Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Of Clampettes and Maui

The Clampettes are movin to Maui.  OK not really but close (ish).

We are in a CONTRACT..  and the peasants rejoice (yea)..

On Saturday we finally entered into a contract on a nice little house. A bit smaller than what we are in now but to my liking and in a MUCH better neighborhood.  Close to what will be Kaylee's new school (she starts kindergarten in August) within walking distance.  And work is now only 1.4 miles (according to google) away.  So with that whole math thing.  I "should" be able to go almost an entire month on 1 tank of gas.  Yea right and pigs might fly out my butt.. I mean if I never went anywhere other than work and home.  Which for the next few months might be the case.  I can feel the vacuum that is a home purchase already taking effect on my bank account.

This is what I can't believe.  We found a selling agent with morals.  WHAT????  Yup, they do exist.

They looked at our offer which was for asking (and what the house will actually appraise at) and accepted it within hours of submission. A lovely little 4bdr 2.5 bath 1435 sqft home.  with REALLY nice landscaping.  Kim and I get separate offices (BONUS).

We even managed to do a little recon after the office was accepted.  The owners wanted to go through with the open house they had scheduled for Sunday.  So we went.  Why not.  The selling agent had never met us, so we went in undercover to see what would happen.  To our surprise Mr. Morals was just that.  We were greeted at the front door with a pamphlet  and the statement "We are currently under contract as of yesterday"  YES!!  " But fell free to look around".  So I started chatting with Chad (agent) and told him our tale of constant outbidding on all of the previous housing purchase attempts.  He informed me that the offer they accepted was for asking and if they had had a bidding war offer (you know those 20-30k over asking to "get in" offers) that they would have turned it down as the house wouldn't appraise for that and they didn't want to have to re-negotiate the contract.  You Go Mr. Morals!! 

See..  Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus.

So, now I can stop pouring over listings every waking hour of the day.  Am I sleeping any better?  NO.  Not until my posterior is sitting on my couch looking through the screen door my puppy is bound to destroy (I have faith in her) in our new home.

We are to close on July 1.  When I know for sure it's going to happen I will post the new address as well as sending out change of address cards.  I there any of my readers out there with a letterpress that wants some work???

Derrick

Thursday, May 17, 2012

And the hunt goes on

So, yes I'm still hanging around.  Yes, I'm still sending our stuff albeit at a much slower pace right now.  and YES house hunting is the most time consuming and frustrating thing I have done in YEARS.

Child rearing is not this frustrating.  I'm not sure how many of you guys have gone through this process but for all the stories in the press stating the housing market sucks, they should try to be out there searching for one.

While the NEW construction sector might be in a downturn, the existing market is BOOMING.

We live in the Sacramento area which is fairly spread out.  Much like any urban/suburban area all over the country.. out instead of up in the city.  There are good and bad areas like anywhere.

Now one would think that your spouse, who has lived in this town/city/area for the past 30+ years would know the city.  Might even know how to get from point A to point B  (yes I'm making a sexist remark here).

So here is the problem when you are having your significant other searching for houses using various real estate searches on the internet or ipad app.  While she is finding houses, she is neglecting to actually look at the MAP on the SAME PAGE and zoom out a bit to actually show where that house is.

Ooooo  Look at this one..  Dear that house is at the end of the runway..  Oh.

Ooooo Look at this one..  How fond are you of backyard train sets.  Because it's going to seem like we have one in our room at 2 am.  Oh.

Oooooo... Look at this one.. Fan of helicopters??  Cause I can guarantee you be hearing them at least 3 times a week with a loud speaker yelling GET ON THE GROUND..  Oh..

So this has been my life for the past 2 months.  So while I have not been posting much lately, I have been busy :)

So bear with folks, I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Hopefully it's not an officer shining a light in my face asking me to step back from the ledge.

And with that, I promise to at least keep ya'll up to date on my pending mental trial (I think it's scheduled for mid July) on my ongoing housing saga.

more to come..  getting ready for another mass mailing (think horseys and indians)