On April 27, 2024, I was thrown a massive curve ball that set life in a bit of a tail spin that to be honest I’m not sure if I have still recovered from mentally. It was a lot!

In March I contacted my landlord to renew our lease for the next year, I like to do it two months ahead of the renewal date to make things go smoothly. In writing, she said yes, great. I thought, wonderful! Everything is settled for another year. At this point it was our third year living in the house and we were quite settled in, our landlord seemed pretty chill, and the house felt like home. I had set up a studio finally in one of the spare bedrooms, Kyle had a woodshop in the garage, everything was organized just right and the place gave me such a sense of normalcy where other rentals had not.

Shuffling the Deck

In April, my landlord had acted a little weird. She never followed up to sign a lease, which she is incredibly type A so I thought maybe she was busy? Then she asked if we wanted to buy the house, without any context if this was a serious request or a passing fancy. It was not the first time she asked, she did that in our first year and followed with she had no plans to sell. Odd, right? Well, on April 27 at 8pm she announced to me that she was not renewing our lease and we had three days to decide if we were buying the house from her at $210k USD or she was putting in on the market immediately, even though we had one more month on our lease.

We were flabbergasted to be honest. What? What! How did we get here? And who is this new pushy person trying to rip the rug out from under me? We took the three days to pray and consider if this was even possible, could we really afford that much? And why was the price so high for this small house, on a small yard that honestly needed some TLC after years of being used as a rental not a cared for home.

I think as humans we crave security, steadiness. The day before I felt incredibly steady. We had a place to live that was safe, with running water, heat, electricity, privacy. It wasn’t ours but as a steady tennant that paid rent and took care of it, I really didn’t see why they would want to lose that? I was clearly playing checkers when she was playing chess.

We decided to move forward with buying it in hopes that if we walked forward in faith that God would provide. Either the door would continue to close or it would slam shut. But another door would open. It may not be what I wanted but it would be according to His plan and He would provide an alternative. I clung to that as my stomach filled with butterflies that never really left. All month long.

Fact Check

That Monday I began the intimidating and confusing process of applying for a mortgage, and after what happened with taxes this year that became a little tricky. Those new tax penatlies for not filing quarterly had took a bite out of the downpayment we had been saving for and it was looking grim. I think those pre-approval forms are grim and confusing even if you are planning to do this, it’s just endless numbers, questions, terms, word vomit of legalese and bank jargon. With my head spinning as Rocket Mortgage said nada, my friend suggested I check out my bank and this is where things began turning around!

Irony of irony, I was matched with mortgage officer who grew up in the town the rental was in and he was friendly, knowledgeable and began to kick the tires on these unexpected shenanigans from the landlord. I learned it was going to be tight but possible if we wanted to buy it but that $210k was a ridiculous amount for what the house was and I was recommended by the bank to proceed with caution because on their end the math was not mathing on that price.

Things got a bit more interesting when the landlord began laying out the terms of how this was going to go. It began with stating that we were not using a realtor but a settlement company she knew with a number that didn’t work when I tried to call them. Next there was the timeline. She wanted me to write up a sellers agreement, until I began requesting an inspection and contingencies in case the value wasn’t as high as she insisted it was. She was giving us a deal you know, at $210k USD. It was a steal! She could get way more if she wasn’t doing this favor out of the kindness of her heart!

There was also the interesting niggle of the hand money, a concept I learned about this process which is where the buyer gives 1% of the list price to be held by the real estate company until closing. After the sale is final, the seller receives the money but not before. The landlord insisted that I give her a check for $5k USD to hold the house made out to her. Um, sketchy. Very sketchy. I told her several times that I couldn’t make contact with the settlement company and she wouldn’t give me the accurate contact info. Oh so sketchy.

But that’s not the end of the suspcious behavior. When I inquired what would happen if closing took longer than the lease, she promised she would never kick me and my husband out, we would just pay rent until the closing, pro-rated of course. This is where things changed though. I raised concerns over not being able to make contact with the settlement company, along with things about the house I knew were broken that the landlord had dodged fixing over the years. With her permission I had an inspection done, which she was quite disgruntled about when he found $40k plus of things that needed to be fixed that were now on the record. She began to get aggressive with me. I raised the need for things to be put in writing because under Pennsylvania law landlords are required to give a tenant 60 days written notice to figure everything out before a landlord can sell or remove a tenant. This enraged her, and she told me I was lying and her lease was above the law.

An hour later she showed up at the house and threw documents at our door which were quite interesting. There were some things that are not up to code in the house that she had acknowledged in the past and yet she seemed to get a very sudden case of amnesia. She gave us a “sellers agreement” that was just a disclosure saying that there was nothing wrong with the house, specifically lying about things she knew were broken. She signed and dated it. Next was a piece of paper saying that we were buying the house and were paying them rent for June until we closed on the 30th. This was also signed and dated.

We were told in an attached note to sign, date, and write a check that either she could hand deliver to the settlement or we could drop them off to the company (that I couldn’t make contact with) telling me of course she would get me the number. By this point, it was beginning to feel like harassment. From April 27 to this point it had been fortnight of her calling me and texting me almost daily with nagging about getting this settled as quick as possible or else. It was incredibly unprofessional and rude. I felt like a child instead of being respected as an adult with responsibilities and work I had to do. This lady’s only job is landlording and she had all day to contact me which was really frustrating because everything in my life was beginning to revolve around her wants and demands so that she could move to Florida, asap with a big chunk of my change in her pocket.

Door Shutting

Thankfully, I began to learn more about this situation from friends who are professionals in the real estate business and people in the community. I learned this house she bought with cash in 2010 for $105k that she flipped into a rental. Her number was $210k because she wanted to double her money plus a little extra from her $5k finder’s fee. There was no mortgage so all rent was icing on the cake. In the three years we rented from her, where she raised the rent, plus the hefty security deposit, she made $36,400 off us alone. This is where I could clearly see what made her tick. Greed. Because we could have easily done a rent to own, or figured this out in January, but the element of surprise was going to make her more money like a shakedown.

At this point it was pretty clear that any negotiation or talk was useless. This was a fools errand that I wanted no part of. Thankfully there was a new door opening a very exciting new door. But one part of it still remained, how would we transition from this place to our new home without drama? This ate me up for weeks. I am quite scared of confrontation and pushy people. My dad is a narcissist and uses the same tactics. Each conversation with her felt like it ripping up old wounds causing me emotional distress. My appetite was gone and restful sleep drifting beyond my reach.

But as all foolish people do, give them enough time and they will self destruct. That she did. On May 22, we received some very expensive mail. Mail from a lawyer on her behalf pressuring us to buy the house immediately, to pay her rent for June, and to send her the hand money. If not we had to get out on May 31. Even though the lease said we could continue paying her rent until we figured something out. She sent us four copies of that letter with postage at $8 USD a pop, I’d assume his hourly fee is quite steep as well. It was petty and it made us feel incredibly defeated. How were we going to do this when our new home would be settled in June? Do I need a lawyer? I knew she had no real power here because of PA tenant laws but this was beyond what I was comfortable with.

Sometimes the cost of standing your ground is too much for the mental toll it will take. I had stood my ground with my dad, and other narcists but this time there was too much at stake for someone who is who she is. Nothing was going to change her mind, it would only get worse. It makes me sad when peacemaking is not possible. I really think we could have had a different outcome here and brought this chapter to a close with mutual respect in place. I truly thought she was a nice person for most of our time renting. It was shocking to see how it all changed overnight.

Was she seriously going to make us move everything into a storage unit for a few days instead of working with us? The answer was yes. So we moved it all with the help of family and the provision of God we got it all done before May 31. I’m not even sure how we got it all done!

Now as I write this I am still waiting for my new house to close, but I sit here in the safety of family who generously gave us a place to crash until we can move in. I don’t know where I would be without people who love me and I hope that I will have the chance to pay it forward in the future.

Love Makes the World Go Round

What can I take away from this wild month? Well I’d say it has proved to me things I already knew were true. Money is the root of all evil. Foolish behavior and greed are good friends. Impatience and haste get us no where. Wisdom and love are worth more than money. Community is what makes life rich. God never drops us, His faithfulness prevails over the plans of man. Family and friendship are priceless. The United States house crisis is real and without God’s provision this story would have a different ending, which has made my commitment to donating to Light of Life even stronger in my mind because no one should fall through the cracks in the system because of someone else’s greed.

I’m sorry this was a bit of a long winded one, it was a long, chaotic story that I have been wanting to talk about since it started but didn’t feel comfortable until l was out of there. I hope wherever you are you know that you are loved, worthy, and have more value than all the gold in the world. ❤