This New House

We seem to have managed to come to an agreement with the sellers on the items found in the home inspection. Compromises were made, but we were able to have the most important items addressed — some damage caused by leaky seals on the circulating pump for the heating system (damage is purely superficial, but I want the seals redone), and a certification of the chimneys, flues and fireplaces. The seller had the chimney work done recently, and supplied appropriate paperwork showing the results of the inspections, and I had a telephone conversation with someone at the company that performed the work, and they were happy to answer any and all of the questions I had.

There were a couple of other items on the inspection report that will need to be dealt with at some point, but they’re not structural issues or safety related, so I can get to them when I get around to it.

In other positive news, the house appraised for more than what we’re paying for it, and all of our loan paperwork has been moved along to the underwriters. Our final confirmation on the financing should arrive on Monday.

Now, if the sellers would just stop yelling at the folks from the title company….

After a couple of false starts, we finally closed the sale on our Columbia town home last night. There were still a couple of minor hiccups, but in the end, we walked out with our check and the buyers walked out with the keys. Now, we can set our sites on the purchase of our new home. In the mean time, we’re “camping out” in an efficiency at an extended-stay hotel.

We know that there are going to be a few challenges with the purchase — we’ve already opted to pay a little more than we had originally intended. Now, there are some items that came up in the home inspection that we would like done, and the seller is balking. Time for negotiations. I’m sure it will all work out in the end.

701 Franklin Avenue

We learned today that the sellers have accepted our counter offer to their counter offer as written, except that the snowblower won’t convey — it doesn’t belong to the seller. But, this means that we got the house that we really like. The one that meets 99.9% of our druthers. Inspection is set up for Thursday afternoon. We had to pay a little bit more than we wanted to, but at the end of the day, we still did just fine.

Now, some fun begins. More later….

We still need to see one more house before we make a final decision on where we want to make an offer. The problem has been two pounding snow storms this week that have dumped at least 4 feet of snow in the past week (with more on the way next week). I know that to some of you out there, 4 feet of snow is nothing, but to those of us in Maryland, it’s a Snowpocolypse, and that will make getting to the house we need to see difficult.

I’m actually starting to get excited about the prospect of moving. Yeah, it’s being a real pain in the ass right now, going through stuff and getting the house ready to sell. But, as I weed through things and clear out all the accumulated stuff that I’ve been dragging around and not using, I’m starting to feel some weight lifting. Sure, right now it doesn’t look like much has happened in the house. But, there are at least a dozen big Hefty garbage bags lined up beside the house ready for Monday morning trash pickup. And, a full van-load has already gone to the dump (it was almost all biodegradable).

John, our agent and long-time friend of mine is great, helping us with a million stupid questions and putting us in touch with contractors to get the work done that we need to get the house salable. I don’t think we’ll make the December 1st target for listing the house, but we’ll see. Maybe we’ll go ahead and listed even before some of the work is done. We have our next meeting with John on Sunday, and we’ll discuss that possibility. We’ve seen pictures of lots of places on the MLS that are being made ready after the house is on the market.

We’ve also learned, I think, what we want in a house and where we’d like it to be. That will help John greatly in helping it find our new home over the next few months. We’ve certainly started to learn what we don’t want.

Anyway, off now to lunch!