Here we go again...

Five years ago, My spouse closed on a lovely, but ragged 1923 Beach Bungalow 14 blocks from the beach in Long Beach CA. Always a working class neighborhood, the early residents were oil workers and office clerks, none staying more than 10 years. The back porch was enclosed as a second bedroom in late 1940's, the dinning room Murphy bed an built in buffet were removed, and the dark wood trim was slathered with a coat of beige paint, and the kitchen was painted a painful combination of fire engine red and a Christmas tree green. The area changed like so may urban areas did in the 1950's and 1960's, going from primarily white to African American, then agian in the 1980's to primarily Asian immigrants, who bought the house in 1988 as a rental property. the original narrow wood siding was covering in stucco, the narrow attached garage became two finished bedrooms. However, the original wood sashes, kitchen cabinets, wood floors and mill work survived under rental paint and carpet.
Being a passionate perfectionist, we took the surviving elements and brought the house back to 1923, while adding modern comforts like central AC and Heat, new plumbing and wiring. We also revised the floor plan slightly to accommodate our frequent parties. ( The original layout required walking through the bedroom to access the bathroom). The changes were very carefully planned, and in fact we later visited a house of the same era that had our "new" layout.
After five years of carefully picking out each element with care and devoting every Monday, Wednesday and Friday after work and all day Saturday bringing the house back to life, I received a job offer I could not refuse one hundred miles south in San Diego in February of 2007. We began our search for the perfect house, and thought we found it in a completely intact 1920 craftsman, All the details were there, from the door knobs to the original kitchen cabinets. It also had severe foundation issues, making you seasick looking across the living room. It was also severely neglected, a foreclosure. We made our offer and were outbid by a person who proceeded to to GUT the entire house, and reconfigure it into a completely uninteresting new house and put it on the market for 200K more. Needless to say, the house is still on the market several months later with no takers. ( Please note, I AM NOT GLOATING).
At the end of March, I found a listing for a house that looked interesting - near the park, huge 18 X 12 dinning room, original details... We wne for a look and I fell in love... Beamed ceilings in the dinning room and living room, formal entry with built in bookcases and craftsman columns, pocket doors, and every door with original hardware, and best of all, a partial basement! Basements are very rare in California. It also was a foreclosure, several broken windows, a terrible 3" sag in the center of the house, and filled with rat droppings, roaches and bugs. In other words, a house only a crazy person (or me) would love. I made an offer immediately, taking into account the condition of the house and the housing market in San Diego, and was laughed out of the real estate office. The house stayed on the market for three more months, and I resubmitted my offer again and again, knowing that in the end, I would get the house. Finally, July 2, 2007 the bank accepted my offer, an we began the odyssey of going through the foreclosure process. The previous owners had received mortgage insurance on the property, and so once my offer was accepted, a claim had to be made by the bank to cover the loss - 160K. The insurance company was not so happy about this, and opened an investigation to determine why there was such a huge loss (uh... because the market was insane and it has now entered reality???) So consequently, the Escrow, which was originally scheduled to close July 20th was postponed until the insurance company processed the claim. Mind you, when I signed the sales agreement on July 2nd, it expressly indicated that Escrow must close by July 20th, otherwise I had to pay a $75 fee per day after the 20th. We then had to get a written confirmation that the fee would only be incurred if the delay was because of my financing, which we did and then we waited.
In the meantime, the original loan guy we used got all of our ducks in a row for the loan. Since the house was in "questionable" condition, he had to have a conversation with the appraiser to let him know this was not your average tract home. It was in an older neighborhood where there there are bungalows next to Victorian mansions next to 1960's boomerang apartment complexes. I have learned these are tough houses to finance, as they are unusual. We sent out the appraiser an he took one look at the house and said it was the worst house he had ever seen. Obviously, he could not see past the dirt and grime to see the house had updated plumbing and wiring, and a unusually large lot an fantastic views of the park. I get a call early Monday, and by the en of the day, we find another company who works on unusual properties, and I meet with the loan officer and the appraiser, and I give them a walk though of the house, and point out all of the pluses, and also provide sales history of nearby homes of the same square footage that recently sold for more than my offer. Needless to say, I got then on board and we got a loan.
Finally, we got word yesterday that all the paperwork is in order and we should be set to close next week. ( Whew!!!) In the meantime, I have been trolling Ebay for replacement light fixtures and picking out new bathroom fixtures so I have everything lined up once we get in there, as we will have 30 days from close of escrow to make it livable..... Here we go again....