House Update

Been awhile... but we've been busy trying to get the house fully moved in. We've since added the 'features' to each of the kid's rooms. A picket fence in one, a 10' wide mural in the second, and stick on effects in the third. Check them out in this album.

House Updates Gallery

Week 2 Progress Report

Well its been just past 2 weeks since we settled on the house, and 5 days since we moved in. It's been non-stop churning to get the house where we wanted. As I write this, I wonder if I could get up out of the chair even if I wanted to my body hurts so much :) Check out the room by room progress and work notes in the photo album.

It's finally real

Well, yesterday was crossing the threshold. Election Day was move-in day, and we had the movers call at 7:30am and say they were ready and waiting... except we were told they would be there at 8:30, not 7:30 :) So after the short gaff, we were on our way. 8hrs later, they left, and all our stuff was in the new house. It was a long day, but it's one behind us now. Now to unpack, finish the need items we had not gotten to yet, and expand into the new space.

Boy a lot of our stuff looks lost or out of place in a house like this :)

Chapter 2 Finally Complete - We have a house

Well, after yet a few more speed bumps last week with money transfers.. we finally approached settlement day. Staci - armed with a power of attorney letter since I was still in Spain - went to settlement and attempted to put this bad boy to bed. After yet a few more hurdles because the seller refused to pay for ANYTHING (including getting the mess of their own title sorted) Staci got the paperwork finished. So as last friday - we finally own a home again!

It took more then 6 months... from start to finish.. but this chapter is finally behind us. Up next, rushing this week to do as much to get the house ready before we move. Movers are scheduled for next Tuesday. Friday carpet comes.. Monday the fridge was delivered.. so now the next never ending chapter starts.. improving the house!

The most insane settlement ever?

Well, remember back on Oct 3 how I said we had a very good chance of a delay in settlement? Well here we are almost 3 weeks later and still no house.

I've refrained from posting the story until we had things a bit more under control, and honestly because things can change day to day. Insane.

Turns out the previous owners did some transactions that don't settle well with the lawyers in how they handled the deed of the house. This combined with some lesser issues like liens that had no been cleaned up.

Well, the deed stuff just needed a quick claim deed signed by the previous owners. Well, that is if you can find them.. and then IF they will sign.

Day 1 ended up worrying if they were even still in the country! Some paperwork we pulled made us aware that being in Pakistan was a possibility.

Staci went on detective mode and through the Internet and a few sly data connecting, we had a pretty solid belief they lived in the area still, and we had an address and phone number.

Adding to the 'in our favor', our title lawyer, actually handled the settlement for the previous owners! So they at least had a history. Our lawyer called, and then visited the house, and explained the situation, and left the paperwork with the wife. We go for a full week without any real progress of knowing the intent of the previous owners.

Adding to the problem, is we have to be out of our apartment at the end of the month, which we were not able to extend. Which means, if we didn't settle, we'd have to move yet again...

So Friday the 17th was Armageddon Day.. something had to happen if we were going to make this happen. We needed at least some sort of knowledge of what was happening to get our next two weeks in line.

It started with Staci finding a work number for the previous owner (husband) which we had not heard at all from, after the lawyer had called and left the info at home. Staci called and left a VM. Crossing in the Ether... our Real Estate Agent calls saying there had been progress at the title company. What progress? Well it's complicated!

Our title lawyer is talking with a friend, who is another real estate agent/broker. He happens to know the couple we are trying to track down, and agrees to go over and explain the paperwork and situation to the couple. We get word back that they will sign the paperwork, but they want compensation in return! And this is Friday, and we still don't have an answer of WHEN they would sign it. So a flurry of activity.. and we are back on track to move forward, but we don't have the actual paperwork yet.

Fast forward to Monday night, our lawyer agrees to visit the couple's home at 9:30pm!! as that is the only time they can do it, and at 10pm, our lawyer has the signed paperwork! Progress finally!!! We are scheduled for settlement this Friday the 24th.

Great right? Well it's still more complicated!

I leave on a business trip for Europe TODAY.. I'll be away still during settlement, so Staci needs to do settlement on her own. Then last night, our real estate agent who has been incredible through this whole thing in terms of handling the legwork and keeping us updated... finds out her father unexpectedly passed away. So of course she's fully engaged with her own important business, leaving Staci to carry on these last few days. I know she can do it, but this one has been a wild ride! With 3 days till she's scheduled to sign all the paperwork, lets hope nothing else comes up!

oh and still no word on if the bank (the seller) will pay for any of the house issues found in inspection, etc. ugh

First real taste of foreclosure pain

Well - you never quite know what you'll get when trying to buy a foreclosure, and this week we got our first real taste. Turns out there a name problem in the chain of title with the house currently. The defect is explained as minor, but we really need this cleared up before agreeing to buy the house to protect ourselves. There are several answers to a solution so far, but we are in a waiting pattern (suprise!) again to let the lawyers do their thing and get some answers from the title insurance company. So we have what may be a pretty good potential for a settlement delay now while they sort the title out.

Did I mention??

We have a ratified contract?? As of Monday - we are there. Wednesday was Home Inspection. We knew there would be numerous little things, but the biggest issues was water intrusion on 3 of the windows which need some sealing... non-op sump pump, and radon mitigation fan... a broken window (outside pane)... and lots of smaller stuff. Being my second time in the house.. I actually got to take some photos this time. Take the tour

Rounding the 3rd corner..

Well, we got the bank paperwork, its signed and back.. and guess what.. the house has been taken off the market so we get no more competition until we close! woohoo So now its a matter of waiting for the bank to sign the contract.. meaning wait for it to get to the top of the pile of the person who does these things.. and then we have a ratified contract! Then we have 7 days to get our inspection and appraisal in so if there is any reason why we need to bail - we have to do it then. After that... Oct 10 is the settlement date. So we haven't gotten to the final turn just yet.. but we're close! What a long strange trip its been...

Rush the bank!

Well, I was scheduled to travel to Oslo Monday afternoon. Sunday was busy, so I didn't get a chance to pack, so Monday would be a busy schedule of trying to get work done, and get ready for the trip.

We arise Monday AM to find an email from the Realtor - a previous listing is back on the market at an attractive price.

Turns out its a Fitzgerald model - my preferred model - that is bank owned and the last deal had fallen through, so it was back on the market. Given its very aggressive list price, 535k, we didn't expect it to last. So we immediately wrapped the family up and headed over to check it out.

Good lot, but still not a culdasac. Brick front, but no finished basement. So compared to the 'big house', its a bit smaller (due to no bump out), no finished basement, a bit beat up, but a better lot, better looking house, and a heck of a lot better price. The big house had potential roof/water issues - where this one just needs some TLC, carpet, etc. Check it out

That said.. we talked about it - and wrote a contract (above list) before even leaving the house. Now this one is a Bank owned - so yet again we have to deal with unpredictable times and commitments. Never mind I was to get on a plane in just a few hours for two weeks!

Well, we got our first bit of good news. The agent was able to forward our offer to the bank without waiting too long. Then on Thursday, we got the even better news that they basically accepted our terms, and we were expecting their addendums to the contract as possible as early as Friday! This means, in less then 5 day turnaround, we could have a ratified contract!

Well, we didn't get the paperwork on Friday, but we'll expect it Monday. If we get past that hurdle, the house should come off the market and we just need to get through inspection and the other contingencies. So, good news so far.. lets hope it keeps coming.

How much is it worth?

Well, I'm still way behind in updates.. so here's the next segement of the story, but not the latest! You'll have to stay tuned for the next update.

So, after missing out on the Short Sale, we had to take a closer look at the financials because of rising interest rates and some optimistic reviews. So we regrouped to review where we felt comfortable paying a month and what would be the upper limit. The problem was.. under current conditions that meant affording a much lower 'top line' price then previously thought.

With this new realization in place (and I think finally some agreement at home) we settled back to watching for new activity.

Turns out one home we looked at previously had just lowered their price again. Originally listed at I think 609k, it was now 579k. We had seen it previously but had passed. Now it was cheaper, and the owners were out of the house given a cleaner look at the place, so we decided to check it out again.

This model had the main level floor plan I liked but had a weird bump out that was obstructed by a odd wall with a fireplace. They also had a pretty run down house as the neighbor. At the previous price, the house just didn't have anything to make it feel worth it, but the house did have many of the core elements we were looking for. You just had to get past some of the shortcomings. At the right price, it would be a good fit. Just previously at those price points, it wouldn't hold up to the competition.

And apparently the market agrees because from our intel, they hadn't gotten any serious bites at all. Looking at it again objectively, I came to the conclusion its a good house, and met most of the desires, it just was priced all wrong. We did some homework, and we came up with a price we thought reflected the house's market value and value to us. We believed we could buy it at a price that would leave us some cash to do the upgrades the house needed. The house was in solid condition, but really lacked most of the upgrades (kitchen appliances, countertops, flooring, etc) that usually catches peoples' eye as value adders.

That said, with the new budget in mind, we wrote up a offer we felt reflected our comfort level and the market comps supported.

We offered 530k - while 6% lower then their list price, it is also 30k higher then any like model of their home has sold in the community. Well, after getting the offer they apparently were not too thrilled - and waited 3 days to respond. The counter? 569k! Doo what? These people are obviously a bit hung on their price.

Well, we honestly wanted to make a deal happen - but on our terms. We are not desperate, we have a place to be, we have a budget, and they have a house they need to sell (which BTW, has been on the market for 80 days at this point)

There was a mentioned possibility of using seller concessions to get a higher list they wanted, but without higher costs. So we countered with 560k with 3% back.

Well that didn't wake them up either, and they delayed getting back to us.

Bad news for them - you snooze you lose. While they wait, new action happens on the market.

They finally countered at 560k with no consessions. No way - that house is still overpriced, so we walked. We are pretty confident this has been the only offer they have gotten. Maybe they'll take the blinders off and look around.

In the mean time, a new opportunity has come up...

The offer.. the switch.. and then some

Well.. we popped our cherry. Since our last update, we did decide to place an offer on the 'space' house rather then the 'bragging rights' house. Bragging is under contract now.. a few days after we walked away. On 'space' we knew it was really just a stab in the dark. The house's history on the market was shady, and it was a short-sale on top of that. We put in an offer, the agent came back to ensure that was 'our best offer' and then the home owners were supposedly going to send everything to the bank on that Monday. I believe this was a Thursday.. Well, the writing was on the wall when we viewed the house and they were moving items INTO the house. We got a call a few days later they had taken the house off the market. Presumably to move back in (they had two houses in short sale and managed to sell their bigger one first). That closed our chapter.. but we were ready for disappointment so not a big set back. Bragging rights house was already under contract, and we had mentally moved past it already... so we were back to being idle. More to come soon!

Space or bragging rights?

As the home hunt continues - you always have to struggle with compromises. There never seems to be a clear path and you can never refine the situation to reduce the complexities. Everything always seems to be a mess of cascading dependencies. The latest struggle is looking at two homes... Candidate #1 I call the Bragging House. It's got all the things you'd ever want to show to your friends when they ask 'what did you buy?'. It's got the beautiful yard.. it's got the landscaped hillside.. its got a good sized lot.. it doesn't have houses backed to it.. it's well maintained on the inside.. it has a full sized bar in the basement. Not a little wet bar.. a full on 8ftx5ft type thing. Then you go out back... A pool... hot tub... built in grille... pool deck, wood deck.. and still up the rise, a children's playset and area to play. Check it out So what's the problem? Jump like crazy! Well - the house isn't really quite what we were looking for. It's a bit small to stay in long term.. the basement isn't that large.. the upstairs rooms are ok, but not great. Basically the house itself structure wise (rooms, space, etc) is good, but not great. You don't have room to do new things.. anything you'd do you'd be ripping out something to do it. No media room.. no game room.. not even a true in-law suite. It's a house that has probably reached it's peak.. and apparently the homeowners think so as well as they've priced it pretty high. But on the pricing front there are comps to show it can be lower. There is ammo out there to counter their asking price. It's been over a week and its not under contract, so likely we aren't the only ones wondering about the price either. Candidate #2 is the diamond in the rough. Let's just get the ugly out in the open. It's a short-sale. It's been vacant with various stages of renters in and out for ages now. It appears sound, but needs new flooring throughout the middle and upper floors, paint, and the hardwoods look pretty disgusting dirt in groove wise. It has at least two significant water spot areas that need investigating on ceilings. The outside has been neglected... the deck needs refinishing... etc. However, it's a monster. It's one of the larger models you can get in the neighborhood.. it's over a 1,000 sqft bigger then #1 just on the upper levels. I think there is probably another 500-1,000 sqft extra in the basement (the numbers published don't seem to all add up). The kitchen is massive... it has a sunroom that was bigger then my entire old kitchen+dining room combined. It actually has a separate office, plus the 5 bedrooms. It has all the structural checkboxes that we were looking for, plus more. I don't know what I'd do with probably half the space to start with... but there is room to do more for many years to come. And it's listed at 550k. To put it in perspective.. that is almost 70k less then #1. It's probably 100k less then the nearest 'like' house and even further below what a great condition house of the like model. It's a 650k-750k house.. way out of my budget... for 550k. The unpolished stone... the diamond in the rough. However as things can't be easy.. there are the compromises. #2 is on a smaller lot, with 3 homes around you. There is trees and screening.. but they are there and you see them. Compare this to #1 which at least behind you is pretty much a private kingdom... except the fact on the otherside of the castle walls are a major road.. which on the otherside will be commercial development. #2 has a reasonable sized yard, but in a odd shape.. but plenty of room for the kids to play. The whole thing needs major TLC to look top shape though.. while #1 looks like it could be on a book cover. Neither property is on a culdasac which I would have preferred.. but #2 is at least in a dead-end area. Neither property properly backs to trees with nothing behind you. Neither property has the big open lot (tho few exist in our community). One property you are buying the outside... One property you are buying the house and minimizing the outside. One property you are buying a polished stone, the other a rock if you hold just right, you can see the shine. One you move into a confined space... the other would be like moving into a warehouse. Crazy.. nothing is simple. What would you do? Well yesterday we started to put our money where our mouth is.. and wrote an offer on one of these two. Which do you think it was?

I'm no longer homeless

Well it's been awhile between updates - Chaos and simply not wanting to relive it :) Even though we had basically a month between when we settled on the sale of our house, nothing of interest came up during that time. So quickly we had to commit to the temporary housing situation. I don't even want to relive the back and forths those weeks lead to, but eventually we were aimed at moving into the apartments in the southern half of our community. They had a three bedroom apartment, with garage. So that would be good yeah? Well, there is no parking essentially, so our three cars would have to be pruned down and we'd have to use the garage for a car, not storage.. And we'd need another self-storage unit to store what didn't fit in the apartment. casualty #2,454 - The Z car had to be shipped off to my father's house for keeping till we found a permanent place. So no toy car for awhile... Then we had the fun with Van Metre. Being lied to no less then 3 times by Van Metre about apartments climaxing where less then three days before we were to move in, them saying they had no apartment for us - even though we had already signed paperwork saying otherwise! The woman did some calls and ended up getting us into another set of apartments in the neighborhood which originally would not give us a short term lease like we wanted, but now they would. Smaller place, no garage, but we are getting desperate. Upon closer look, parking is amble (but Z is already gone..), and they do have garage units for rental. Sweet! So unlike Van Metre, within 24hrs, we had paperwork, commits, and shortly after keys! One problem though... it's on the 4th floor with only steps! Oi! So move day came without much issue. Cramming of packing before the day got all but about 3 car loads of 'loose' items ready to go. The silverlining turned out that while we had planned to put thing in the garage as storage (for things we may need) and put stuff in self-storage for 'off-site', no access storage - as we unloaded, it appeared we may be able to fit all our stuff in the single car garage. So we went for it, and the movers made a mountain in the garage, successfully unloading the full truck into the garage at the apartment! No more need for a larger storage unit. And most importantly, meaning, no more need to move all our stuff we've had in storage out, and into the new bigger storage unit (so we wouldn't be paying for two). A stop at the storage office ended in success as well, where basically we were able to reverse the storage 'upgrade' we had already ordered without penalty.. woohoo! So now we are totally out of our old place.. the last day was spent cleaning and removing absolutely everything. Monday the new owner moved in, and we continued to unload boxes, etc at the new place. It's ok so far.. 2 bedrooms+loft which we are using as a 3rd bedroom and playarea. Maybe I'll get some photos up later if I can ever find a camera :) Now if I could only get my deposit back from Van Metre.. grrrr

Final approach

Well - all is well on the house selling front. We got through the home inspection with only two repairs needed. A spring on one of the garage doors, and a wet spot on one of the ceilings. The garage doors was just a part and I put it up.. the ceiling was a roofer call + some painting. Surveys have been done... Appraisals have been done. T-minus 4 days till closing! But that means we need some place to go! Still not much luck on the house shopping front. Found a great property - but over priced and just too expensive. We'll keep looking

Getting close....

Sorry there wasn't much updates on the house. Week by week was pretty much the same over and over again. Getting lots of traffic, but the feedback was all the same 'didn't like the layout' - GRRR We had over 50 showings easily over the period, but not even a hint of an offer. Well finally after 48 days we called a pow-wow to plan our next move. Spending 3hrs reviewing the market - we had a battle plan ready. But we had 2 agents we needed to hear back from before executing, so we figured we would wait till the next day. Low and behold we find out later that night, that 2 of the 4 similar properties were off the market all of a sudden. One pulled out, and one was under contract. This is quite a bit of news - and turns out one of the agents is telling us their buyers are looking to write an offer... but with some significant terms. We tell them put it on paper and we'll take a look. The next day, major blow-up happens. Another agent says he needs to show again as her buyer is also interested... when it rains it pours! We end up showing 6 times that day if I recall. The day wraps up with two offers pending! The offers come in and we review and take our considerations. We end up picking the less complicated of the deals but want to counter back. The buyer accepts our counter of a higher price, settlement date, and rent back we wanted. So in less then 3 days we went from desert - to sweet Oasis. Tomorrow is the home inspection - which should be the last major hurdle. So hopefully by end of the week we should have a great view of the finish line for selling of this house! But - we are only rounding first base and have a ways to go yet till we get settled in a new place. So the adventure continues

Week 3 - Where you beeee?

Well not many updates on the moving situation. We've had a ton of traffic through the house (by my count approx 30ish) showings over the last three weeks but no solid bites yet. We had two open houses, one that was dampened by weather a bit, and the other did a bit better. We have traffic on weekends AND during the week - which is great, but means living in the house can be tough. You take 2 or more showings that aren't even back to back.. and before you know it you have to be out of your house from 10am until 3pm or later. That's rather annoying, but if it lands a prospect buyer then it's worth it. This Saturday I left on travel and it was the first weekend day we have not had a showing. Questions are already being raised internally about pricing, etc - but the feedback has not been around the price from the showings. That, and when you look at the housing going under contract during the same time period - its all higher priced product. The issue is, its all bigger homes too. Question is - do people want the size house we are selling? Only time will tell...

You know its thick when...

For those that didn't know.. May has been the month of rain for us. Check out a neighbor's weather station totals for May http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KVAASHBU4&day=1&year=2008&month=5&graphspan=month Over 5 inches of rain - virtually of which almost all came within one week. That means grass that normally needs cut every 7-10 takes goes APE. Plus, didn't help that the rain came at the END of our normal 7-10 day window. So it needs cut, and then we get 5+ days of rain. Doesn't lead to the best looking yard for showing the house! I finally got a dry day (though it had rained just the evening before) and I try to tackle the grass last Sunday. My mower is a mulching mower so you shouldn't get the thick clumps of grass. But if you want a good cut when its tall or thick, you still use about half width passes to get a nice uniform cut with no 'mohawks' as I call them where you get a line of grass that escapes cutting for one reason or another. Well this day.. the grass is approx 5+" in the tallest spots. I can't get away with half passes.. I even have to drop down to 1/3 width passes with the mower. On top of that, I STILL get the mohawks on almost every pass. This means not only did I have to make 3x as many passes as I normally do - I had to cut the entire yard AGAIN after I finished it the first time to get ride of the mohawks and to further chop up any clippings. Now that's some thick grass!

Status of Week 1

Well, its been a week, what's happening? The first Saturday we were on the market lead to a few showings. The Open House was dampened a bit by a rainy day, but all total we probably had 6-7 showings for the first weekend. Since then we've had another 3-4, plus 2 today alone. I figure that puts us in the 12+ range for the first week. Not bad - but no serious takers yet. Sitting here writing this I've seen two two people stop their cars and grab a pamphlet from the front yard. Tomorrow is the second open house, and weather should be nicer this time then last, plus there has been more time to advertise... so here's hoping tomorrow gets real traffic. We've done a pretty good job of keeping the house 'near ready' all the time. Probably the only thing we need to do is dust, as we have a pretty regular routine now to keep the litter box clean, rooms picked up, etc. So pretty boring in that respect. Here's hoping tomorrow is a money day :)

Come Get Some!

It's offical - the house is on the market and in MLS http://matrix.mris.com/Matrix/Public/Email.aspx?ID=24624265563 Send all your rich friends that want to move to the link :)

Milestone #1 - We have cleared the tower

Well - today was prime-time. We were set to have the house staged today and preparing should have been completed. Staci worked on cleaning and a housekeeper was coming today to give a house a final 'clean pass'. She came early and worked all day cranking through the place. I worked on some final touch-up paint.. two colors worth. Well, one intentional, the other forced when I started with the wrong color paint! Then just decided to use it while I had it out and touched up the color that makes up the lower stairs and middle level. Then I touched up going up the upper stairs and then put the paint away hopefully for good! There are still 2-3 small spaces that probably SHOULD be painted, but 'no mas' please! I then replaced a toilet seat and tried to replace some screws in a drawer unsuccessfully (why is it Home Depot always has the size smaller and larger then you need.. but not the one you need!!!). Then the relators came and started doing there thing. I just tried to stay out of the way - being complete worn out. End result? Place looks good, and we are cleared for launch. I think the listing goes out tomorrow or something. We even had one buyer come through tonight - our first. So now it's official I guess. Sunday is the first open house. Lets get ready to rummmble!