Spring Water

[WinterDeere]

Sadly, despite the offer being verbally accepted, the realtor called me later in the day of the contract being signed and told me the seller changed their mind and signed a lower offer they received prior to mine. I'll never really know the true story.

Happened to me once, too. Had a seller accept an offer that was lower in dollars and came with inspection and mortgage contingencies. We were offering cash, no contingencies, and a higher amount.

Story we got was that they already gave the prior offer a verbal "yes", and wanted to honor that, even though that buyer was taking forever to submit their bid in writing. Cost them something like $100k difference, in fact we had suggested we could go even higher, and a lot of extra hoops to jump thru with inspection and sale/mortgage contingencies for their buyer. At least I could admire their ethics, if the story we got was true.

 

[RayIN]

When I was 8 (1950) dad and mom bought a 120A farm. the house must have been built prior to 1900; no electricity, no water, wood heat.
About 100' down a hill was stone steps that lead to a spring house. The water was crystal clear and very cold. It came out of a stone wall that kinda looked like the water had worn a hole through it and carved out a depression in the stone. Dad had the water tested and it passed all tests.(BTW, that depression was great for holding watermelon to cool in spring water)
I carried buckets of water up that hill for 3 years until I spotted a Rams Head water pump in the spring house. I traced the pipe all the way to the house, so_ the house did have water inside at one time.
Being a kid I disassembled the Rams Head pump, cleaned it out and reassembled it, and it worked!
That was when I learned about a self-driven water pump. The house was about 100' away and 30' higher than the spring house. I have always been interested in mechanical stuff.

You can buy one or build one yourself.

 

[Highlandr]

the house must have been built prior to 1900; no electricity, no water, wood heat.
About 100' down a hill was stone steps that lead to a spring house. The water was crystal clear and very cold. It came out of a stone wall that kinda looked like the water had worn a hole through it and carved out a depression in the stone. Dad had the water tested and it passed all tests.(BTW, that depression was great for holding watermelon to cool in spring water)

Sounds like the old farm house a great aunt/uncle lived in until the 1980s (SW Va.), except the spring wasn't 30' lower than the house (and they did have electricity - a single, bare light bulb and one outlet in each room). Water in that spring was so cold it would numb your hand. It was the site of an annual family reunion so, yes, many a wallermellon was cooled in that basin.

 

[ultrarunner]

Lost the dream property and I had the higher offer subject only to a survey paid by me…

About an hour before my official offer came in the seller gave a verbal yes to the low one…

I approached the buyer in contract and offered the 100k difference for the buyer to walk… he said 300k… which was impossible for me.

My offer did keep the buyer from nickel and dimeing because I was in the wings…

 

[ultrarunner]

Several in the family have spring water with the water coming from a cave…

Water rights deeded from the 1800’s and the water was quite famous a longtime ago… Alhambra Spring Water… the name is still out there but hasn’t been sourced from the original spring in many decades.

The nice part in addition to great water is 50psi gravity to the farm house.

The farm house does have city water tap as when city water arrived in the area they ran lines on farm property…

Different agencies have offered cash to extinguish the deeded rights but can’t see that happening…

 

[WinterDeere]

Sounds like the old farm house a great aunt/uncle lived in until the 1980s (SW Va.), except the spring wasn't 30' lower than the house (and they did have electricity - a single, bare light bulb and one outlet in each room). Water in that spring was so cold it would numb your hand. It was the site of an annual family reunion so, yes, many a wallermellon was cooled in that basin.

I'm not sure what the new owners have done with it, but there's an old spring house in the front yard of an uncle's 1720's house, which was either fed or drained by buried wood pipes. Basically cored logs.

Although I used to spend a lot of time hunting on that property, I never really investigated the spring house myself, we had too many other interesting old properties for it to be anything real special to a teen. As of maybe 15 years ago, my uncle told me those wood viaducts were still mostly-intact, which I think is the first time I actually heard that they were wood.

The house was kept very "original" by that uncle, they didn't even install a bathroom or central heating until the 1970's or 80's. Interesting place, but as my uncle had other interests, he really let it deteriorate over the years.

 

[NorTracNY]

Happened to me once, too. Had a seller accept an offer that was lower in dollars and came with inspection and mortgage contingencies. We were offering cash, no contingencies, and a higher amount.

Story we got was that they already gave the prior offer a verbal "yes", and wanted to honor that, even though that buyer was taking forever to submit their bid in writing. Cost them something like $100k difference, in fact we had suggested we could go even higher, and a lot of extra hoops to jump thru with inspection and sale/mortgage contingencies for their buyer. At least I could admire their ethics, if the story we got was true.

Sounds almost identical to our case. The issue was that they also verbally said yes to us. I wasn't happy with the realtor because I wouldn't have paid hundred to an attorney to write the contract if I knew they had verbally accepted the offer. I'd have wanted to get agreement and hand shake with the seller.