Disappointment

The property sale did not go through. 

I was really hoping this one would work out. We picked out a house plan on a manufactured house and I was getting excited about getting all our stuff and having our own place again. 

Our first offer was based on the total price of the property and dividing that by the total acres. Then we took that price per acre and applied it to the approximate acreage we wanted for our own. 

That was rejected and we got a strange counter offer. They said the "five acre homesite" would be $145,000 and each acre after that would be $3,000. What they were calling a homesite was by the entrance gate and a very old well. While we would have been testing the well in any case, I would not have called that a homesite. The well was from before wells had to be recorded so it wasn't numbered. And add to the mix the fact that though there were electrical lines to the well, the lines were disconnected. Who knows how long they were disconnected so would the pump even still work? In my opinion that was not a homesite. And we wanted the house to be more in the middle of the property anyway. 

We did a little research at the assessor's and the building department's offices. We found out that it appeared that at one time the process had been started to make that an approved homesite. Apparently, however, some time ago the lines had been redrawn and the homesite had been requested to be moved to the opposite side of the ranch, which was done and approved. At the old site, now no longer approved (or ever approved), there was only the old unknown well. No septic approval or anything else.

Our realtor asked their realtor for an explanation of how he came about the figures. He stated that in fact it wouldn't matter where we put our home, the $145,000 would be for the first five acres. That price was based on comps from lots nearer to town in a very ritzy area. We were kind of flabbergasted as that area has million dollar homes and we were just trying to buy a piece of a cow pasture! 

Then our realtor asked him what he thought his clients might go for because that was not happening. He said he thought they would accept $20,000 less than their first counter. That is exactly what we then offered. 

Just as the bell was chiming on the response deadline their realtor texted our realtor and said he misread his client's flexibility on the price and they were not willing to go any lower than their first counter offer.

Thanks for getting our hopes up.  

Yes, very frustrating. I want to believe that means there is something better out there for us, somewhere.