$600.00 later

Well, all agreed to August 31st and if all goes well with the mortgage info we should be moving into the fireman's house.

Part of the agreement with the buyer of our house was to do Septic and Well inspections and correct the following from their home inspection - clean and inspect the furnace and get the grounding corrected in the electrical box.

Septic Inspection - $250 - would've been $400 if we hadn't had it pumped last year
Well Test - $75
Furnace Tune up and cleaning - $105
Electrian - $70/hour

Why is selling a house so EXPENSIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

48 Hours

Well after looking at the Fireman's house 3x (including bringing Russ and Dianne out to look at it), making an offer, making counter offers, and trying to get a hold of our buyers....we may have a house. We have 48 hours to get our buyers to agree to the new moved up closing date...Aug 31st. I think it will work out well for everyone involved. Our buyers orginally wanted this Aug. 29th, but we pushed it off, because we were unsure if we would find a house in that time frame. The sellers of our new house want to move in August. That would solve the school problem too.

So with fingers crossed we will find out tomorrow what our buyers want to do.

The Fireman's House

We will receive the inspection results tomorrow. We have heard of a few minor things so I guess that would make our house pretty much sold! Now we have to find a house that we can afford.

We know what we want, but can we afford what we want? We want either a modified 2 story or 3 or 4 level split, a front porch, 3 bedrooms, 2 full baths...but preferably 3(main 1/2 bath, masterbath with corner whirlpool tub, full bath upstairs for girls), a deck, a walk-out, and a fenced yard. So far we haven't found one with all of those things in our price range.

We did find one with everything but the fence...it was fenced on 2 sides by the neighbors. Also the basement was unfinished so it didn't have as much square feet. But it did have a nice deck. We liked the lay-out and flow. It had a big main floor laundry room. The livingroom was big. It had a fireplace. The neighbor behind it had the biggest swimming pool I had ever seen. I half-jokingly told Megan she needed to make friends with those people so she could swim in their pool.

We call it the fireman's house, because it had a fire hydrant and a firehose in the front of the house for decoration. There was a mini fireman's helmet on the mailbox. So in all our conversations with our realtor we call it the fireman's house...to distinguish it from the 4 other houses we saw today.

Brianna was having a tough time with moving tonight. She really wants to stay at her school, but everything in the area is either too old or too expensive. I literally went through all the MLS listings for houses within the boundary of her school with her and explained why the houses we saw would not work. We talked about the fireman's house and the neighborhood. I spent about 2 hours explaining stuff to her and in the end...she seemed to be a lot better with the move.

So our plan is to wait a few days, see how things shake out with the home inspection, rework the numbers on a mortagage with what we will get from our house, then if we can afford it, we'll make an offer on the fireman's house.

Wow! That was fast.....well, kinda

The house went on the market Monday, but didn't hit the MLS until Tuesday a.m. By Tuesday evening, we had 3 showings and a request to see it again the next morning(today). Tonight she(buyer) made an offer.

So I was amazed that we got an offer that fast. I was expecting at least a week. All that work and bam! Sold contingent on the inspection and her fiancing.

But boy, did the negotiations take a looooooooooong time. She came in with a completely unacceptable offer. So we haggled back and forth for a long time. Hours. Countering offers and giving her time to talk to her fiance. Her agent was embarassed that she wouldn't accept our reasonable offers. But the buyer had a fixed price in her mind and was sticking to it.

So in the interest of git r done, we took an offer a little lower than we'd like, but it wasn't outlandish. I was feeling like she had to give me something so we gave her a choice $1000 or push out the closing a month. She picked the month. At least it buys us more time to make sure we have the right house.

It kinda made Shawn and I a little nostagic. Remembering back to when we bought it - our first home. Our buyer is buying the house and her fiance will live in it until they get married. Then they will live in it together. They brought his parents through our house this morning and want to bring her family through this weekend. They are excited. We were excited about this house once, too. I hope they are happy here.

Shawn said "I can see why a girl would want to buy THIS house." It is a pretty girly house. Yellow house with white trim and red door. Flower garden out front. Sage green walls and floral sofa...floral bedrooms.

Starting to Look

Why does it have to be this complicated? We have just begun to look for a house. Not just any house. The house that will become our new home. We cannot afford the "dream" house. I'm not sure that we have one anyway. Just your basic house.

My ideal house would be located where both girls could keep their current schools. Have a nice kids in their ages neighborhood. It would be a modified 2 story with a front porch that I could put a porch swing on. It would have either 4 bedrooms or 3 bedrooms with a diningroom or den that could be converted to a scrap room. The bedrooms would be decent size. Not huge, but bigger than 9x10. Shawn and I would have our own bathroom with a corner whirlpool tub.

I don't think that it is asking a lot...but houses like that go for $100,000 more than I have to spend. So I am looking for the next best thing...I am going to have to compromise something. Not sure just what it's going to be yet. If I find something like what I want...inevitably it is in the wrong school zone.

Ay yi yi. The search has just begun and already I am tired.

Where's my sign?

On Friday, we signed the papers to list the house. We worked all weekend to get the house ready and Shawn even stayed home to do more work today. It was supposed to be listed on the MLS today. The people with the sign were supposed to come today...but they didn't.

Ironic, we are finally ready. It has taken us 2 and half months plus an extra weekend to get ready and no sign and nothing on-line. Sigh.