This is the one:
And it only took us six months and four offers to get here! We've been house-hunting in St. Petersburg FL since November, but we're finally closing on our first home next week! I suppose our first home-buying experience has been much like the quintessential "first time home-buying experience" with a lot of frustrations, dashed dreams, reality checks, and more than our fair share of ugly houses. But before we go on about our chosen home, let's take a tour of the homes we didn't get.
Our first bid went to this 1920s house in the Allendale neighborhood of St. Petersburg. We were just generally cruising the area to get to know St. Pete better when we stumbled upon it thanks to the Zip Realty Android app. 
But alas, losing the Allendale house didn't stop us, but we shifted through some doozies before making another offer! First, we saw this lovely home in the Old Southeast neighborhood.
We weren't totally sold on the area, but this house looks fantastic in photos and was steps from the water. It was, however, one of our first experiences with "Frankensteined" homes that were cheap conversions from former duplex homes to single-family. Not only was the spiral staircase inconveniently located in the dining room, there was no master bedroom, they carpeted over original 1930s hardwood floors (egads!), but that pool? It's in the FRONT YARD! Forever warned about houses that appeared "too good to be true," we declined to make an offer on that home, and moved our search back to the neighborhoods we knew more about!
The listed price was over our budget and we didn't even have a Realtor yet, but after scoping the property out, we knew we wanted to see the inside. Long story short, after 500 some days on the market, we lost the property to someone who literally bid on it THE DAY BEFORE we did. Dang that short sale process! We even bid $30,000 MORE than the couple whose offer was ultimately accepted. But alas, that in November and they still haven't closed on the house. And Bank of America, yeah you, you lost tens of thousands of dollars by not looking at our offer!!! Oh, and the buyers still haven't closed on this house!
But alas, losing the Allendale house didn't stop us, but we shifted through some doozies before making another offer! First, we saw this lovely home in the Old Southeast neighborhood.
We weren't totally sold on the area, but this house looks fantastic in photos and was steps from the water. It was, however, one of our first experiences with "Frankensteined" homes that were cheap conversions from former duplex homes to single-family. Not only was the spiral staircase inconveniently located in the dining room, there was no master bedroom, they carpeted over original 1930s hardwood floors (egads!), but that pool? It's in the FRONT YARD! Forever warned about houses that appeared "too good to be true," we declined to make an offer on that home, and moved our search back to the neighborhoods we knew more about!Given our price range, we knew we were mostly dealing with short sales, but we did come across one foreclosed home that piqued our interest. It wasn't to be, but we learned about foreclosure offers. Because of the Allendale home incident, we knew that in short sales, the first offer matters more than the price. And with the Frankenstein home, we learned that converting a duplex to a one-plex, takes money and planning! The foreclosed home was owned by Fannie Mae and had an affordable list price for a 3 bedroom and 3 bathroom home. It was adorable from the outside, but inside had the oldest dishwasher *ever* and mouse droppings everywhere. According to the selling agent, there were multiple offers on the house, and given the repairs and updating (it needed some *serious* updating) we decided to keep looking. So we saw the home for $67,000 that had an ugly stained glass door in the hallway and stairs leading to the toilet in the garage; on a rainy day we saw the home with so much dog hair that we were afraid to touch anything; we dragged mud into the cute but overpriced house on 11th St. N; we saw a few more Frankensteined homes; we saw a house with a gorgeous first floor complete with detailed tray ceilings from the 1920s but the ceiling on the second floor must have been 6 and 1/2 feet tall; we saw a lovely home with county tax liens and piles of dog crap in the backyard; and then we saw more Franksteined homes.
I think it was at this point we pissed off our Broker and started looking at homes outside our price range. $50k more than we can afford? Yeah, we'll look at that. Yeah, we'll make an offer. What do we have to lose? Offer number 2 went to this (unexciting) house on Crescent Lake.
It's not much to look at, but the location was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. Plus, there was a toilet in the garage next to the washer and dryer so the man of the house could do his business while doing laundry. Score!That house was a no go. Something was amiss: the current owner owes the bank hundreds of thousands of dollars and our offer was a pittance that he wouldn't accept. No worries, we got our hearts set on (and subsequently broken) another home pretty quickly. This next house is located in the Historic Kenwood area of St. Pete (the area we ultimately are buying in). Built in 1925, this house is gorgeous! The kitchen was renovated (though no appliances), the rooms were large, the hardwood original, the tile amazing, the screened in porch was fantastic, and those poles holding up the awning on the side of the house? Those are spears. A.W.E.S.O.M.E.
There was some weirdness in this deal too, but you've read enough. We close tomorrow and look forward to posting some before and after pictures!
