The A Unit before new landscaping

Amid all the hustle and bustle of the past week, I neglected to share this important milestone: we sold the Villa Park houses in north Austin, both of them! I can’t tell  you how happy I am for the buyers, whom I wish many happy years with this property.

It’s bittersweet, because at one time or another we all lived there. Carol and Russell lived in the big house in front before they started their new career living in giant houses and staging them, and Anita and I lived in the casita while Bobcat Run was being renovated. With its access to walking trails and quiet dead-end street location, we loved living there, once it finally got finished.

Exterior of the casita, in mid-renovation.

Long-time readers may remember that this property was a BEAR to work on. We completely re-built the casita from a nightmare of code violations and poor drainage to a lovely home with an amazing master suite, overlooking a big field. The time we were trying to repair its water lines was a time of huge floods, and the driveway was an open mud pond for months. And of course, there were permit issues!

Selling It

Lee and I can hardly contain our glee as we sign the papers.

We rented the units out for a few years, and after the second bunch of renters who expected the landlords to be instantly available to kill wasps or whatever, we decided to get out of the landlording business. Also, we need cash for our personal assistance service business startup.

We had deals fall through, we had the house not appraise (it’s a unique property), but finally we found the right folks to buy the place. Then came the longest series of incompetence and errors imaginable. The people finally completely gave up on their lender, who kept throwing in objections or weird hoops to jump through, and got a totally different loan. So, THAT took a while. And even then, when we were surely ready to close, there were issues with the title companies.

Carol and Sierra are all smiles as they sit in the throne chairs and wait. That’s how you spend your first trip to Cameron!

In the end, last Friday, Carol (and Sierra) had to personally drive to Cameron, where we sat in our lawyer’s office and fixed yet another couple of issues and last-minute changes, until finally we were done. Then Carol ran back to the title company to complete the closing before the office closed at 5.

And…we realized we’d forgotten to send along a canceled check so we could get our dang money! THAT got fixed yesterday, so I think the house is sold, those lovely folks can move in or do whatever they plan to do with the house, and we can use the money for other investments. This thing was like a marathon. Make that a double marathon.

Thanks

Lee and I would like to extend our sincerest thanks to our partner, Carol, who worked as our agent on this transaction. That woman went the extra mile, or many miles, on this project and earned every cent of her commission. It was very hard to maintain good humor, have patience, and use her brains to keep track of all the issues that came up, over and over. We can’t WAIT to celebrate, even though we keep putting it off because of LIFE. If you ever need someone to help you sell a house, think of Carol Mangum!

Also, thanks to Mandi for running around and getting various pieces of paper demanded by lenders and title agents at the drop of a hat, and to Liz Lewis at our lawyer’s office, who also had to be on call with little notice. It takes a village. A patient village.