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!

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 …

We got to spend a couple of hours at our future home this morning doing a walk-through with the current owners. We went through each room with them and got lots of great information about the changes they’ve made over the years. (It sounds like they have gutted a number of the rooms, fully insulating the exterior walls, installing new dry wall, and having the walls Kal-Koted.) Overall, we’re feeling a lot more comfortable with everything and are getting really excited about moving in.

We were also presently surprised to see that they had taken their copy of the inspection report and started to fix items that we hadn’t even asked for! In the last week, they’d fixed some concrete and tile on the back porch and reattached a gutter that had come apart. It sounds like they are also planning to purchase a new cover for the swimming pool and have it closed for the season before they move out. While we were there, they showed us the tricks to opening the doors and windows that the inspector wasn’t able to open during the inspection as well. Now all we have to do is sell our home so we can move in!

We got some exciting news about our new house yesterday: the current owners have purchased an empty house and they can move immediately! This means that as soon as we’re able to sell our house, we can move the closing date up and maybe move in before the end of October. We’re really relieved to know that we won’t have to worry about being homeless if our house happens to sell quickly. Now we’re just hoping we don’t have to worry about carrying two homes if it doesn’t sell so quickly …

Our home inspector emailed us copies of the inspection reports from the whole house and pest inspections earlier this week. The reports are pretty thorough and cover most everything we discussed when we were walking through the house, but we were a little disappointed that they didn’t include any more pictures of the property than they did. The inspector had a digital camera with him for the entire inspection and took a bunch of pictures all over the house. He made a comment about his flash not working right, so we’re guessing that the interior photos must not have turned out since they weren’t really included in the reports. It’s kind of a shame that that didn’t work out – it would have been nice to have those photos for our reference.

Based on the reports and what we saw during the inspection, we’re asking that the homeowner fix a few items before closing. Top on our list was a telephone/electrical pole on the property that looks as though it’s being held up by the power lines. There’s another cable running from the pole to the house that looks like it’s supposed to bolt into the house to help support the pole, but it’s come undone. The fix might be as easy as just re-attaching it, we’re not sure. We also asked that they fix the problem with the grounding cable not being attached to the grounding rod on the exterior of the home. We’re pretty sure this is going to be just a couple minute fix, so hopefully there won’t be any objections there. And the last thing we asked them to look at was the three exterior doors that wouldn’t open. There were two on the sun room that wouldn’t open because the carpet was a little tall and it looked like the doors were hung a little crooked too … hopefully tightening the hinges or maybe trimming the doors will fix this problem. The third door that wasn’t opening right was the main back door of the house. We couldn’t get the dead bolt to release on this door … there’s probably just a trick to it that we don’t know about, so hopefully they’ll share whatever that is.

Anyway, their real estate agent is out of town for a few days, so they probably won’t get our requests until the first part of next week. Since there shouldn’t be any major cash outlays to fix any of these things, we’re hoping they won’t have a problem with what we’re asking them for, but it’s hard to say. Up until now, they’ve been very reluctant when it comes to the home inspection … I think the whole idea made them really nervous. At first, we thought it was because they had something to hide, but now it seems like they just didn’t know what the inspection would focus on and they were afraid it would bring up all kinds of negatives that were out of their control. Between the time that our offer was accepted and when we scheduled the inspection (about a week apart), the homeowner had gone through the basement and pulled out all of the inactive knob and tube wiring so it wouldn’t show up on the report. He also said he’d removed some exterior lights that had been in the front trees (they probably weren’t to code). Given how concerned he’s obviously been about the results of the inspection, we’re hoping he’ll be relieved to see how minor the things on our list are and hopefully not challenge us.

The whole house inspection was completed this afternoon. Good news is that there wasn’t anything too surprising. We spent about three hours with the inspector going around the entire property, starting with the tool shop and garage. These two structures were probably in the worst shape of anything on the property. It looked like the garage had probably had some structural problems over the years that have since been remedied. There’s also some concrete that’s in pretty rough condition, most likely due to water run-off problems, but nothing a lot worse than we already knew. Both buildings are structurally sound, so we probably won’t make a issue of it.

Inside the house, the inspector took notes about several things, like a few exterior doors and a bunch of windows that won’t open (maybe due to the high humidity since we’ve seen them open before). The railing to the second floor was also pretty loose, so we’ll probably ask for them to fix that before we move in. The inspector also took note of some knob and tube wiring in the basement and some plumbing that probably could be replaced. We’ll get the full report in the next day or so and we’ll put together a list of requests for the current home owner. Based on what we saw today, though, there was nothing too shocking and the things we’ll ask to have remedied will be very minimal and mostly safety related.

The current home owner showed up near the end of the inspection also. This was the first time we’ve had the opportunity to talk to him face-to-face. It sounds like he’s put a lot of work into the home since they moved in in 1986. It will be interesting to talk to him more to find out about the history of the home. From what he said during our short conversation today, it sounds like the family that built the house lived in it until about 10 years before he purchased the home. Hopefully, he knows some of the history about the additions and changes to the property over time.

Overall, the inspection went pretty much as expected today considering that the home is nearing 100 years old. It was a little discouraging to go through the home looking for (and finding) imperfections, but hopefully that means there won’t be any surprises after we move in.

We just heard back from the swimming pool inspector with the inspection results – so far so good. The inspection was performed by a local company (Pete’s Pool Service) and they charged $65. Pete indicated that the pool is in good working condition and he didn’t find anything wrong with it. The liner has been replaced within the last 2 years and the heater is new. There don’t appear to be any problems with the pump or filter system and there aren’t any leaks in the pool. He also checked the cleaning equipment they had near the pool (the pole/net, etc.) and found no problems with what they’re using, but noticed the lack of a vacuum hose and couldn’t find the winter pool cover. I think we’ll probably check with the real estate agent to see if she can find out for us whether the current owners have either of these items and what type they have. (We’re suspicious that they have hired a pool service to do the maintenance on their pool and may not own their own equipment.) Hopefully there won’t be any major expenses in purchasing or replacing anything that won’t come with the pool.

Pete also offered to train us in swimming pool maintenance once we move in, which is certainly something we’ll need. We’re hoping that (since we’re closing at the end of October), the pool will already be closed for the season when we move in so we won’t have to do anything for the first few months, but we’ll definitely be giving him a call come next summer.

We’ll be getting a formal written report in the next few days that will outline all of the details of the inspection, but from this afternoon’s phone conversation, it sounds like everything is in order. I hope Monday’s whole house & pest inspection results are just as positive!

Photo Gallery of New Home

We took a bunch of photos of the house the second time we walked through it. Only after getting home did we realize that every photo we’d taken was of the interior of the home and we had no exterior photos.

So, here’s our photo gallery. The interior photos were taken a few weeks ago. The exterior photos were pulled out of a virtual tour put together by their real estate agent. We think those photos were taken last fall.