As time went on I became more and more frustrated and dissatisfied with the situation at work. I realized it was time to pull the trigger and pursue my long time dream of self employment. I had been designing homes for several years working in architectural offices and doing freelance work when I could fit it in. Now it was time for me to focus on it full time.
Ali and I put together an exit strategy that would allow me to leave my job in 6 months. I designated July, 1 2013 as my Independence Day. I had a lot to accomplish in a short amount of time. Design projects started coming to me out of nowhere. Everything was falling into place.
As part of this plan we started looking into real-estate investment opportunities. The plan was to find houses with good bones but in poor and out dated aesthetic condition. I would re-design the layouts for more efficient use of space and do interior and exterior renovations to update the homes. we would either hold onto them as rental properties or re-sell them and use the profits as seed money. It was the perfect way to get my name out there and get my business off the ground.
After looking at several homes we found a small bungalow in Copperton. if you don't know where that is it's a very small town tucked up next to the Kennecott Copper mine on Salt Lake's West bench. I've always had a love for well established neighborhoods and passion for old homes. This one needed a lot of work, but the price was right and there was definitely money to be made. We put in a very low offer and it was accepted. Things started moving quickly. We were scheduled to close in a few short weeks and I began to plan for the renovation.
As I got into the project and started seeing all the possibilities I saw what this old house could become. Half joking I asked my wife "What if we don't sell this house after the renovations are made? What if we live in it?" "Yeah, I don't think so" was her first response, but soon she started asking question after question. As we talked about it more we both saw how great an opportunity this could be for our family and the new life we wanted to create.
We listed our house FSBO and it was under contract in a couple weeks. The proceeds from the sale of this home would cover the real-estate fees and most of the renovation. I began to look for short term financing to make up the difference. It was an absolute fiasco! The lenders could not believe that anyone in their right mind would want to walk away from a beautiful, brand new, 4,000 square foot home to live in a much smaller, older home.
We would have to use some very creative (yes, legal) financing to make it happen.
Then, everything came to a screeching halt.
The sellers of this house had several bankruptcies, leans and other judgments against them and it was going to take a while to clear things up. A month tops we were told. This would compact our renovation schedule and we would have to be somewhere temporary for a little longer. But we loved this little old house and were excited to tear into it and make it our home. It was worth the wait.
That was the end of May of last year. On June 6th I lost my job. This was frustrating because a lot of people had the impression that we were moving out of financial necessity. It was all part of the plan, my freedom had just been expedited. We closed on our house and moved into a small 2 bedroom apartment down the road from our new home. It was tight for a family of 5. Our 2 older kids shared the small bedroom and our youngest shared the master closet with our clothes.
By October we were still waiting. And waiting, and waiting....... Each month we had to sign an extension to the real-estate contract and were always told it would be "soon". Because we thought things would move quickly we didn't sign a long term lease and were paying ridiculously high rent on the apartment. my design projects dried up for a couple months and we were digging into our renovation savings. It was not a good situation.
Ali came to me several times saying enough is enough, time to cut our losses, move on, and find another home. She believed that finding this house we had been waiting for was an inspired way of getting us to move. I was reluctant at first but agreed to start looking again.
To be continued......
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