Definitely sold condo this time

We definitely sold our condo this time. It was sold to the same person that tried to buy it the last time. The offer wasn't any better, but we felt like we didn't have too much of a choice. We probably wouldn't have received anything else for a really long time and we wanted to sell while it was still a buyers market, so we can get a good deal on our new one. Hopefully it won't fall through this time, but I don't think it will. She's not relying on her ex-husband to get child support to her this time for it.The inspections were today, so it's pretty much a done deal I think. We have 6 more days left for it to get through escrow. The closing date is Jan.31st and move out date is February 29th. It's a leap yr this yr don't forget. We have to be out by 4pm that day. I'm hoping that we can find a vacant home. If we find one that is occupied we'll be in trouble unless they want a fast closing and move out too.
We are going to spend the whole weekend house shopping this weekend. We are so excited. We can't wait. Wish us luck. Natalie

 

Woo Hoo, great news for a change. Time is gonna fly now, so wish you luck in your search....

 

Thanks Drea. We're so excited. Natalie

 

Congrats Natalie! I'm glad that you've got it sold and are on your way to a house (and more fish tanks! )

 

Thanks Dave. Yeah I would actually like to start a community tank eventually. Mike and I have talked about doing that. We will see. Natalie

 

Congratulations Nat!! Finally some good news. It will be very exciting looking for a new home this weekend, best of luck!! Keep us posted for sure .........and remember to look for extra room for MTS!!

Val:;sman

 

Will definitely do that Val! Thanks for the congrats. x Nat

 

Hi!

Good for you!;D Just make sure all the fish get to their new homes safe and sound. Oh - and leave all those corners and alcoves empty - you never know what might 'magically appear' in there...>

 

We found a house! I'm so excited. Not ours yet though. Put offer and they counterd back late last night, so we'll be discussing what we are going to do when we talk to our realtor tonight. I'm so excited!! Natalie

 

Oh Nat, that is EXCITING!!! I send all good wishes that things turn out as you want them to. Please keep us posted. Does it have the requisite fish room/spaces???

Val:;sman

 

Yes, it has a ton of room for new fishies. We excepted the counter offer.;D Here is the link for the house if anyone wants to take a peek.

We close Feb 15th and move in. I am so excited. I can't wait to move in!! No more worrying about parking and no more HOA. Woohoo!! Thanks for the congrats, Val.

Natalie

 

Congrats on the house! I hope you're planning where to put all the new tanks.

 

Happy Happy Joy Joy!!! Hey, the pool looks like it would hold at lease 300 fish!!!!! Kidding....what a nice place Natalie, see things did work out!
Very glad you found your new house. That is what I loved most about being a realtor, was helping people with homeownership! I miss it :-\

 

Thanks Drea. We can't wait to move in. We already have the paint colors picked out for the guest bathroom and the 2 guest bedrooms.We are having the inspections on Tuesday. Hopefully nothing major will be wrong with it.We are signing the final paperwork tomorrow night for the sale on the condo. Now the real fun part begins...Packing! woohoo! Luckily we don't have too much more to pack up. We packed most of it before we put it up for sale to get rid of clutter and shipped it off to his parents garage. Yay can't wait. Natalie

 

Well today is the inspection for our new house. So exciting, but also nervous too. I hope nothing major is wrong with the house. It's not too old of a house. It was built in 1971, so there shouldn't be anything too major. I guess even if there is the sellers will have to take care of it. That's the only good thing. It won't come out of our pocket, it'll come out of theirs. Hope all goes well though.

The closing date is tomorrow for the condo. Then the condo will be officially the buyers. We will still live there though till Feb 22nd whcih will be the day we move in our new house. We close on the house Feb 15th, but we want to make sure the place is nice and clean before we move in. I don't need my dogs marking up the whole place because they have a dog too. Oh I can't wait. I hope these next 3 weeks go by fast. Natalie

 

Natalie, that is SOooo cool! House hunting is a very positive thing, especially when things are going your way, like interest rates going down! Hopefully it will go down one more time before you close!

I am hoping for the same thing for one of my daughters. She is closing on an new (old 1955's), home. the 3/4% drop last week was great, but if it comes down another 1/2% before the closing it will make thousands of dollars difference for both of you! It might as well be in your pocket, right? Her inspection is next Tuesday, and unlike your home, there may be things that need fixed, but the home is in "HISTORIC", Fairbanks, near the Chena river, which means it surely did flood in 1967!....Currently the home is a Realtor office, with rental downstairs bringing in $970/month! So for a new couple starting out, expecting a baby in May, it is a good deal at $199,900....talked down from $220,000! 3 bedroom up & I bath, 2 bedrooms down w/ 2 baths. Oak hardwood floors, the only problem is the kitchen was taken out to make one more office. My husband and I get to go up the first week of March and put the kitchen back in.

These things are the HOPE of life.....gives us something to look forward to!!!

 

Thanks! Yes they are. That house sounds like an awsome house. It's costly to do a kitchen all over again, but on the flip side they build it the way they want it and customize it their own way. The kitchen and bathrooms are the most important rooms in the house.Those are the 2 rooms that people look at the most. If it's not going to suit their needs the way it needs to then the house is not right for that person. For my husband and I we look for lots of storage space in those 2 rooms. In our condo we had absolutely no storage at all. We had to make it all ourselves and now there is a ton. The woman that bought it is a very lucky woman because we gave her what we didn't have when we moved in and we needed it.

This house we bought has a ton of closets. It has like 3 closets alone in the hallway leading to the bedrooms, on top of extra storage in the guest bathroom, and a ton of cabinet space in the kitchen. It's only a 3 bedroom and we wanted 4, but we liked the house so much we dicided we can live with the 3 bedroom.

The house was listed at 200,000, we put an offer in at 185,000 with them paying closing costs. They countered back at 192,500 and agreed to pay 2% of the closing costs instead of all of it. All of it would've been 3%. So I think we got a great deal on it. Our mortgage payment will be under 1500 a mo. which is what we wanted and the interest rate we got right now unless it lowers again is 5.75% which is just awsome. We bought at just the right time and sold too.We got very lucky. Natalie

 

You are right about the kitchen, but for her we are putting the old one back in...It was all stored out in the garage. It is not new, but not 1950's either....The idea here is to have the baby, save more money, he is working, she is still in college....Save for 2 years and redo the kitchen to JUST what they want, including french doors out the back to a new sun porch/breakfast room...This is how they will build in equity. The garage is a detached 2 car/ cement block/flat roofed THING. Our idea here is to build up with a studio apartment and really build in some equity.
This is of course dependent on building codes and if they can do it. In looking into costs of running for a home the kids were figuring in all expenses, and this house opened our eyes to something we never even thought about.

Most homes in AK heat with oil/wood/or natural gas , depending on what is available. Wood is $1000-$2000 per year depending on how big the home is and how well insulated. Risky because of fire issues. Oil is expensive. $3000-$5000 / year. Widely available if you have electricity and are on a road. Natural gas, less expensive but not widely available. Only Anchorage, Wasilla, and KenaI at this point...
So when we looked at this home and it had steam heat it baffled us....It is piped from the electric generation plant in downtown Fairbanks.....cost <$1000/year!!! It really blew us away!

Warm toasty home at -50F at a good cost!

We are still looking for the down side.

 

WOW! That's great! Here in Az almost everything is electric out here. That's the only thing I hate about AZ. I'm from Buffalo NY area, so natural gas is a need and for my husband and I still is. Wasn't so lucky to have it in the condo. We made sure the house we bought was going to have it. It's so much cheaper then electric and so much better too. It dries your clothes a lot quicker and they actually come out dry and not damp after an hour and half of running the drier and cooking on it is so much better too. Gas is very scarce out here. There are only certain areas that have it.

My husband and I plan on updating the kitchen down the road, but not for a while. It's not in desparate need of it I don't think. We need to try to save as much money as we can. Natalie

 

Had the inspection yesterday. Lasted for 2 1/2 hours. There is a whole laundry list of things that need to be repaired. I hope the sellers will take care of it, otherwise they will have to give us an allowance. There are a few electrical issues, plumbing issues, a cracked or cut truss, smoke detectors don't work or need battery replacement, etc. So hopefully it will all get repaired or replaced. Natalie

 

Best of luck there my friend and I hope it'll work out most smoothly for you.

 

Well we'll be getting a cash credit from the sellers for the repairs on the house, which is fine. It might be better this way anway because at least we'll know that the work is getting done properly and not sloppy because it needed to be done in 2 weeks.

We also closed on our condo yesterday. So the condo is no longer ours, but we are leasing it for the month. We are moving in our new house Feb. 22nd which is on a Friday. I took that day off and Monday off too to relax and maybe try to empty some of the boxes.We have so much to do.

Some more great news is that interest rates went down again on Monday another 1%, so our interest rate is going from 5.75% to 5.25%, so our mortgage will be even lower. Not sure how much more lower, but with 5.75% it was over 1300 a month. So, if that makes it go down another hundred or so that's fine with me. It would be even better if it went down again before all the papework is finalized.

We received the wire today for the money we got back on the sale on our condo. It was so strange seeing all that money in our bank account.Too bad half of it is going towards the down payment on the new one. Anyway, that's where we are now. thought you'd all like to know. More updates later. Natalie

 

Doesn't all that money make you want to buy me a 120 gallon tank?

 

Woo Hoo, Nat...I thought about you when I heard the feds lowered the interest rate....that's great news. Just goes to show you that things happened when they needed to. And the credit thing from the sellers is great like you said, you can control the work getting done right!
Halleluia Halleluia !

 

LOL dave.

 

Yeah, we almost back out of it tonight because my husband is scared with all the repairs and not having enough money to cover everything. So am I though. We didn't back out though and signed the addendum for the credit agreement.

 

Well we may not close on time thanks to the appraisal company being slow on getting the report back to our loan officer. We are still waiting on it to come through. They did the appraisal on Friday last week and for some reason they don't have the results done yet. We should've had them the same day. What does it take to take a few measurements of the house, calculate it, and call up the loan officer and say, " this is what the house is worth in the market today." I don't think it's that difficult to do. I understand that the market is slow, and maybe they have to dust off their calculaters, but when there is a loan in the works and it needs to close the following week then they need to move their butts and get it done, so we can sign the papers and get the keys on time. We were supposed to sign this week and have the keys in hand by Friday. I don't foresee this happening and I am going to be very unhappy.

We need to be out of the condo by the 29th and if we aren't then we have to dish out more money to the lady that owns our condo now. We don't have money to dish out and I'm not paying her anymore money.This is so frustrating I can't even tell you. Natalie

 

Hey, Nat...Hang in, this process is ALWAYS stressful. If you haven't already discuss your issues with your realtor. They are really the one who should follow the processes, and make sure that things are moving along.I'll send you a quick pm...

 

We definitely won't be closing tomorrow. The appraisal still hasn't come in yet and I guess my loan company is going to call and find out what is going on. Everyone is so frustrated. I guess the sellers realtors assistant called up my loan officer and chewed him out because of the appraisal not being in and then she chewed out his supervisor too. His supervisor stuck up for him and told her he has no control over that and it's up to the appraisal company to get it in.

I called my realtor and told her to call them and tell them to chill out and that they aren't the only ones anxious to close. We are too and trust me we don't want to be paying fees day to day. This whole thing has just been a nightmare from the time we sold to that lady to now. I can't wait till it's all over. Natalie

 

I don't know why two parties can't just give each other the benefit of the doubt! Does the seller REALLY think you have any control over the appraisers. The BANK is the one who hired them, right?

All I can say is there really IS more to appraisal work than measuring and punching numbers. I know, because I am on our State Appraisal Licensing Board, and we oversee appraisers here in AK. It is a fine art of measuring the home, but also the current market in the area the house is located. With the trend in the housing market today, it is to your advantage, if they take the time necessary to value this home correctly.

OF course, it may just be that someone in their office is out sick, on vacation, or got a traffic ticket! Usually since the bank is the one who hires the appraiser, they only hire off a list of firms they trust, so I think you can rest assured that your deal will not fall through because of the appraisal report.

Enjoy your valentines day, and all the rest of this will work out!

 

Yeah. Darin ( our loan officer) talked to the appraiser and they said that in the market right now they are taking extra care in reviewing them because it's such a soft market. They said it should be in by Monday which means we hopefully will close on Tuesday. So we have to ask for an extension on the closing and our realtor is going to ask for it to be extended to next Friday even though we'll be hopefully closing on Tuesday. I guess we only get 2 extensions so she wants to be safe. Natalie

 

Well according to our loan officer we should be closing on Tuesday. He said he should have the appraisel report on Monday. He will be picking up all the fees that are going to be due for the extension. We are relieved about that. It's going to be rush,rush, rush next week trying to clean the house and deodorize for our dogs, so they don't go crazy over the scent of their dog.

I wish we could still get in there tomorrow to at least deodorize the carpets and mop the floor, but by law we can't because it's still in their name and if anything were to happen to us accidentally then they would be responsible even though we said we would take full reponsiblity. Natalie

 

I'll be so glad when you've got it all settled and are in your new home.

 

Yeah so will we. We got the appraisel in yesterday finally. It came in at 220,000 which is pretty awsome. Not so much for them because if they find out that they were able to list it at a higher price and get more for it they'll be pretty upset. We bought the house for 192,500 and it's worth 220,000, so that means we already have 30,000 in equity and that's in a soft market.

We still won't be closing till Wednesday and depending on what time we sign and if they could get it recorded on Wednesday we may be able to get the keys on Wednesday. I don't know how long it usually takes to get recorded. If not we'll be getting the keys on Thursday which kind of stinks because we'll be having a late night Thursday cleaning. We move on Friday. They moved out on Wednesday and are in California now, so we went yesterday to see what kind of mess they left for us and to make sure they shut all the lights off and heat because as of yesterday at noon the utilities were put in our name so we'll have a 1 week overlap of utility bills between both places and we really don't want to pay a high electric bill because they forgot to shut things off.

The house is a mess. They didn't even have the courtasy to at least vacuum or sweep the floors. The countertops in the kitchen and bathrooms are icky, they left clean tupperware in the dishwasher, a few things of silverware in the silverware drawer, and some paper products, towels in the bathroom, plus they said they ran out of room in the their garbage cans , so there is garbage in the front of the house and we better not get fined for having it out there and it not being contained because I have no idea when the big garbage day is for bulk garbage.We have our work cut out for us. I don't know how anybody can leave a house a mess like that. I don't intend on leaving our condo like that. I have a little bit more respect then that for people. I could never do that. Natalie

 

Those people are pathetic.. but I'm glad you got such a good deal, especially in today's market.

 

I know what you mean, Natalie. I have had many buyers deal with this. Also, some sellers will show their house with extras, like walkway lights, yard decor, etc. then take it with them, even if it was put in the contract. Soon all this will be behind you, and you'll be able to enjoy being a home owner! It is worth it!
Hey, the more I know people the more I love my fish and dogs

 

I am so ready to scream!!! This is the last house I ever by. I am never moving ever again. We still have not closed. It is 1:00 in the afternoon and I still have not heard from the titile company to sign yet. I have, however, heard from our lender and he said that now they need proof that we have the money to pay for the downpayment on the house. SO I had to give him the name of the title company we used to close on our condo and thename and number of the person that dealt with it and he needs to call her and have her fax him the settlement papers to provide the proof that we have the money. I am so tired of being told that everything is done and we are just waiting on title to receive the final paperwork to sign off on and then BAM something else happens and puts us back more. We are supposed to move out on Friday and I will not be happy if I have to make different arrangments for a different day to move. We have appt with people at the house this weekend and it's going to screw everything all up if we don't close today. I am so ready to cry. :'(Natalie

 

HI Nat.....so sorry for the hold ups, but for some reason your post made me giggle cause I could just feel the exasperation in your voice..sorry ..but on the bright side, I needed the laugh.

Keep the faith, baby, chin up , things are going to work out the way they are supposed to... meanwhile your patience is surely being tested.

Fingers crossed for you guys!!!

Val

 

Natalie, I know that things seem kind of hectic and bleak right now but think of it this way, you are going to have a lot of room for fish tanks!!! It is a dream come true!! Oh how I do envy you!! Just think of the changes in your life. I always said after each move, NEVER AGAIN but then another one would loom ahead of me and I would get excited for the prospect of having things different and the opportunities ahead of me.

I am happy for you and your hubby and the plans and things ahead of you both. In this day and age a home of your own is a big deal. Congratulations to you both and the best of luck and wishes to you.

Have a great time and enjoy!

Rose

 

Need us to come down and break some kneecaps? Today's gonna be the day my friend.