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I sold a house to Arlington County. It was neither lucrative nor convenient. It was my first deal involving a government agency, and it was quite educational.

Several years ago, I bought a little run-down Craftsman-style house in North Arlington. The house was not salvageable. The foundation was completely compromised, and the house had developed a significant lean. The only option was to tear it down and build new. I planned to build a 2,500-square-foot house with a full basement.

The process for building a new house in Arlington County is quite challenging, and it took more than a year to get approved building permits.

Just before we started building the house, a representative from the county called my office and asked if I’d be interested in selling the lot to Arlington County. I said I would, but then I didn’t hear from the county again for months.

My property was next to Arlington County Fire Station 8. The county had been planning to move the fire station, but residents complained and fought to have it remain in place. The county was looking to acquire my lot and the two lots next to it to <a href="https://newsroom.arlingtonva.us/release/arlington-to-build-temporary-fire-station-no-8-behind-current-fire-station/">build a temporary fire station</a> while they rebuild the existing one.

When my house was nearly complete, the county called me again and expressed interest in buying.  This time they were a little more serious.

[More Pierce: How the government contributes to the low supply of starter homes]

There seemed to be many advantages to selling to the county. I would not have to market the house nor pay real estate commissions. The county would buy the house as soon as it was completed, so I hoped it would reduce my holding time and associated costs.

I was thinking that I could probably get around $1 million or a little more for the house on the open market. Similar homes were selling between $1.1 million and $1.2 million but my house was close to Route 29 and across the street from commercial properties so I knew there would be some discount. The county wanted to pay me $950,000 for the house. That wasn’t too bad considering I would have a strong ready buyer and a quick sale.

There were drawbacks, however, and they became apparent very early on but I had no idea how arduous the process would become. The first problem was the contract itself. The county sent me its contract which was essentially an irrevocable offer to sell my property. I went back and forth with the county lawyer about the terms, but they said they could not change many of the most onerous provisions. I had to sign the contract first, and once I did there was no pulling out. The contract then had to be reviewed and approved by the county board which would take several weeks.

At the time I was still about a month away from completion, so the timing seemed to work out.  I held my nose, signed the offer and sent it on to the county. In about mid-December, the county board approved the contract, and we had a deal.

There were several seemingly standard provisions in the contract. The county required that I get an occupancy certificate before closing, and it wanted the right to hire an independent home inspector to look over the property. I didn’t have any problem with either of those matters, although I was a little worried about the buyer essentially being the approving authority for one of the contingencies in the purchase contract. My biggest fear was getting held up and delayed on the project. In this case, the buyer was also the approving authority for the occupancy certificate. The county could essentially hold me up indefinitely by delaying the award of the occupancy certificate.

[More Pierce: Flippers and counties can be blamed for home renovations done without permits]

Poor weather and busy contractors further delayed the project, but by January we had the final building inspection on the property and it passed all the structural, mechanical, electrical and plumbing criteria. Then the county brought in its home inspector. The inspector found a number of items that he wanted repaired. I agreed to have those items fixed. I didn’t argue anything even though some items were more taste than code or good building practices.

I was trying to be nice, as is my normal tactic, but unfortunately being nice with the county didn’t seem to be the best strategy. As an example, the home inspector wanted me to move the outlet for the sump pump. I didn’t like the location of the sump pump; admittedly, it was a design flaw. The contractor placed it without my approval, and by the time I noticed it was too late to move without very significant effort and delay. So I went ahead and had the contractor change the outlet as requested. Mind you, the county building inspector had already approved the outlet.

After the contractor had fixed all of the items on the home inspector’s list, the county sent an inspector from its staff to check the list to make sure they were complete. This inspector found a big list of additional items. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that this inspector was not a residential inspector.  He was a commercial inspector and he was not sure about several of his own findings because of the difference between residential and commercial building code.

One of the items was the sump pump outlet. He didn’t like the change that the third-party home inspector recommended, so my contractor changed the outlet again. We changed that outlet a total of three times. Still, I figured it would just be faster to make the changes than fight the battle. The problem I was facing with the latest inspection list was I didn’t know what to fix or how they wanted it done or even if they wanted it done.

[More Pierce: Why home sellers may want to be wary of a potential buyer’s pre-approval letter]

I reached out to all of the eight or so people involved at the county and asked them for clarification on these recommended changes. I can’t make the repairs, I told them, without knowing for sure if you want them made and how you want them done.

It took them six weeks to get me a final, agreed-upon list of repair items. At that point, I was done being nice, and I told them that if the item was not a code issue or it was not on the original home inspection then I was not making the changes. I even reached out to my lawyer to see if I could cancel the contract. I felt that the county had delayed my project for at least two months longer than necessary, totally wiping out my main reason for selling to them. The market was hot by then, and I felt I easily could have sold the house for a $100,000 more than the current contract price.

My lawyer said it was a long shot. The contract was strongly in favor of the buyer.

At that point, I was fed up. I dared the county to cancel the contract, and I gave it a deadline to close. That’s when things finally started moving.

The county also bought the two properties to the south of my house. It bought the house next door for $800,000 as is — no home inspections, no repairs. That house had a lot that was half the size of mine, and it was only worth about $550,000 at best. That lady did it right. She held out until the other two properties were under contract and then played her strong hand, never being nice. The county will tear that home down. The land value for that property is only about $450,000, so she got a home-run deal.

[More Pierce: Hybrid home-flipping model helps investor weather higher costs in the market]

The home on the other side of her was also owned by an investor. He also had a double lot like mine and his home was a good size — around 2,700 square feet. But it was still old and did not have a basement. That home was probably worth about $850,000. <a href="https://newsroom.arlingtonva.us/release/final-property-acquired-for-temporary-fire-station-no-8/">The county paid him $800,000</a>. They will also tear that home down.

The county plans to use my new house as a temporary fire station. It will be used to house the firefighters. They will build a temporary structure on the two neighboring lots to shelter the firetrucks. Then they’ll tear down the current fire station along Route 29 and build the new facility.

They didn’t say for sure what will happen to my house once the new fire station is up and ready. They might just tear it down.

I can’t put all of the blame on the county. The contractor definitely dropped the ball and got sloppy on a few things, and I was frankly a little embarrassed by a couple of the items that the inspector found. The plumber, who had done a good job for me on several past projects, really did some sloppy work on this one, and the county was right to call him on it.

Working with a bureaucracy is never an easy process especially when you have a lot of people involved in the deal who really have nothing at stake. My tendency is to try to be productive and amicable, but this is one of the instances in which being a little coarse and stern would have been the more prudent approach.

In the end, the project came out all right. I still made a profit, but I really could have learned from the example of the residents next door who got about a 45 percent premium on their home.

I don’t need to make that much by any means, but the one-sided purchase agreement the county presented was a red flag that should have changed my approach. I never would have signed a contract like that with any other buyer. I should have walked away from the deal or at least demanded a higher price for the increased risk and loss of leverage. You learn something on every deal.

Justin Pierce is a real estate investor and real estate agent who regularly writes about his experiences buying, renovating and selling houses in the Washington area.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this column misidentified the street near the house Pierce renovated and sold.

Justin Pierce

The Washington Post

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