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Star Wuerdemann's offer was rejected the same day it went in. The listing didn't even have VA financing marked as an acceptable option. Fifty-four days of inspection contingency later, she owned the house.
This is the whole thing, told by the agent and the buyer sitting together.
Star and her husband were moving to Olympia. He's leaving the Army, she's opening a writing and art studio downtown. They'd already bought a house in Lakewood with Jana Ross three years earlier, sight unseen, while they were stationed elsewhere. This time they found an 1890 Victorian that needed real work, and a seller who wanted to sell it as-is.
Here's what makes this one worth 50 minutes. Jana called the listing agent and asked, straight out, why VA had been left off. The answer was fear: fear that the VA appraisal would call out conditions the seller would then be on the hook to fix. So Jana did the homework, and found something neither she nor the listing agent knew existed. A VA buyer can petition to have conditions waived, as long as they can show they understand the problem and are taking it on. Safety items stay non-negotiable. Everything else is on the table.
Then the inspection. Rats in the attic. A crawl space nobody could get into on the first pass. And when they finally did: 1890 framing sitting on rocks and stumps, five and a half inches of differential across the floor, and a $54,000 foundation estimate.
Jana's move there is the part agents should sit with. She did not send that estimate. She referenced it, told the listing agent the number on a phone call, and said: if you want it, we will send it. She repeated that line once a week for two months. Her reasoning is that if you shove everything into someone's face that they don't want to see, they get mad and say no to all of it.
The seller came back with an $18,000 second opinion from a crawl space and insulation contractor, not a foundation engineer. Jana said no. Three seller-response extensions later, she was calling foundation companies herself, getting availability and pricing she could hand the listing agent so they had no reason left not to call one.
Star's side of it is the other half. Anticipation is the worst part. A text thread with her husband and Jana for business, and a separate thread to Jana that was just "Jana, I'm dying." Several thousand dollars of their own money in inspections, estimates and the VA appraisal, sunk before they knew if they'd even get the house. She names her walk-away point out loud.
They agreed on March 11 and closed March 17. Final terms: $24,000 off the original contract price, plus $4,000 in seller-paid concessions, plus the seller covering the buyer's closing costs. On a VA loan a buyer can take up to 4% in seller concessions on top of closing costs, and Jana explains how they used every inch of that.
And after months of everybody being afraid of what a VA appraisal would find on an 1890 house: the appraisal called out one condition. Moss on the shed roof. Three hundred and fifty dollars. Jana paid it herself.
MEET THE GUESTS
Jana Ross, Broker, Windermere Abode. Instagram @janarossrealtor, janarossrealestate.com, 253-283-7568.
Star Wuerdemann, founder of Oly Pages, a writing and art studio in downtown Olympia. Instagram @oly.pages, olypages.org.
FOLLOW AND CONNECT
Instagram @windermereabode. Visit windermereabode.com. Go crush on a house at abodecrush.com. Read more on fair housing at tacomafairhousing.com. Listen to the insideABODE Podcast on all podcast streaming platforms.
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