5th Time’s a Charm - Our Newest Acquisition!
By the time Princess brought us the listing at California Ave in San Pablo - the perfect home for her multi-generational 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation Richmond family - the property was already in contract with another buyer. But when we looked deeper, it got very interesting.
Princess is a staff member at EB PREC. When she was denied a loan from her local bank, she decided to see if EB PREC could work with her for a co-purchase. She came to us with all the parts in motion - she formed an Owner Group called “Altruism Crocus” with her multi-generational household, and they had already visited this property and thought it was perfect for their family. The purchase price and the monthly contributions Princess’s family proposed all lined up for financial feasibility when we crunched the numbers. Altruism Crocus is a perfectly mission-aligned Owner Group, so we decided it was worth a try! We (the staff in EB PREC’s Project’s Circle) passed a proposal, advised our board (which met last week), and submitted an offer.
As I mentioned, the property was already in contract. In fact, the property had been on the market since August, and was now in contract with a second buyer after the first one fell through. By the time we made our own offer, (just 1 week after Princess brought it to us), the second buyer had backed out, and a third buyer was in contract, with a fourth buyer already in place as a back-up! We, number 5, thought we were out of luck, but we made our offer anyway, and a week later we were stoked to be informed that the other buyers fell through, and we signed a purchase contract this past Friday! Maybe 5th time’s a charm?
But why did all these other buyers back out?! The City of San Pablo is unique in the Bay Area in that whenever someone wants to sell their home, the City does an inspection, and anything that was done without a permit has to be fixed, if not by the seller, then by the buyer! This property had a lot of work done without permits, and the inspection reports were confusing, and intimidating! The sellers were passing on the requirement to fix all these things to the buyer, and that had been scaring off buyers for months (plus sky high interest rates). It’s also why the property was priced so affordably.
Our plan was to make the offer with a 14 day inspection period so we could do our research and figure out what it would take to get these permits. However, by the time we finally got into contract, the sellers informed us that they were tired of sellers backing out, so they finally decided to fix everything themselves, and that this coming Tuesday the City of San Pablo was coming out to do a final inspection and sign off. This was amazing news, but on the flip side they also told us that once that is done, we will only have 24hrs to decide if we want to back out! That could be as soon as this Wednesday!
This acquisition is moving way faster than any acquisition EB PREC has taken on to date. We’re learning that sometimes to get a good deal we have to move on it. We believe we have the People, we have the Property in contract, and we have the Paper (money) to make this acquisition a huge success for EB PREC and our community.
Fortunately, in addition to the usual disclosures, the sellers also provided us with all the inspection reports we would have gotten during our 14-day inspection period, including Building, Roof, Foundation, and Pest inspections, plus a quote to replace the sewer lateral (required with most home transactions these days). These reports gave us a really good understanding of what immediate, short-term, and long-term repairs are needed at the property, and how much they might cost.
So with reports in hand and the clock ticking, on Sunday we rallied for a site visit with our staff Projects Circle plus Altruism Crocus to check out the house. With 5 kids filling the house with laughter, we walked through each room, crawled through the crawl spaces, shined out flashlights in the attic, and talked about budget, priorities, community workdays, and a vision for intergenerational living. We left with alignment and hope. We’re still crunching numbers, meeting a contractor and an architect, meeting to affirm expectations with these soon-to-be Resident Owners, and anxiously awaiting the final report from the City of San Pablo. When we made this offer, we knew it was a long shot. We were late to the game and 5th in line, but this time, we think 5th time’s a charm.
With gratitude,
Ojan
