Doug's Story from North Brunswick Magazine 2008

In July 2007, my boss shared the news.  The company was consolidating five offices in Ft Lauderdale into one office in Wilmington.  There was no firm timetable, but a search for new office space was under way.  I was invited to come along.   

 The job is fun and I've been with the company since 1996, starting in our Durham office.  Since my transfer seven years earlier, the quality of life in south Fl had gone downhill.  Prices for everything rose rose faster than the rest of the country.  Traffic was insane.  I laugh whenever someone says Wilmington traffic is awful.  The worst traffic crossing the bridge is better than city streets back there.

  After being pushed out of a condo by rising insurance, taxes and special assessments, I'd been in an apartment for two years.  The association board (made up of retirees with no mortgage) had pushed projects intended to increase proeprty values already inflated from the housing bubble.  I made a profit on selling my unit but I'd have preferred to keep my condo.  I decided my next property would be single family detached with a garage for my winter hobbies and fishing gear.  

 Local property bubbled higher and quickly became unaffordable.  Without a market correction, I was priced out.  By the time I learned of the move, real estate sales had plummeted but prices were still too high due to seller delusions or negative equity.  North Carolina, on the other hand, was affordable.  Friends and family there amazed me with examples of affordable living.  It took me about three quarters of a second to agree to move.

 I decided to buy a home immediately rather than going into a rental.  I don't like upheaval, I hate moving and following an 800 mile move with another wouldn't work for me.  In three months, I had my optimal credit score, arranged for the down payment estimated the cost of living expenses and cleared out things I woudn't take. 

 I needed a real estate agent to partner my search who could keep up with me.  By the time a Realtor pulled 5 listings for me, I had a list of ten others.  I'm a batchelor so proximity to shcools or shopping isn't important.  My top priority was garage space for my jeeps. 

 My plan was to assemble a list of properties, rank them according to overall price, price per square feet, distance from work, insurance and tax costs and other details.  I had a strict price in mind based on a budget target for disposable income.  Since I dislike traveling, I hoped to make one trip to search.

 After an agent that didn't answer emails for a week, I hit the Realtor jackpot with Bev Femia.  I've never worked with an agent as efficient, attentive and thorough as Bev.  She helped me assemble the list, previewed proeprties for me, lined up a mortgage banker and gave me a pep talk about leaving my cat alone during the trip.  Beaver's spoiled and never been alone longer than overnight. 

 In February, I flew in on a Friday evening.  Saturday morning, I met Bev, my mortgage banker and my uncle Russell, who came down to help.  His experience owning an electrical contracting company and remodeling a dozen home made me feel confident.  We had a list of 21 properties and the first 8 we viewed were in my price range but the big drawback was no garage space for my jeeps. 

Number 9 was a Realtor's nightmare.  It was a foreclosure down a muddy dirt road and completly wrecked but I never noticed.  I went straight for a large workshop in the back with a covered car port large enough to work on 3 jeeps at once.  I ignored the ill-kept adjoining homes, the exposed electrical wiring and the missing floors.  Bev and Russel were so worried about my excitement over the workshop that Bev pulled her ace in the hole.

 We drove from the shack in the woods directly to Esatbrook Estates in Leland.  There was a 3BR/2BA with a two car garage built in 2005 that Bev wanted to show me.  It was vacant and priced $8 a square foot less than any other property newer than 5 years old and within 25 miles of my office.  I made a beeline for the garage and Russel made a crack about Christmas and how I hadn't changed since I was five. 

 The garage glowed.  The walls were finished, the floor perfect and there was a slight echo because of it's size.  It was bigger than most efficiencies near Ft Lauderdale beach.  This was the right garage!  I had some concerns about the homeowners association but the only real issue was price.  I was so overwhelmed, I forgot to take a single picture.

 Russel suggested an appropriate starting point for negotiations and then we split up.  Russel drove home to Wake Forest while Bev and I worked on a contract.  Counter offers flew like a bad mitten match and, by the time I boarded a plane Sunday, we had verbal agreement.  Turns out the Seller was days away from foreclosure and willing to meet in the middle.  At home, I rushed to a fax machine to sign the contract changes. 

 From that point forward, life was a constant blue until after I moved.  Work was busy and I packed my apartment, my office, my tools, equipment and several aquariums, including a 180 gallon saltwater tank in my living room.  There were papers to sign and fax, papers to have notarized and send overnight and constant worry that Beaver would flip out in the U-Haul during the move. 

Bev handled every little issue that came up relating to the sale.  She took pictures of the house and set up a virtual tour to "motivate" me to get the packing finished.  Because I dislike the chaos of moving, it was tough.  I regretted the timetable I'd chosen and, several times, wondered if I really wanted to move at all. 

The day before Good Friday, I tried to cram my office, my home and everything else into a U-Haul.  My best friend offered to tow my CJ-5 for me while I towed my other jeep behind the truck.  The CJ is a real beast and always cranky.  Just before loading, it broke down so, while my friend steered, I pushed it on the trailer .  Thanks to a ruptured disk I picked up in 2002, I managed to toast my back the day before an 800 mile move. 

With me on one end of the phone and she on the other, Bev attended the closing and signed docs for me.  That morning, long before I closed and locked the truck, I owned the house.  I managed to make the drive without incident.  The worst trick Beaver pulled was sitting on the dashboard watching the miles roll by.  I worried about unloading the truck but Russel saved the day.  He and other family members came from Wake Forest and farther to unload the truck and set things up for me.  There were problems like the Rubbermaid containers with reef rock and the saltwater collapsing but the truck was returned to U-Haul shortly past noon that day. 

Since then Beaver and I have settled in our new home.  The lawn needs serious work and I haven't organized the garage but I seem to find new chores every day.  By the winter, I should have 2 or 3 fishing spots explored and start fixing up the CJ-5. 

 

 

.