Don’t ever move

gacott Leave a comment

I mean it, moving sucks. What a PIA, even forgetting that once we decide something it’s balls to the walls. Vivi had a bunch of stuff boxed up before we left but there was still so much to do, uggg.

We hired a “U pack it” type trailer, they would leave it at the house for 3 business days, and we had to be packs and ready at the end. We asked for it on a Wed, looking to get the weekend as extra days.

We got the trailer (of which we were supposed to take just half of) on Wed as planned and started hiring help off of Craigslist on Thursday.

With the help of the CL folks, and a few really good friends, but Monday we had taken the full trailer – BUT we were ready.

The 94 Camaro that I had gotten from my Dad, would make the trip in behind our truck on a trailer I had bought in the Denver area.

Caution to the wind

gacott Leave a comment

We did it, we decided we will sell the house in Fort Collins, use that money to build the dream in Harlingen, then come back to Colorado and build on some other land we had there, for the summers.

We built a real nice website for selling the house, placed an ad on Craigslist and a few other spots and decided to go at it on our own, without a realtor. If everything went right, we’d make just a bit more than if we had a realtor, it would sell quickly and save the buyer some money as well.

Four days later we had an offer for $5K less than we were asking. Much to my wife’s shock (she had though I’d listed it for $15K too much), I said no. The buyer immediately came up to our price.

The deal was for cash and we closed 5 business days later.

To Go Or Not To Go

gacott Leave a comment

So at this point, we are $15k in at Harlingen, none returnable. $15K down on a dream, that just went to hell in a hand basket. The bank pulled back on the equity deal we were working on – we had other money but it wasn’t available as it was all company money. Hmm. Things got a bit bleak. Do we give up the dream and the $15K, or just find another way to make it happen?

We, as a couple of are lot of things, quick to give up is not one of them. We hadn’t planned on leaving Fort Collins anytime soon – but – we had a nice house, in a great market, with a lot of equity into it. We knew that this was equity that we could get to if needed. But, it would mean leaving FTC and all of our friends. And honesty, the best friends two people could have. BUT, we had a dream and we REALLY believed in it.

Shit Hits The Fan

gacott Leave a comment

We were about two hours away from home after returning from Harlingen (about 16 hours on the road) when we got the call from the bank . . not good.

We had been working a deal in Fort Collins that would allow us to leverage investments there and use that money for the work we wanted to do in Harlingen. Never had it entered our minds that the particular deal in Fort Collins (of all of the balls we were juggling) would not go through. If asked, we each would have said 99% sure that deal would have gone smoothly. After all, we were just tapping into existing equity.

So two hours outside if FTC, the deal went 100% sour. By 100%, I mean the bank went from no issues at all with the deal, to not wanting to do the deal at all. We were stunned. Everything we were planning counted in this money. As I said, we had never even considered it wouldn’t be there.

Prologue

gacott Leave a comment

For almost 5 years, Harlingen Tx has been hitting my personal radar.

Harlingen Tx

“Least expensive place to live”, “Lowest cost of living”, Best place to retire” etc. Every time I started to look for something different, Harlingen kept coming up.

In November of 2016 we decided, what the heck, let’s go down there for a month and see what it’s really like. LOVED IT! It was just amazing to us. Water, warm, wonderful people, inexpensive, great roads, great medical care . . . what’s not to love?

We found a great Realtor, made an offer on some land, dickered, got it for more than $40k less than the asking price and closed before we left back to Fort Collins Colorado on the 31st of November.

A very busy month.