill in the paperwork. I just don’t think that in today’s tech/information driven world with everything at our fingertips including listings, home photos, past sales and estimated vales from websites such as http://www.redfin.com and http://www.zillow.com that realtors are actually earning the commission that they’re getting if all they’re doing is filling out paperwork for you. I hardly think that on a $500,000 home that an agent deserves a 3% fee of $15,000! And that’s just for a buyers agent…the selling agent gets another $15,000! I do understand there’s some work involved, but I can’t imagine getting that much money for doing one transaction at work.

That all said, I do think that some real estate agents are worth their weight in gold. Take for example the agent we used to buy our Sammamish home. They searched out, contacted homeowners in Sammamish who’s homes they knew we’d like, and sold us our home without it being on the market. That was definitely worth their commission!

Now to our current land buying. It is an absolute MUST to have an agent who understands purchasing land and deals strictly with land transactions. We hired Lance “The Landman” Woodruff from Windermere (lancewoodruff.withwre.com) to be our agent and it has paid off in spades. Lance, having been in the business for more than 20 years, has a lot of knowledge under his belt and a lot of key contacts in the area. I’ve mentioned in earlier posts how he knows exactly what to do and who to contact. It’s been invaluable. For starters, Lance wrote a letter of his qualifications and submitted it with our offer. This made our offer stronger than others since we had a fast close and it proved that we have the expertise to get it done that fast. Lance also pulled all of the County records for us, set up meetings with the correct critical area reviewers at the County, had a septic designer on site within days (not months) and found the wetland biologist who did the original study. Absolutely amazing! All of that in about 3 weeks! Lance’s knowledge of site feasibility is so fantastic too. He guided us through the process with ease and gave us some real dollar values for what things will cost to develop the land.

I have been working with Lance for the past few years looking at properties as they would come on the market, and one of the most amazing things about him is his honesty. Lance would tell us like it is, without sugar-coating anything. If a property was too wet and likely wouldn’t perc, he would tell us. If the property was too restricted by easements, setbacks, buffers, he would be honest up front and let us know. He would say things like, “for what you’re looking for, you should hold out, something better will come along.” I really respect and admire that about him. Lance was never looking for the quick sale, to earn his commission. He truly cared about the property we found being the perfect fit for our home.

In the end, Lance was the perfect fit for us, and if we were to do it all over again, I would use him in a heartbeat! And I would highly recommend him to anyone looking to purchase land in the Seattle area.

We did it! We closed on the property today!! Joel and I went into the escrow offices yesterday and signed all of the papers and it was recorded with the County today. We are officially owners of our dream property…5 acres in Redmond in a beautiful neighborhood!

This marks the end of our “search” and the beginning of our future endeavors of building a home. We’re in it for the long haul now…let the fun begin!

Here’s some quick facts:
– Redmond, WA
– 5 acres
– 1 Class 1 Wetland
– Lake Washington School District
– 2 neighborhood beaver ponds
– acres of neighborhood trails
– quiet neighborhood of custom homes
– 10 minutes to Peets, Target & Whole Foods
– 2 minutes to grocery & gas

Yesterday, as we were out doing the perc test we met another one of our neighbors. She lives in one of the homes in the neighborhood that has a horse stable and riding arena. She was fabulous to talk to, very friendly and gave us some great information about living there. The homes all back up to large green belts, and throughout those areas are acres of walking trails that the property owners have put in and maintain. Anyone living in the neighborhood is welcome to use the trails and most of them have their own trails connecting into the trail system. That’s something that we’re really looking forward to! The trails meander around the wetland ponds that are in the area as well, which they call the “beaver ponds”. From an aerial photo, it’s pretty apparent that beavers live near the ponds from the amount of trees that are floating. Apparently, other neighbors have even seen little baby beavers in their yards before!

She also mentioned that other homeowners besides herself have horses which I know our boys are going to love. We currently live by horses and one of their favorite activities is going to visit the horses and feed them carrots.

Like the other neighbor that we met last weekend, her home was also built by D.K. Martin (www.dkmartincustomhomes.com). She said that the quality is impeccable and he was fantastic to work with – staying within budget and schedule. It’s sounding more and more like we should definitely look into using him as a builder when we get to that stage.

Today marked the beginning of a beautiful sunny Mother’s Day weekend in Sammamish. In the late afternoon we took a drive to check out the property and show it to Joel’s parents. They loved the great neighborhood and how calm and relaxing the property was. The quiet park-like setting was gorgeous yesterday as the sun was just setting behind the trees to the west. While there, we met the next-door neighbor who was out walking her dog. She was very friendly and nice to talk to, only having nice things to say about the property and the area. She said that she was the first home built on the street and that she’s been watching all of the homes being built for the past few years. She studied as an Architect so I’m sure she loved watching all the different types of homes in the neighborhood be built. I know I would!

She also mentioned that her home was originally built and owned by Dwight K. Martin, who has since moved to build and live on Lake Sammamish. She was raving about the quality of construction and attention to detail of her home and that he was a phenomenal builder. I checked out his website (www.dkmartincustomhomes.com), and he definitely looks like a very quality builder. I’m sure he’ll be someone that we’ll check out once we’re at that stage.

Joel and I agreed that we wanted to wait to see if we got the property before mentioning it to friends and family. It’s no fun for us to get excited over a property we love only to have heartbreak later and it’s really not fun to break the bad news to friends and family! It’s sort of like hitting that 12 week mark when pregnant. You’re out of the first trimester and up until then you always want to be a little cautious about who you tell.

It is gorgeous out the perfect weekend to tell our parents and friends! We had two BBQ’s on Saturday May 4th (can you tell it’s sunny in Seattle) where we would be seeing both of our parents. And we let them know the good news about the property!

Sunday, May 5th, my parents came out to look at the property with us. This was the first time that someone else has seen the property. And we told them before hand to give us their absolutely honest feedback for it. We wanted to hear everything negative that they could have to say (plus all the good things of course). And immediately after pulling up to the property my mom was already raving about the fantastic homes in the neighborhood and how the one just to the north of the property looked like a lodge. Joel and I named this house The Suncadia Lodge since it truly does look like a custom home you would see in Suncadia.

Then, we walked over to the property and they fell in love with it as much as we did. They absolutely loved it! Ya-hoo! It’s always great to have confirmation about something you buy. My dad, who I think is the biggest critic to win over, really loved the property. We stayed for about 20 minutes discussing the potential and ideas for the perfect home. We even talked about the way that the sun would set, yard space, driveways. It was fantastic. It was a total dream come true to have others as excited for us as Joel and I were about it. Although having ‘approval’ from your parents for things you buy, their opinion really does mean a lot to us. And we wanted them to be brutally honest with us…and they were…it was perfect!

After submitting our offer, we knew that it would take a few days to hear back from The Bank. Since it was a foreclosed property and bank owned, we knew that buying it could be a lengthy procedure. However, the listing agency only handles Wells Fargo Owned Properties so they knew exactly what to expect – it would normally take 1-7 business days to hear results. But typically about 24-48 hours and we would be given an answer. And on April 26th, we heard back from them with a counteroffer. They accepted our price and earnest money ($5,000) but wanted to move up closing to May 31st! Yikes – a 30 day close on vacant land!

We quickly signed and sent the counter offer back in on April 26th as the property status was still “Active” and other offers still could be submitted.
Then 5 days later we finally heard back from the listing agency late in the day on May 1st – The Bank needed our offer to be on their standard forms. I seriously don’t know why we weren’t told all of that up front. We really felt like we were being jerked around and that The Bank was just waiting for another (better) offer to come in.

Joel and I reviewed the new supplemental contract that evening, signed it and sent it back first thing in the morning on May 2nd. We felt like we did everything we could to get the property. And if The Bank wasn’t going to accept the offer, then this was going to be our last attempt. And guess what May 3rd at 1:21pm we had it – a mutually signed contract for the property…they accepted our offer!

After Lance and I both did some research on the lot, the property still looked to be a good one, well suited for what we’re looking to do.  And after some crazy nights at home discussing the property, what we could do with it, seriously evaluating our finances, Joel and I pulled the trigger and submitted an offer four days later on April 23^rd.

The property is bank owned – Wells Fargo Home Mortgage (The Bank) is the owner.  The land was previously owned by someone (who Lance actually knew from a few years back) who had intended on putting a home on it (circa 2007), but after being relocated to the east coast for work needed to sell the land.  He originally purchased the home for $325,000!  Since he couldn’t sell it for what he owed, the bank foreclosed on the property in 2012.

The asking price for the home was now $240,000.  Lance found out that the last time the property was on the market, there were multiple offers, so we knew we had to come in strong and quickly before others saw that it was available again.  That said, the listing agent didn’t know of any other offers coming in, so we chose to write the offer for $230,000 with a $10,100 escalation clause.  The offer was submitted and now it was a waiting game. Then Lance called back and said that unfortunately, The Bank will not accept any escalation clauses on the offer.  We had to submit our BEST AND FINAL offer.  Ugh – Joel and I deliberated for hours on what to do.  We loved the property – and submitted the offer of $240,100.  Now, let the waiting begin.

Or so we thought – hours after submitting our best and final offer, the listing agent told Lance that The Bank was going to lower the price to $209,000, the reasoning still didn’t make any sense to Joel or I at all since they already had an offer from us above their old asking price, but we didn’t care.  It was fantastic that the price was lowered! So after thinking about it and contemplating still submitting an offer for $240,100, or $230,000, we decided to submit an offer for $226,000.  The price is a little random, but we figured that it might be just above someone else’s $225,000 offer.  And although we could have submitted an offer for less, we originally were willing to pay the $240,000 and thought we would hate ourselves if we lost it by only submitting an offer for $209,000.  So there it was – April 24^th and we submitted our BEST AND (this time) FINAL offer of $226,000.

We’ve done it – after years of searching and looking at properties and homes we’ve finally found a property that we love and are extremely excited to have had our offer accepted!

The land is 5.09 acres located in an unincorporated area of Redmond just north of Redmond Way.  It’s located in the back of an established neighborhood where the street is occupied by other 5 acre lots with new homes built within the past few years.  These homes are gorgeous too – large, very well done, even the horse barn located on one of the neighbor’s properties is nicer than most homes we’ve seen!  Since it’s at the back of a neighborhood the street is quite – perfectly safe for the boys to ride their bikes up and down.  As you can see – I fell in love!

Joel and I drove by and looked at the property a few months back in December, but weren’t 100% committed to it since it was bank owned and the listing wording seemed a bit intimidating talking about reviewing multiple offers on certain dates, etc.  In my mind I basically wrote this one off as it seemed that it needed an all cash buyer to win the bidding war.  I watched the property change from Active to Pending within a matter of days.  I knew I had to move on, but in the back of my head, I kept thinking about the property.

Then as my luck would have it, on April 18^th land changed status from Pending back to Active.

Joel and I immediately threw the kiddos into the car and drove to check out the property again.  There it was – the perfect little street and property to build our dream home.  This time, we had to act on it.  April 19^th we emailed our agent, Lance Woodruff from Windermere Real Estate, letting him know we were serious about this one.

I’ll say it – I’m 100% addicted to Redfin (www.redfin.com).  It’s a great website and it has to be one of my favorite apps on the iPad.  So easy to browse and look at homes.  In fact, ever since we bought our current home, I’ve always been looking at other homes.  Joel and I have always said that if we found the “right home” that we’d likely jump on it!  However, we’ve never really seen something that’s been perfect for us.  Sure, a few properties here and there, but nothing that really made us want to move.  That’s when we threw into the idea of building a home instead.  So we increased our search scope to include homes and vacant land.  And, after discussing the possibilities we fell in love with the idea of building exactly what we were looking for.  But we still kept the idea of buying a home already done if it were perfect for us in our back pocket.

We limited our search to Issaquah, Sammamish and Redmond because we enjoy the hometown family atmosphere that these cities provide as well as having excellent school districts (Issaquah & Lake Washington).  We also have had a lot of friends recently move to the Sammamish area, so staying near them and our family is also important.   For commuting reasons, we needed to keep close to either 520 or I-90 as the commute east/west to Bellevue is much better than traveling north/south on 405.

This blog will let you see our journey for moving up from our concept ideas to our final days of moving in!