If you’ll recall, last year we decided it was the right time to move and find a new home for our growing family. I wrote a post about our location struggles in November.
After working on our house, we put it on the market in May and were blessed with multiple showings and two offers within 7 days. AND, one of the offers was for over asking price with no closing costs (which was eventually negotiated down just a bit during the home inspection process). Due to our agent being awesome and selling our house so fast, we were suddenly on the clock to find a new home… although I shouldn’t say suddenly, because the offer we received and accepted gave us nearly 8 weeks to get out. We were blessed with that offer.
I think we looked at about a dozen homes all over the central part of OKC. We found a great little Dutch looking home in Gatewood that was unfortunately under contract before we could get it. Without that house, we were at a bit of a loss. Mesta Park was great to us – walkable, close to schools, etc., but it’s too pricey for the size of home we wanted. A few homes that may have worked were extremely over-priced when listed, and we didn’t want to mess with them.
One day while browsing Zillow, we came upon a FSBO listing in Lincoln Terrace and asked our agent to get us into it. It had only been on the market a few days, so we were hopeful. The home, it turns out, had been bank-owned for two years and likely been vacant for about 4 to 5 years. The FSBO was actually a wholesale real estate investor – we’d never heard of that before, so this gave us the opportunity to learn more about the foreclosure and real estate industry.
After much soul searching, budget wrestling and home investigation, we took the plunge. We were helped by an amazing purchase and rehabilitation loan from First Mortgage Company (at an amazing 15 yr interest rate as well).
Lincoln Terrace, it turns out, is seeing a very large influx of new families. We’re getting in on a neighborhood that’s on the rise (some would argue a portion of it never fell). It’s close to everything downtown, resting between the capitol and the health science center. If the downtown streetcar is built out, we’ll only be a few blocks away from the end of Phase II. While there are not as many amenities within walking distance as our last house, we’ll still be able to bike to downtown and hopefully start using the streetcar someday.
The home is not livable at the moment – we’re living in suburbia while we renovate. You can follow our renovation at our special home blog: sixtwelvesixteenth
Urban Lake Effect 