Gambling on houses

Life is a series of calculated risks that we all take during our daily lives, crossing the street and drinking too much beer and eating from strange kebab and burger joints, these are all risks we don’t even think about. Some of the more obvious risks are like shall I move job and shall I steal this HDD for my home computer, again we deal with these on a rational basis normally but I have taken a risk that is a gamble and on a rather large scale for me. I am not a gambler and never take risks but over the last few years I have made some nice money on property and if you have read my Blog I have just bought a nice house in a nice condo in San Jose and I haven’t even paid for it all yet and I am hoping to move in sometime in July. But my wife was reading the local paper that has all the small adds and she saw a house for sale in our condo and quite normally she was intrigued with it to see which house was for sale. Upon telephoning the number it turned out to be the house next door and for a sum of $17,000 less than I paid for mine, this got me thinking, we rang out realtor if he knew anything about it and he said no but he said he would find out. He rang back pretty quickly and told us the buyers had started divorce proceedings before they had even moved in and had handed the keys back to the builder who wanted to sell it pretty quickly. I told Jenny to offer $115,000 to see if we could get a bargain and the realtor rang again for us and said we could have it for $120,000 plus $5000 for him. I was shocked as it was us who had given him the information and he was wanting about 4% commission, I said to Jenny “Tell him to go and screw himself”. Jenny was of the same mind and she started ringing round to find out who was the seller and found the builders name in the phone book and got to speak to the saleguy and offered him the same $120,00 and he agreed. I was so happy but the main thing is how the hell am I going to pay for it. We had to pay a $5000 deposit and we have to pay at the end of April to get it, this gives me 8 weeks to raise the money, I have about $50,000 in cash and that means I have to find $70,000. I am trying to sell my house in Spain and the UK but I think the timetable for both events are going to far too long to make the deadline, I am going to have to borrow money from the bank for the house and maybe even ask my sister to lend me some money but think this gamble has the chance to make some good money over the next 2-4 years. I did offer it around to some buddies but all declined, I can’t blame them it is out of the way and in a strange neck of the woods but I just had to buy it for my own satisfaction and we managed to avoid paying any money to the Realtor, I was laughing about that one, he made enough out of me on the first house, I told my sister that I would keep buying all the houses in the condo as there are 6 in total and call it Lowe Villas, that title is a bit too grand.