Do you mind sharing some of the things you didn't like about the house and location, in general terms?

Sounds like it was subtle enough that it took you a while to come to terms with it, so maybe there's something to learn here.

All this talk about multiple offers on houses right now makes me happy I bought at peak! :badpokerface:

I don't think the market is that hot currently (for condos), lots of assignment owners are taking a bath and selling at a loss currently.

Yeah I totally get why someone wouldn't want to do a Reno. Like, I'm more excited by older places in terms of design and tons of other aspects, and even as a relatively comfortable person on the tools, I don't have a lot of the knowledge or any of the time necessary. Neither is the wrong answer depending on the situation.

Renovations always run over budget because you don't really know your house until you start ripping out walls and flooring.

With that said, we would still take the older house with good bones rather than newly renovated or new construction.

Also if you have a family a Reno is a completely different story

I bought an old bungalow to live in bcos I was an idiot.

5, 6 years into the ownership "experience", I've been climbing roofs, scaling walls, or crawling on all 4 to do all kinds of DIY repair shxt that quite frankly, I have no clue on WTF I was doing.

And that hasn't counted the massive repair bills for the big jobs that I paid the pros to do. FailFish

But ya, I'm sitting on a multi-million property that technically isn't mine until another 20 years later when my mortgage is paid off.

And no, I am not the least bit cynical either...

I came back on Monday after signing the legal documents.

But while I was there, I ordered a La-Z-Boy set (minus armchair), a custom 5 piece wooden bedframe set, a wooden dining table with padded chairs and bench and a king size mattress with box springs.

That AB sales tax made it easier to stomach :drunk:

I wanted to get a bedroom set and my sister told me not to do it. She said it was so 10 years ago. You have to procure your bedroom set individually. It makes for a more unique experience. I never paid attention to those types of things, but her place definitely looks better than mine.

So the house was your typical Grandma 1950's box, out of date, needed some work. It was situated across from the Panama Flats here in Saanich, which is a floodplane/park/nature sanctuary. When we viewed the house it was near sunset in the evening, the roads were quiet, this is basically the exact view from the living room (about 100' further back from where this picture was taken):
https://i.imgur.com/DUPdWj4.jpeg
So we signed an offer that night.

The two major things we realized that caused us to reconsider.
#1: The inspection itself didn't didn't uncover anything we didn't already know, and confirmed the house had good bones, no major issues, mostly cosmetics, a solid starting point. BUT the inspection happened at 4:30pm, and that previously quiet road at 7:00pm, was now ripping with rush hour traffic.

#2: While the property was pretty large at 9000sqft, we found out there was an easement on it for the neighbour behind's storm/sewer drain connection. And the title didn't have a precise plan showing the exact location/extents of the easement, it was just kind of described in text. It kind of ruined the side of the property that would have been ripe for building a big detatched garage on. And I would really just rather not have a property with an easement.

So we walked away.

Thanks! Especially on #2: I didn't even think to look out for easements.

That is a beautiful view though, damn. Must've been hard to pass that up.

If you search “Vancouver GIS map” this is the map showing property lines, easements, etc.

You likely won’t see bc hydro or other 3rd party utility easements there but you will see water lines, storm and sewer, etc.

I've heard that as well but we settled on just the frame, 2 nightstands and one dresser to match (4 not 5pc like I originally wrote),

My gf wants to use fabrics and accessories to personalize the room so it should be ok I think. She loves interior design so I'm letting her steer that ship!

We sold and bought near the peak in late 2021.

My realtor’s advice was to squeeze in the inspection before making an offer, so there’s more comfort for us to make a subject free offer. We had the inspector lined up prior and give seller agent heads up. We wrote a “personal letter” too with my family’s photo.

For example, we inspect Monday morning if offers are to be presented on Tuesday.

I'm in a similar boat as you. I bought a bungalow home just under 70 years old, when we did home inspection and open home - I thought should be a walk in the park to tackle these issues. For someone that has worked on cars and handyman around the house prior (how fucking hard could it be to replace this and that). Long and behold the things that look like piece of cake, ends up taking forever to do. Looking back if I went at it consistently, would gotten it done sooner on some projects, but some days you just don't have that motivation/tiring to work on it as it's something your not used to doing every day as it's not your regular stream of work. I stretched out the renovations way longer than it should, but nevertheless still got what needed to be done. There's always shit to be done around the house, never-ending.

It was definitely a learning experience, and also the ability to spend time with my retired dad-in law as he used to work in apartment maintenance, so he came over often to give me a hand to tackle the renovations. This aspect brought joy to me because my dad in law is a hands on person, and I was able to bond with him in this aspect. His son is useless and can't bond with my dad in law - he'll whine like a little bitch if anything broke his nails lol.

Having dealt with a badly worded easement, you made the right call.

Yeah I can thank my mom who worked for the LTSA for 30 years, and her unrelenting insistance (after we told her about it) that we did not buy that place with that easement. We for sure dodged a bullet.

Is the problem with an Easement that you can't build later on? Is that the biggest deal?

My dad had to get an easement from one of his neighbours, but he would only do it if we helped pay for a retaining wall and my dad made the deal. It cost him like $8k, but he got the easement.

It depends on the nature of the easement. Most commonly it's to allow access/throroughfare for infrastructure. In that house's case it was so the neighbor's drains could get to the city infrastructure, and in that case yes it would prevent being able to build anything on that chunk of land. (well you could build on it, but the neighbour would have the right to demolish whatever you built to be able to service his drain system).

Well that's annoying...

I called around and managed to find a home inspection availability on short notice, with the intent to make an offer with no subjects, as long as everything looked good. Offer day isn't for 2 weeks but we figured we would go in early with a pre-emptive.

This morning, our agent said "oh turns out someone else put a pre-emptive offer in. The sellers already counter-offered. If the other buyer accepts, the house is sold. Do you still want to do the inspection?".

Kinda thought about it, but decided to go ahead with the inspection anyway. Just in case that counter-offer was rejected or countered.

Nope. Just before inspection was going to begin, our agent said they accepted.

It was only on the market for 6 days! It's ridiculous out there.

This sounds similar to what happened to my in-laws.

Was this also in PoCo?

^^ this is why, another one

https://globalnews.ca/news/10386750/...on-population/

if there's a bid date to accept offers, then wouldn't doing a pre-emptive bid and the seller accepting/negotiating when they set a specific date be unethical?

at the very least disingenuous by the seller in having an open/fair bidding process.

I know, it's RE :fuckthatshit::ilied:

I have never heard of an agent doing an open house and then having an offer day two weeks post. An offer period is usually the next week on the Tuesday or Wednesday following a weekend open house.

Sorry to hear Rabid, you're probably pretty bummed.

I wonder what the place sold for. I guess you'll find out fairly soon.

IIRC this is called a "bully offer"