I can't take it anymore, this waiting to hear about our offer thing.
I'm so antsy, and it doesn't help that the people IRL who know about this offer have been asking me all the time, "Hey, so have you heard anything yet?", and I have to respond that I'm still waiting, extremely impatiently.
Tomorrow is finally FRIDAY and we were told that we'd hear by FRIDAY or the following TUESDAY. I swear, if they make me wait through yet another weekend that I'm going to end up pulling out all my hairs, one by one!
I'll keep you all posted!
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Sunday, January 10, 2010
It happened so fast...
On Wednesday night, Mr. FEO and I were driving around the town where we'd eventually like to live when we see an adorable little house on a corner lot, with an extra half lot too. It's for sale!
We tell my parents (who are helping us with a down payment should we find a house).
My dad schedules a showing on Thursday evening after work.
We made an offer on Friday afternoon...
And now we have to WAIT until this Friday or possibly next Tuesday to hear back about our offer.
I hate waiting. Nevermind the fact that I think we've flat out lost our minds.
Some specifics:
This house is about 500sqft smaller than our existing condo ... but it has a full basement, so technically, it has more space. It's also on a lot and a half, and after calling the building department of the city, we learned that we can basically triple the size of the home on the existing lot.
The bedrooms are smaller than we have now, and there's virtually no closet space or kitchen cupboards.
It's across the street from a really old cemetary. This kind of freaks me out, but as Mr. FEO says, we'll have quiet neighbors who only come out in October. I had to laugh at that .... because I suppose he's right. It's not a bad thing to have quiet neighbors after living with people on all sides and below us for all these years. To have a house and a yard and a neighborhood is something I thought we'd only ever dream about -- not something that would ever be a reality.
It needs a TON of work. So if we get the house, our plan is as follows:
Before moving in (hopefully over 6 months):
1. Repair the drain tile. There's been water in the basement.
2. GUT the basement: including tearing up the asbestos tiles, taking down the nasty paneling on the walls (it's bowed from the water damage), tearing down existing walls, replacing windows with glass block, replacing sump pump and walling it off so it's not visible, and converting the fireplace that's down there from wood to gas, as well as adding a full bathroom.
3. Convert the entire house from boiler heat to forced air with central air conditioning, using a furnace and air compressor that will sustain up to 1200sqft more house than is already there.
4. Replace linoleum in the kitchen and replace half the cabinets (they are weird built-ins that surround the chimney), and expose the brick of the chimney. Replace the dishwasher (which we learned is broken) and hood fan with a microwave hood fan.
5. Paint walls, ceilings throughout the house.
Within the first year:
1. Replace the rest of the appliances with ones that will also work in the kitchen/laundry after the expansion.
2. Replace windows as necessary.
After the first year, we will be saving as much as possible. We plan to expand the house in 3-5 years depending on finances. The expansion will include a huge kitchen, larger living room, master suite with a full bathroom and a 2-3 car attached garage with a bonus room above. The existing 1 car detached garage will be torn down. Thoughts of the expansion will keep me sane as we live in a work zone for at least the next year! Once we're moved in, we'll get to start looking at plans so we can determine what the eventual cost will be and save accordingly. What's nice is that all the builders, electricians, contractors etc are in my family, so we'll pay cost for everything!!
We'll live in the condo during the first stage of repair. Then we hope to rent it out while we have it on the market. It would give us enough income to make it worthwhile.
I just can't believe how quickly this happened!
You might think ... wait, they don't know for sure they have the house, but they have all these plans ... and that's a very valid statement. Before we made the offer, we had to think about the possibilities of this house to know if it would even work for us. Clearly, we've decided that it will!
We were the second offer. The first offer was put in on Thursday afternoon, about an hour before our showing. Although the realtor can't tell us what the other offer was, she strongly suggested that we put in our offer anyway. We're assuming that the offer was lower than ours. Additionally, our offer was a cash offer and not a mortgage. And since we're dealing with a bank short sale, this is apparently a good thing.
All I can do is try to stay sane for the next week, and keep my fingers crossed!!!
I'm thinking this is more stressful than any fake 2ww that I've experienced in the past year!
Have a great day all!!
We tell my parents (who are helping us with a down payment should we find a house).
My dad schedules a showing on Thursday evening after work.
We made an offer on Friday afternoon...
And now we have to WAIT until this Friday or possibly next Tuesday to hear back about our offer.
I hate waiting. Nevermind the fact that I think we've flat out lost our minds.
Some specifics:
This house is about 500sqft smaller than our existing condo ... but it has a full basement, so technically, it has more space. It's also on a lot and a half, and after calling the building department of the city, we learned that we can basically triple the size of the home on the existing lot.
The bedrooms are smaller than we have now, and there's virtually no closet space or kitchen cupboards.
It's across the street from a really old cemetary. This kind of freaks me out, but as Mr. FEO says, we'll have quiet neighbors who only come out in October. I had to laugh at that .... because I suppose he's right. It's not a bad thing to have quiet neighbors after living with people on all sides and below us for all these years. To have a house and a yard and a neighborhood is something I thought we'd only ever dream about -- not something that would ever be a reality.
It needs a TON of work. So if we get the house, our plan is as follows:
Before moving in (hopefully over 6 months):
1. Repair the drain tile. There's been water in the basement.
2. GUT the basement: including tearing up the asbestos tiles, taking down the nasty paneling on the walls (it's bowed from the water damage), tearing down existing walls, replacing windows with glass block, replacing sump pump and walling it off so it's not visible, and converting the fireplace that's down there from wood to gas, as well as adding a full bathroom.
3. Convert the entire house from boiler heat to forced air with central air conditioning, using a furnace and air compressor that will sustain up to 1200sqft more house than is already there.
4. Replace linoleum in the kitchen and replace half the cabinets (they are weird built-ins that surround the chimney), and expose the brick of the chimney. Replace the dishwasher (which we learned is broken) and hood fan with a microwave hood fan.
5. Paint walls, ceilings throughout the house.
Within the first year:
1. Replace the rest of the appliances with ones that will also work in the kitchen/laundry after the expansion.
2. Replace windows as necessary.
After the first year, we will be saving as much as possible. We plan to expand the house in 3-5 years depending on finances. The expansion will include a huge kitchen, larger living room, master suite with a full bathroom and a 2-3 car attached garage with a bonus room above. The existing 1 car detached garage will be torn down. Thoughts of the expansion will keep me sane as we live in a work zone for at least the next year! Once we're moved in, we'll get to start looking at plans so we can determine what the eventual cost will be and save accordingly. What's nice is that all the builders, electricians, contractors etc are in my family, so we'll pay cost for everything!!
We'll live in the condo during the first stage of repair. Then we hope to rent it out while we have it on the market. It would give us enough income to make it worthwhile.
I just can't believe how quickly this happened!
You might think ... wait, they don't know for sure they have the house, but they have all these plans ... and that's a very valid statement. Before we made the offer, we had to think about the possibilities of this house to know if it would even work for us. Clearly, we've decided that it will!
We were the second offer. The first offer was put in on Thursday afternoon, about an hour before our showing. Although the realtor can't tell us what the other offer was, she strongly suggested that we put in our offer anyway. We're assuming that the offer was lower than ours. Additionally, our offer was a cash offer and not a mortgage. And since we're dealing with a bank short sale, this is apparently a good thing.
All I can do is try to stay sane for the next week, and keep my fingers crossed!!!
I'm thinking this is more stressful than any fake 2ww that I've experienced in the past year!
Have a great day all!!
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