SOLD

We sat down the next day with Ron Learned, the realtor selling the 13 acre lot. When we looked up the property on MLS, I recognized the name. I used to work at Ultimo Euromoda clothing store in University and would regularly sell clothes to Ron. He’s a great guy and I knew we could trust him.

When Ron came to the door of our house he looked around our house and said. “I’ve been in this house before. Did a Dutch guy sell it to you?”

Joel Van der Schaaf (as Dutch a name as there ever was) sold us the house. Joel and Nicolette had lived in the house for 3 years and renovated it extensively. The sale was private and we became good friends afterward. Joel and Nicolette, coincidentally had sold the house to purchase 160 acres of organic farmland that they hoped to build a net zero home… Which also happened to be riverfront.

“I sold Joel that land,” Ron said.

When we sat down to make the offer on the 13 acre lot Ron told us, “you know guys, I have another lot for sale nearby. My sign had blown off so you might not have seen it. It’s a bigger lot, more money, but boy if I could’ve bought it I would have. It’s a 25 acre lot with the gates at the front.”

“The one with the heron on the front?!?”

“Ya, it might be a heron.”

We looked it up on MLS with him. Sure enough, it was the lot that we had driven into and drooled over the location, the view, and the trees. No way. OMG.

“It’s been on the market for over a year. They just dropped the price about 30% too.”

Not only that but it had a 2400 sqft shop with a bathroom, two power boxes (one to the shop and the other to the building site), a well, septic tank, a road, a trees in building site with geotechnical survey done, and it was nearly twice the size as the other lot! And it had over 1/3 mile of river frontage!!

Darcie and I looked at each other.  We’ll take that one:)

We put in our offer and two days later the sellers accepted it without a counter.

The next 8 days was a whirlwind. We hadn’t been approved to purchase land so we had to get financing, land appraisals, and house appraisal on our own house done in warp speed. Incredibly it could not have gone any smoother. We removed conditions with two days to spare.

Sold.  We were land owners.

-K

(Originally posted July 10, 2014)