Editors Note: Originall written February 8th
Shh, you can't read this anyways, but we're tentatively set to close on Monday Feb 14th, so while I can't give Jenn a house for Christmas, it will make an interesting Valentines day gift....:)
Of all the people involved in this process, by far the one that I have had the lowest impression of is my attorney. To protect the guilty, I won't bother putting down who he is here, but I also won't recommend him to anyone, ever.
Now the fun starts, things to do in the next week:
1. Get the main water service replaced
2. Get the heating system repaired and serviced
3. Get the electrical panel replaced, and new meter/service installed.
4. Repair some of the leaking taps so that when we turn the water on, the house doesn't flood...
Then we get down to the interesting things, like DEMO!
Monday, March 14, 2011
Shh.... I can't tell you.... but they signed!
Editors Note: Written January 20th, 2011
Not that any of this is going live, but Jenn is paranoid that if we tell anyone any of our good news it will go sour. She might be right, our bank is not happy with me because I had another bank look into giving me a mortgage (his rate was worse actually so it was a bad plan) but I didn't tell anyone! All I did was trim my beard...
Wait, beard? Oh yeah forgot about that part. Like the hockey players that make it to the finals, I decided to stop shaving until we heard back from the bank. We signed our side on December 22nd, and didn't hear back from the bank until the 19th of January. Thats 6 months that we have been working on this deal... if it does fall apart, I'm done with real estate for awhile... But so far it looks good, we should be closing on or before the 3rd of March. I'd prefer the 20th, because that is when my preferential mortgage rate that i have been holding since August expires.. and its a 0.25% difference so it is significant...
More to come, once we have signed I will be mass releasing all of my posts, and then the real fun starts with the renovation. Just think, while time consuming, this part of the process is the "easy" part.... imagine what the rest will be like...
Not that any of this is going live, but Jenn is paranoid that if we tell anyone any of our good news it will go sour. She might be right, our bank is not happy with me because I had another bank look into giving me a mortgage (his rate was worse actually so it was a bad plan) but I didn't tell anyone! All I did was trim my beard...
Wait, beard? Oh yeah forgot about that part. Like the hockey players that make it to the finals, I decided to stop shaving until we heard back from the bank. We signed our side on December 22nd, and didn't hear back from the bank until the 19th of January. Thats 6 months that we have been working on this deal... if it does fall apart, I'm done with real estate for awhile... But so far it looks good, we should be closing on or before the 3rd of March. I'd prefer the 20th, because that is when my preferential mortgage rate that i have been holding since August expires.. and its a 0.25% difference so it is significant...
More to come, once we have signed I will be mass releasing all of my posts, and then the real fun starts with the renovation. Just think, while time consuming, this part of the process is the "easy" part.... imagine what the rest will be like...
Insurance update
Editors Note: Written January 19th, 2011
So we finally sorted out the insurance problem, we had to get a policy which is called a builders risk policy. Basically what that means is you pay 3* the amount for a 6 month policy than you would for a normal 1 year policy... Interesting since they are only insuring the property, but apparently there are a lot of problems with houses under construction spontaneously bursting into flames, and since no one is living there, no one notices until the fire breaks the windows and sends clouds out...
We also had the bank finally respond to the most recent offer we sent them! Woot! They sent us a form to extend the closing date to March 1st... and were sure to indicate that time was of the essence in that extension request.. I'm starting to think that the title company, real estate agent, and bank are all working in silos with no one knowing what the other is doing.. for example this extension probably came from the agent who knows the bank needs 6 weeks to close, so after our offer sat on his desk for two weeks he decided to submit it, and only then realized he needed 6 weeks so he wanted to get the extension...
Hard to tell, since no one tells you anything. So we're still hanging around waiting, still hoping our house doesn't get sold out from under us, and still lying to our landlord telling him we have no plans on moving... all good right? Nothing could possibly go wrong right? Time to go take some more advil...
So we finally sorted out the insurance problem, we had to get a policy which is called a builders risk policy. Basically what that means is you pay 3* the amount for a 6 month policy than you would for a normal 1 year policy... Interesting since they are only insuring the property, but apparently there are a lot of problems with houses under construction spontaneously bursting into flames, and since no one is living there, no one notices until the fire breaks the windows and sends clouds out...
We also had the bank finally respond to the most recent offer we sent them! Woot! They sent us a form to extend the closing date to March 1st... and were sure to indicate that time was of the essence in that extension request.. I'm starting to think that the title company, real estate agent, and bank are all working in silos with no one knowing what the other is doing.. for example this extension probably came from the agent who knows the bank needs 6 weeks to close, so after our offer sat on his desk for two weeks he decided to submit it, and only then realized he needed 6 weeks so he wanted to get the extension...
Hard to tell, since no one tells you anything. So we're still hanging around waiting, still hoping our house doesn't get sold out from under us, and still lying to our landlord telling him we have no plans on moving... all good right? Nothing could possibly go wrong right? Time to go take some more advil...
It just never ends
Editors Note: Written January 4th, 2011
I should go back and update my things you should know before you start this journey post, but for now just venting here... We get down to the wire, and I reach out to my insurance company and ask them to refresh their quote (because hey, its been 4 months) and they say well wait, you don't want to move in until 2 months after you sign? We can't do that, sorry.
Now I am left scrambling in the dying minutes trying to find someone who will insure the house while we are not living in it, and it is undergoing renovations... Oh and to add to the fun, they just lowered the price of the house we are living in now to generate interest in the property... wanna make a bet my property falls through, and someone buys the place I am living in? Leaving me homeless and annoyed...
I should go back and update my things you should know before you start this journey post, but for now just venting here... We get down to the wire, and I reach out to my insurance company and ask them to refresh their quote (because hey, its been 4 months) and they say well wait, you don't want to move in until 2 months after you sign? We can't do that, sorry.
Now I am left scrambling in the dying minutes trying to find someone who will insure the house while we are not living in it, and it is undergoing renovations... Oh and to add to the fun, they just lowered the price of the house we are living in now to generate interest in the property... wanna make a bet my property falls through, and someone buys the place I am living in? Leaving me homeless and annoyed...
Deal reborn?
Editors Note: Written January 3rd, 2011
So here we are (in case you haven't figured this out, I wrote this as it happened and only published it later) in the dying days before Christmas and the deal is back on the table. The selling agent called my agent and told him that he has to put the house back on the market, do we want to make an offer. Um, yes... So we did.
I'm off work, so I have to rush over to staples and scan a bunch of stuff and email it to him (50$ later), he gets everything he need and we wait again. Not long this time, two days later we get their adendum and the listing is changed to under contract! Woot! The adendum actually lets us have until mid february to close, which is 20 days longer than we asked for, personally, forget that we want to close as soon as possible, but we'll see what happens.
Now have to wake up everyone, the mortgage people (our pre-approval expires 31st of December... go figure) the contractor, the hud guy (who is on vacation in Florida and missing the 22 inches of snow we just got) the lawyer etc etc etc... Rushing around madly everyone on board we have to close by the 12th of January or the bank has to re-run all my financials. Not like they will find anything they shouldn't but will slow things down... now I can't get insurance because we won't be moving in within 60 days of buying... and can't get a mortgage without insurance... sigh.. it just never ends.
What scares me ever so slightly is, this is the easiest part of this deal, actually buying the house is the easy part... imagine how complicated the rest of this is going to get?
So here we are (in case you haven't figured this out, I wrote this as it happened and only published it later) in the dying days before Christmas and the deal is back on the table. The selling agent called my agent and told him that he has to put the house back on the market, do we want to make an offer. Um, yes... So we did.
I'm off work, so I have to rush over to staples and scan a bunch of stuff and email it to him (50$ later), he gets everything he need and we wait again. Not long this time, two days later we get their adendum and the listing is changed to under contract! Woot! The adendum actually lets us have until mid february to close, which is 20 days longer than we asked for, personally, forget that we want to close as soon as possible, but we'll see what happens.
Now have to wake up everyone, the mortgage people (our pre-approval expires 31st of December... go figure) the contractor, the hud guy (who is on vacation in Florida and missing the 22 inches of snow we just got) the lawyer etc etc etc... Rushing around madly everyone on board we have to close by the 12th of January or the bank has to re-run all my financials. Not like they will find anything they shouldn't but will slow things down... now I can't get insurance because we won't be moving in within 60 days of buying... and can't get a mortgage without insurance... sigh.. it just never ends.
What scares me ever so slightly is, this is the easiest part of this deal, actually buying the house is the easy part... imagine how complicated the rest of this is going to get?
Deals Dead.. so is the blog I guess, at least for now..
Editors Note: Written November 16th, 2010
So after recieving an "extension" from the bank that basically said that if they can get their title issue cleared up by the 26th they would expect me to be able to sign for the house with 12 hours notice (we turned that particular one down as I need 5 days to get insurance and mortgage out of the way) the bank has cancelled the deal officially.
My agent suggests letting them hold our cash, since we know the state is signing the deed we might be able to resurrect the deal after all is said and done. Robert has the adrenaline needle and shock paddles at the ready to revive this deal, nothing short of a zombie apocalypse is going to stop him from getting this thing closed, and thank god, because I've lost the fight to get this house. Someone somewhere must be trying to tell me something....
So after recieving an "extension" from the bank that basically said that if they can get their title issue cleared up by the 26th they would expect me to be able to sign for the house with 12 hours notice (we turned that particular one down as I need 5 days to get insurance and mortgage out of the way) the bank has cancelled the deal officially.
My agent suggests letting them hold our cash, since we know the state is signing the deed we might be able to resurrect the deal after all is said and done. Robert has the adrenaline needle and shock paddles at the ready to revive this deal, nothing short of a zombie apocalypse is going to stop him from getting this thing closed, and thank god, because I've lost the fight to get this house. Someone somewhere must be trying to tell me something....
Unbelieveable Take 2....
Editors Note: Written November 6th, 2010
The Attorney General for the state of New Jersey (Yeah, seriously, thats the guy I had to track down and convince that he wanted to give the bank his house for free...) sent me a note that he sent the bank stating that he will happily give over the house to them... so whats the hold up... is the bank playing games, or were they really just CYAing and canceling the deal so they couldn't be sued... I hope thats the case because we are really vested in this house now, both financially and emotionally...
The Attorney General for the state of New Jersey (Yeah, seriously, thats the guy I had to track down and convince that he wanted to give the bank his house for free...) sent me a note that he sent the bank stating that he will happily give over the house to them... so whats the hold up... is the bank playing games, or were they really just CYAing and canceling the deal so they couldn't be sued... I hope thats the case because we are really vested in this house now, both financially and emotionally...
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