After an almost 2 week absence from blogging, we’re happy to report that we’ve successfully made the move to our new home! It turned out to be a full two days of work and we’re still living out of boxes.

I’ll post more details later, but here are some photos of moving day :

Moving Day Photo Gallery

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!

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.

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.

After house hunting for about six months, we first saw this house about a month ago. A week after walking through it for the first time, we brought our parents back to get their opinions. And last week, we finally decided to make an offer. Based on the seller’s initial feedback, it seemed like we weren’t likely to reach a mutual agreement on the value of the property and the terms of the sale, but after several rounds of negotiation, our offer was accepted Tuesday evening! Pending the results of the whole house inspection (scheduled for next Monday), we’ll be set to close at the end of October!

Our future home was built in 1915 and sits on a nearly 4 acre lot in the middle of a normal residential neighborhood. It has a 2 car detached garage and a separate building currently used as a tool shed (though it resembles a chicken house). The property also includes an in-ground swimming pool (we aren’t sure yet if this will be a positive or a negative). The current owners have lived in the house for around 20 years and have updated most of the interior during that time. It looks like most of the work was probably done sometime in the late ’80s or early ’90s, judging by the colors and decorating styles. The house is certainly in move-in condition, but we have lots of ideas for improvements and updates to the interior as well as to the exterior of the home and surrounding property.

Here’s a couple pictures of the exterior of the home: