The story on how we got this farm is long and treacherous. Therefore, I plan to break it up into several parts. For legal purposes I’ll be changing a few names, or not mentioning names, and couple of details.
It started when we found out we were expecting a baby, which was in January of 2019. At this time we had three children, technically we share custody with my husbands ex wife, but we lived in a home that was 1200 sq ft with three bedrooms. At the time we had 3 dogs. So five people and three dogs, what’s one more baby, I thought? Well, we were told that February we were expecting twins. Let that panic set it. We needed a bigger home. We started looking immediately but were financially rejected and told the market would put us upside down on selling our current home.
Fast forward to December 2019, twins are 6 months old and we are busting at the seams in this house. Our mental health was already low, now add living on top of each other with no privacy, terrible combination. It was very rough. We played musical beds often. Don’t even get me started on the sleeping arrangements when family would visit from out of state. In January of 2020, we lost our dog Riley to congestive heart failure. It hit me hard because he had been with me through college and was my best friend. I’m so glad he had what little time he did with twins before we lost him, but sure do wish he could have made it to the farm. He would have loved it here!
After months of working on David’s credit and him doing DIY projects to our home, we reached out to a veterans lending agency and they helped us take the last few steps to polish his credit and get us on track to qualify for a new home. We worked with a realtor that I know locally and trust, she assured me that selling my home would be a breeze. I was apprehensive given that a realtor the year prior said it would take thousands to sell our home. In March after I recovered from a minor knee surgery, we set out to look for a new home!!! Wouldn’t you know, a national pandemic. That didn’t stop us, just made it more difficult.
The market was hot, we would find a house and in hours it was pending sale. We put offers in on approximately 4 properties. The one that burnt us the most was a 33 acre wooded lot with a two story home. It was beautiful. This house was straight out of the 80’s but also something you would see in the movies. The property had so much potential. We offered 15k over asking because we knew with a VA loan we would need to offer more to cover closing cost and repairs. Our lender and I did paper work to make sure we could close in roughly 3 weeks. In the end, the seller chose an offer that was less than ours because simply, it wasn’t a VA loan. We felt so defeated. After that we thought we were going to have to settle. We started looking at homes in subdivisions again. At this point it had been weeks. Just when we thought things were getting stressful, our lender calls and tells us our loan is going to expire in roughly 10 days given the national uncertainties of the COVID pandemic and my husbands credit score wasn’t high enough to meet the new requirements.
Given the new timeline, the national pandemic which was worsening, and the VA loan which put a target on our offer, we gave up. Our realtor was nothing but supportive and encouraging. I would periodically check the market, but as each day passed, I found that no new houses were being listed. One afternoon, 5 days prior to our preapproval expiring, I opened the home browsing app while eating lunch. I saw a horse farm had just been listed just within the hour. As I frantically looked through the pictures to see if it met our criteria, I nearly spit my food everywhere because it was PERFECT. I couldn’t find anything wrong with it. Several acres, updated kitchen with farmhouse character, large fireplace, hard wood floors, several bedrooms, finished basement with gaming area, massive laundry room. It even had more than we could ever dream of, like a horse barn, a detached garage, a pool, a tiki bar, and list goes on.
At the time my husband was in the bathroom taking one of his notorious YouTube poops, the one where he acts like he is pooping, and maybe he is, but in reality, he is just watching about 15-20 minutes of YouTube. No shame, it’s the only escape in our tiny overcrowded home. I nearly kicked the bathroom door open like a NFL field goal kicker going for a 65 yarder, “Finish up!!!! We’re going to look at a house now!” David: “Does our realtor know?” Me: “I’ll call her on the way!” Is what was yelled at him as I hurried through the house and got ready to leave. I grabbed his shoes and I jumped in the car. I called the realtor on the way, I know this place will not last long because its priced fair! I call the lender and tell him to make it happen and start the paper work. All while my husband is flipping through the pictures in the passenger seats going, “where’s the catch, its perfect”.
We get to the house about 20 minutes before the realtor and my husband immediately jumps out and starts exploring the barn and finds there’s a chicken coop! He is like a small kid in a candy shop. It’s at this moment when I realize that the lock box on the front door is the type of box our realtor doesn’t have access to and I call her in a panic. She is lost trying to find the place but tries to call the listing agent who lets her know he will be there the following day with a different box for us to come back and see it, however he mentions if there’s a door unlocked to go on in. I accepted that as a challenge because I knew in my heart that this place was not going to be on the market the next day and I wanted this to be our home.
My husband is nowhere to be found; the property is so big that even yelling for him I cant hear where he is located. So, I started going to every door. I find a utility door is unlocked! Boom, I’m in, I feel like such a ninja. By this time David appears from the banana trees and the realtor has arrived! We all enter through the basement and find our way through the home. No joke y’all, I was in tears. This was home. By the end of the day we had an offer in, but so did several others. We offered well over asking, again to offset closing cost and any rapiers the VA would come back with, not to mention the competitive nature of the market. Of course, we found ourselves in another tight bidding war. At this time, we were told the owners would make a decision over the weekend. Talk about stressed out, we were on edge all weekend. I prayed so hard. All we could do, is wait.
Stay tuned for part 2 next week!
Rye Family Farm 