After a weekend spent packing everything we think we can live without for the next week (and a few things we probably can’t quite), the packing situation is starting to look a lot better. We still aren’t completely done, but we’ve got another week to get there.

Here’s some pictures of this weekends progress. It’s finally starting to look like we might be ready in time for next weekend’s move!

We heard back from our real estate agent this afternoon with some really good news: our buyer has reviewed both appraisals (the one that came in low and the one that came in high) and he’s decided to move forward with his original offer on our house! Even though it delayed everything by another week, the second appraisal was definitely worthwhile. We’re really happy with the outcome and so excited to be able to move forward with our packing and moving arrangements.

We are also starting to get really excited about our new house (something we’d nearly lost sight of with everything that’s been going on for the last couple of weeks). Here are a few new pictures we got as part of our appraisal report. Only 10 days to go!

Today we got back the results of the appraisals on both our current home and the home we’re moving to. Our new house was appraised for exactly the same value we agreed to purchase it for. Normally, this wouldn’t be anything we’d be particularly surprised or excited about, but given the issues we’ve had with the appraisal on our current home, we were pretty happy to hear that there won’t be any further negotiation required on the home we’re purchasing. What a huge feeling of relief that was! Now we just have to sit back and wait for the closing.

The second bit of good news we got today came in the form of the appraisal results on our current house. It was actually the second appraisal of our house; the first took place last week and reported that our house was valued at less than what we’d agreed to sell it for. We just couldn’t believe that the appraisal was accurate, so we asked for a second opinion, which we got today. And I’m so glad we did. Today’s appraisal came out just over the amount we agreed to sell it for. Yay! We still aren’t quite out of the woods on this one, though – we still need to renegotiate the sales price with the buyer (taking into account the results of both appraisals) and we’re not sure how that’s going to turn out. Regardless, though, the positive outcome of the second appraisal should work in our favor. Hopefully we’ll be able to get all of the remaining details of the sale ironed out in the next day or so …

So now, the only thing remaining is to pack and actually move … who knew we’d reach the point where that would seem like the easy part of the whole house buying, house selling, and moving adventure!

Packing has started, but that’s not to say that it hasn’t been a slow start. Here’s a photo of our progress so far. Between what’s tucked away in this storage room and the two bedroom closets full of boxes, we think we’ve probably packed about 35 boxes and plastic storage containers, but it sure doesn’t feel like it!

The worst part is that there really isn’t much we can do to speed it along just yet. Because of the revolting news we received last week that our house didn’t appraise for as much as we had agreed to sell it for (and thanks to the clause in the purchase agreement that gives our buyer the right to walk away or re-negotiate the sale price when this happens), we’re in a holding pattern, anxiously awaiting the results of a second appraisal that’s scheduled for tomorrow. The advise we’ve gotten is that (for maximum appraised value) it’s best to have the house looking just as perfect for the appraisal as we would if a hot prospect buyer coming to look at it instead. I guess that’s just further testament to the fact that appraisers are human too and boxes and furniture in disarray can affect their opinion of the value of a home just as much as it would a potential buyer’s.

So, here we are, two and a half weeks after we sold the house and a week and a half until moving day and we’re still having to keep our home neat, tidy, and unpacked while we wait for the appraisal to take place. We’re both finding ourselves getting rather stressed out and annoyed by the situation, but rather than complaining, I guess we should just be thankful that our buyer agreed to let us have it appraised again and to take the results of that appraisal into consideration when re-negotiating a price. Let’s just hope that it all turns out to be worth it in the end!

In the mean time, we’ve gone on a couple box shopping/collecting expeditions over the weekend, so as soon as we get word that the appraisal is complete tomorrow afternoon, I’m all ready to tear into it, create a huge unsightly mess, and make some real progress toward packing. With any luck, our pile of boxes will hopefully be three times this size by the weekend!

It might seems like a minor detail of moving, but we’ve found that packing can be made much easier depending on the box selection. We started with the random collection of boxes that our friends and relatives have had stored in their basements. Now that we’ve used all of those up, we started investigating the options for purchasing moving boxes.

What we’ve found from the mismatched assortment that we’ve used so far is that there’s value in having large quantities of boxes that are all the same size … it makes them so much easier to stack. Of all the different sizes we’ve used, the ones that would probably be classified as “small” have worked out the best since it’s pretty impossible to pack them too heavy and they’re just about the right size to carry comfortably. We’ve also found that boxes that required the bottoms to be taped together won’t hold as much weight as the ones that just get folded together. And, finally, we’ve figured out that we prefer the ones that have separate lids to the ones that get sealed with tape. (The lid makes it much easier to add a random item or two to the box after the fact.) All in all, our favorites of the donated boxes are paper boxes (ones used to ship reams of paper).

When we began looking for boxes to purchase, we started with the U-Haul website since they advertise a nifty buy-back program where they’ll reimburse you for any boxes purchased, but not used during the move. The more we thought about it, though, we realized that this isn’t much different than returning unused merchandise to a normal store; it’s just advertised differently. And since the prices of moving boxes at Lowe’s seemed to be about the same (and we’re there all the time anyway), we decided to try there first. We bought a few of the “Dish & Glassware” size, but were disappointed in the selection they had in-store. (We could have gotten a lot greater variety if we’d thought about it in time to place an order on- line.) On a whim, we also stopped at Staples and found what we consider to be the best deal we’ve seen on boxes for moving. What we bought are actually called “records boxes” and they’re about the size of a paper box with a separate lid. They’re sold collapsed, but fold together into a really sturdy box that can be packed heavy with books or papers with no worries about the bottom falling out. The ones we bought were sold in packages of 4 or 6 and averaged about $1.75 to $2.00 a box, which we consider to be pretty reasonable all things considered.

So far, we estimate we’ve packed around 35 boxes … and between what we just bought at Lowe’s and Staples, we’ve purchased another 30. Hopefully that will be enough to finish packing our house, but I’m not holding my breath. For the size truck we rented, the U-Haul website estimated we’d need between 100-120 boxes! I just can’t imagine that we’ve got that much stuff … but, then again, we have already packed 35 boxes and it doesn’t feel like we’ve even gotten started.

Last Monday was the moment of truth for our current home: the whole house inspection, the pest inspection, and the appraisal.

Good news is that nothing majorly unexpected turned up as a result of either inspection. (Yay!) The pest inspection showed nothing of concern. We haven’t seen (and probably never will see) a copy of the whole house inspection report, so we’re not sure what all was commented on there, but we were relieved to find out from our real estate agent yesterday that there aren’t any major repairs being asked for by the buyer.

The inspection did point out the lack of GFCI outlets in our kitchen as being a safety hazard, so our buyer is requesting that we replace them. Good news is that there’s no requirement that we hire the work done, so that’ll probably be our do-it-yourself project for the weekend. The inspector also noticed that our washing machine has been discharging into the utility sink in the laundry room rather than using the stand pipe. (We’re somewhat ashamed to admit it’s been this way for a couple years … we’ve just been too lazy to make the call to Roto Rooter to have the problem fixed.) Even though it’s not a safety issue or anything that could really prevent the sale from going through, they still requested that we do what it takes to get that problem corrected; something we were planning to do anyway … eventually.

The not so great news from last Monday was related to the appraisal. Unfortunately, our buyer’s appraiser wasn’t as impressed with our home as everyone else involved in the transaction and he assigned a value less than what we agreed to sell it for (something that everyone we’ve talked to tells us almost never happens … ug). So, now, we’re waiting on a second appraisal, which is scheduled to take place at the start of next week, hoping that will help us figure out how to handle the discrepancy in price. Thank goodness our buyer has been understanding enough to work with us on this!

So, one concern abated thanks to the positive inspection results and a whole other can of worms opened with the appraisal results. Looks like the next week and a half (until we start signing papers for the closings) are going to be full of negotiations …

We’ve been doing some research and are getting ready to make a decision on our first purchase for the new home: a washer and dryer. (Exciting, huh?) We were originally thinking we would move the ones we’ve been using in our current home because they’re only 4 or 5 years old and we haven’t had any problems with them, but our buyer wrote them into the purchase agreement and we weren’t really opposed to the idea of not having to move them, so we agreed to it. So, now we’re in the market for some new appliances.

We started by looking at the local Lowe’s and were surprised to find a pretty limited selection. They had some pretty high end machines and some pretty cheap, apartment grade ones, but it didn’t seem like there was much in between. We had better luck at the Sears store, but quickly discovered that we aren’t as “up” on what’s going on in the world of laundry appliances as we’d like to be before making the purchase, so we came home to do some reading. We found a couple of pretty helpful articles in Consumer Reports, but we weren’t that excited about what they had to say.

Apparently, there were some stricter efficiency standards that went into effect at the beginning of the year, so (according to Consumer Reports) our choices now are between reasonably priced top-loading washers that do a marginal job of cleaning the clothes and high priced front-loaders that do a pretty good job. Because the only machines they thought were acceptable performance-wise were so expensive, they didn’t even bother to assign their “quick pick” status to any of them … not entirely encouraging. Maybe we should have thought twice about leaving ours with the house after all …

Given that we’re in this situation, though, we’ve got a decision to make. I kind of like the idea of switching to a front loading machine and (if money were no object), I think the Kenmore Elite HE3T washer and matching Kenmore Elite HE3 dryer would probably be on my short list of front loading machines to consider. While there are many negative reviews to be found on any washer and dryer set, there seemed to be some pretty positive reviews of this one as well. One thing that kind of has me concerned is the comment about noise and vibration issues with second floor installations of front loading machines (which we’ll have in our new home). I’m not sure if it’s something to really be concerned about or just another random complaint that shows up in some reviews but probably isn’t likely to happen for the majority of installations. For a top loading washer, I’m kind of liking the Whirlpool Cabrio HE, although it happens to be a top-loading machine that costs about the same as a front-loading one, so maybe there’s not much gain there. Going with another top-loading machine does take some of the unknowns out of the purchase, but I’ll probably want to do some more reading to make sure we’re not giving up performance for the same price as a front-loading washer.

We still have some time before we have to make a final decision (we need to measure the laundry closet to make sure the models I’ve picked out will even fit in the space and we probably won’t get an opportunity to do that until after we’ve moved in) and then I guess we’ll have to weigh how much we want to spend with how clean we want our clothes to get.

After several days of going back and forth with the various real estate agents, we’ve finally landed on the magic date (for now, at least). The current plan is to close on our new (old) home on the morning of September 28th, although we won’t actually take possession of the house until 5:00pm on Saturday, the 29th. That’ll make moving a little more complicated than we were hoping because we won’t really be able to get much of a start on Saturday before everyone’s tired and ready to do something other than help us move. And we’ll still need to be out of our house by sometime on Sunday afternoon so we can turn it over to our buyer. So, that puts our prime moving time in conflict with everyone’s church schedules. Right now, it’s looking like we probably won’t have much of a choice but to work pretty late on Saturday night and hope that all of our helpers are ok with doing the same!

I’m sure every move is probably as much of a struggle to coordinate as this one, but I’ve been pretty amazed with how much thought has gone in to picking these dates and times. It’s been complicated by the fact that I’ll be traveling the previous week (out of town from Tuesday through Thursday night) and the state we live in has some regulation that makes it so that there has to be a waiting period between the time that we close on our current home and the time that we close on the new one to give the money a chance to change hands. It amounts to being able to do one closing in the morning and one in the afternoon, but really no more than two in one day.

So, the way it sounds like it’s going to play out is that we’ll need to go to our attorney’s office on Monday, September 24th, before I leave to sign the papers for our house. Then we don’t actually have to be there for the closing on our house, so the gentleman who purchased it will close on Thursday (the 27th) without us present. That’ll give time for the funds to transfer so that we can close on our new house on the morning of Friday, September 28th, and the current owners of that house will have an opportunity to close on their new home on the afternoon of the 28th.

Then we’ll have to go in reverse order for the move … the current owners of our new home will have until 5:00pm on Saturday, September 29th to move out of their home, and we’ll have until about 5:00pm on Sunday, September 30th to move out of ours. Thank goodness the people we’re buying from are moving into an empty house and our buyer doesn’t seem to be in that big of a rush to move in or the weekend would be even more hectic than it already is.

I’m just really glad that we’ve finally got at least a partial plan in place so we have an idea of what we’re working toward … now I just need to get a start on packing!

While we still don’t know for sure exactly when our closing dates will be for our current home and our new home, we know it’s coming up quick, probably sometime near the end of September. We’re really excited to be able to move earlier than we were originally thinking, but that also means that there’s a lot of stuff we need to get finalized in the upcoming weeks. Here’s a copy of our current to-do list:

• Visit our bank and lock in a mortgage rate.
• Call the attorney’s office and let them know we’ve sold our house.
• Have the real estate agent fax updated copies of both purchase agreements to the attorney and bank.
• Work with the buyer of our house to schedule the whole house inspection, pest inspection, and appraisal.
• Work with the bank to schedule the appraisal of our new home.
• Meet with our insurance agent.
• Reserve a moving truck.
• Pack!
• Have the gas & electric transferred to our name at the new house.
• Move the cable and phone service from our current home to the new one.
• Update our address for magazines, newspapers, bills, etc.

Hopefully we’ll be able to get a good start on the first half of the list this week. The second half will probably have to wait until we have a better idea of when we’ll actually be moving, which we’re hoping will be sometime in the next week or so …

Only 15 days after initially listing our home, we accepted an offer this afternoon!

Our real estate agent had called earlier in the week to schedule a showing for this morning at 11:00am. A couple of days later, I came home from work to find a surprise visitor (the man who had scheduled the showing for this weekend) wandering around the yard checking out the house. He had apparently thought the home was vacant and was really embarrassed when he figured out we were still living here. We invited him in, though, and let him look around the house. He only stayed for a few minutes but seemed really positive. We thought it was a good sign yesterday when our real estate agent called to tell us that he still wanted to come take a look at the house again today at 11:00, but we had no idea he was so close to making an offer. By 1:30 this afternoon, our agent had called to present the offer!

The gentleman purchasing our 1980’s split foyer home made us an offer contingent on the whole house inspection, pest inspection, and him securing financing. (All of these items should be resolved during the next week.) He’s also requested that we leave the washer and dryer, which we were previously planning to move to the new (old) house. There are no contingencies on him selling his current home and it sounds like he’s really flexible on the closing date. The suggestion right now is to close on 28 September 2007. We’re really excited about the possibility of moving our closing date up by a whole month!

Needless to say, today has been a very exciting day for us! Hopefully, our buyer feels the same way …