Three's a charm?

Well, I actually looked at a couple of blogs and decided while my posts are sort of in sync with what a blog should be they are boring to everyone but me so today I will try for something better that anyone could like.

Yesterday the appraiser came by. We had no idea of what to expect this being a strange time for the economy and for real estate in particular. When we bought the house, we toured it and made an offer even before the for sale sign went into the yard. That was in 1995. The house was on the market for the first time ever. That wouldn't be impressive if it weren't for the fact that the house was built in the late 1800s. We happened to know the son of the agent that got the listing and had mentioned to him that we'd like to buy it if it ever came up for sale. When she got the listing she told him and he said to call us. That was on a Thursday. We lived in Missouri back then so we came up on Saturday to see it. I still remember being so disappointed when I went inside and saw the drop ceilings and paneled walls. To say that the house was in sad shape is an understatement. It had not been painted in so long most of the paint was gone with only gray clapboard siding showing and we so did not want to give more than $10,000. for it but.....we wanted the house and we knew once the sign went in the yard others would outbid us so we offered the $29,500. asking price and waited for the committee to decide. I say committee because the house belonged to the Methodist Church. The house was built by a doctor for his wife. They married late in life and had no kids. She survived him and left it to her niece, who never married. She didn't want her family to fight over it so she left it to the churh with the stipulation that it could not be sold for at least 40 years. The church used it as a Parsonage until they could no longer afford to have a minister then they used it as a meeting place once a month.

So the committee met and accepted our offer & for 2 years we got to hear from people about how they were promised the house because someone on the committee told them they'd make sure they got it and blah, blah, balh. And oh yeah, did I mention in an earlier post that we live in a tiny community way out in the sticks and if you aren't related to 9/10ths of the people here you are an 'outlander'? Think 'Green Acres' with a river view.

So we worked on the house for 2 years before we could move in. Stripping wallpaper (like a dozen layers) and all the woodwork, rewiring, replumbing, refinishing the floors, and so on. The result was an awesome house. Since we moved in we rehabbed the attic into more living space, the carriage house into a guest house/shop, added a garage to the carriage house and built a 40'x72' shed. For the past year, we tried to sell the house but couldn't find a buyer and barely had any prospects. Talk about suprised! We so thought the house would sell the first week. My husband decided it was the asking price, hence the appraisal. So the guy arrived exactly on time & we showed him around. He loved the property! He called today to ask some follow up questions and said ballpark right now with the comparables it would be over 200K-right around our asking price & more than we were willing to take. So we are scratching our heads wondering why we didn't even get an offer? Life is strange isn't it?