The Great House Misadventure

So I last left you with our bidding war saga. Well, that came and went and we were disappointed for a while, but as so many people told us; everything happens for a reason. Fast foward a few months and we continued to look at houses mostly online and went in one or two, but we weren't overly motivated to move. We eventually decided to go into a home that was just outside of town on five acres. It had been built in the last decade and had plenty of space. It needed nothing (not even paint!), which was a bit of a contrast from the changes we made to our last home to fit our cosmetic style. After touring the home we decided we really liked it but quickly learned it might be out of reach. The deal had to go through the owners' relocation company which wasn't accepting offers with contingencies; meaning they wouldn't take our offer unless our house was already sold. Well, our house wasn't even on the market, so we kind of let that go figuring it wouldn't be there by the time we got our house sold.

After seeing that it was the sale of our house that seemed to be holding us up every time, we threw our hands up and decided just to put our house on the market. We knew we wanted to move to something bigger, we knew we wanted to do it this year and we knew we didn't have a whole lot to lose. We figured if we sold and couldn't find something suitable we would just rent. At least we'd have a sold house and nothing holding us back next time. So we go through a marathon few days of cleaning our place up, fixing some little things and we eventually get it listed. Our agent, who has been fantastic through this whole process and very patient with us to boot, calls another agent to let her know he's listing our property the same night the sign goes in the yard. She schedules a showing for the next morning and BOOM! Offer, accepted, sold. So, we sold our house in 12 hours. I was in complete disbelief. Not to mention, now that other house is still on the market! Should we offer? Will they accept before our house deal is closed? What do we have to lose?

We make an offer on the other house. The owners accept immediately. We're thrilled! But, alas, the relocation company has the last say and says nothing. FOR. A. WEEK! We wait what feels like a year (but like I said it was just one week) and they ask for all kinds of documents on our house, the people who are buying our house and the people who are buying their house. This frustrated us, but we came to realize that it's a whole world full of cover your own rear-end kinds of practices now so we get it. To make a long story short, they eventually accepted our offer. Yay! Happy! Elation! Relief!

That was only the beginning of what would be the most frustrating month or so I've ever experienced. From this point on it was nothing but little setbacks and threats of the deal falling through. If I detailed them all, you'd get bored and stopped reading, but to hit the highlights: our deal almost fell through at one point (not due to anything on our end) so that threatened our new house deal, that was fixed but then the relocation company wanted more things signed, more documents, etc., the new house had a new septic tank put in (due to the old one being pumped out wrong) so that was a plus but the poor current owners had to move out for four days because of no septic, we found radon during an inspection in the basement (not a deal-breaker but one more thing to deal with), we had to install GFI outlets and fix a door at our current house, and the creme-de-le-creme: our closing was delayed by 3 hours due to a random happening on our mortgage company's part. We literally were driving our stuff around town because our other house had closed that morning and we had nowhere else to go.

So, needless to say it was a bumpy ride, but we got there and we now own our dream home. It's just far enough from town to make my husband happy, but just close enough that I'm not annoyed when I have to go to Wal-Mart! Why can't anything just be simple? Well, it's because of the misadventure factor of course! But life is still good.

We really do live under a lucky star, just as my Nana used to tell me.

Home sweet home!

Misadventures in Real Estate

My husband and I like to drive around. A lot. Probably more than anyone else on the planet. We do it to get out of the house, to pass time at lunch and to see what's on the real estate market. I guess you might call us the eternal optmists when it comes to home shopping. We're always on the lookout for our next dream home. We currently live in what was and still mostly is our starter dream home, but as families change and needs change, different sets of criteria become more desirable for the humble abode. So, you might say we're always looking for what's next. That's not to say we're not happy where we are now, we've just kind of made a hobby out of seeing what's on the market at all times. Some people call it an obsession, we just call it a passionate hobby.

Well, about a month ago our passion paid off, in what we thought were spades. See, with as much real estate as we drive by, view pictures and listings of and dream about, you'd think we go in every house that comes on the market. We don't. We couldn't do that to our poor real estate agent. I'd say we've been in maybe 3 or 4 houses in the last as many years. We've currently lived in our home (your standard 3 bedroom ranch) for 5 years. But on a recent trip to the country for our normal drive we stumbled across a gem (to us, trust me, many wouldn't get it). It was a little gray ranch house on about 3 acres of land with a creek running through the property; my husband's dream back yard come true and one that was close enough to town that I could adapt too. We called our agent, went in it and loved it. It was just a little bigger than our house which is what we had finally agreed was all we needed. It had the separate living and family rooms that I wanted and the landscape he wanted. We couldn't ask for more. After leavning we knew we wanted to make an offer so we left and went straight to the bank. We decided we'd get the offer on the table on Monday (this was late Friday afternoon).

The offer went out on a Monday (mind you this property had been on the market less than a week and in Charleston, IL, time that's nothing. Bidding wars aren't exactly a thing here.). A few hours later we were informed there was a competing offer and to give our best and final. So we did. After a few agonizing hours we learned we had been outbid and/or outdone, we're not sure which. We put in a hefty bid but were financing a certain way and asking for closing costs so we could move forward with the purchase and hold our mortgage and the new one until ours sold. That might not have set with the sellers and the other offer might've had more cash. Who knows. But at any rate, they didn't pick us and we were pretty much crushed. So, the moral of the story is, if you want something, hurry up and get it! Or something like that...

But the sting has lessened and we've decided we will move and upgrade this year while rates are low and prospects are high. Now is the time! Plus, something great might be on the horizon. Things happen for a reason and I'm starting to see how true this can be. We're currently looking into another dream home. Fingers crossed!

Elevator go...nowhere!

Wow! Long time, no blog! I'm back and sorry for the delay. I guess finishing up grad school, teaching a class at the university and taking on some extra responsibilities at work, plus a busy toddler have left me lacking in the free evening time department! At any rate I'm back and I'm going to try my best to keep on posting more often.

This misadventure begins with something I do every Tuesday and Thursday, but it's really more about what I didn't do. I teach class on those days in the same building I work in and I always go up the elevator and into the Journalism Department office to get keys to open my classroom door (which I don't have to now thanks to my very own set of keys!). This particular Tuesday I went into the elevator shut the door and waited to go up. And waited. And waited. I began to wonder, but not panic, if the elevator was stuck. So I stood there a little longer and pushed the "door open" button. It opened and I was still in the same place I started from (I think elevators are like magic little boxes. It's amazing that you can push a button and totally end up somewhere else with the opening of a door). So I walked back in and tried again. This time I actually PUSHED THE 2 BUTTON! Amazing. It went right up. I guess the moral of the story is, make sure to push the elevator button if you actually expect it to work. Yeah, I was "that guy" that day that got in and just expected it to go. In my defense, there are only 2 floors in the building and 2 buttons in the elevator so I guess I just kind of thought it only has one place to go, so it'll go there. Alas, it's not true. So just remember you have to command the elevator to go. Using the force just won't cut it. I happily admitted my error to the J. Department staff who laughed. At least someone got some entertainement out of the whole thing!

I did make it to the wedding! Here's a picture to prove it. Haha!

This reminded me of the time I actually got stuck in an elevator. It just happened to be on my wedding day. I was all dressed and ready to go and heading downstairs to get in the limo. We were married in Sarasota, Florida, on the beach so I was excited to get there and check the place out. A few of my bridesmaids were with me and as we got on, so did about half of a high school basketball team that was headed to a tournament from our same hotel. I don't know if it was weight overload (no fat jokes! There were a lot of people on this thing!) or just a malfunction but somewhere between the 4th floor and the ground level the whole thing just stopped. We all were quiet for a minute and then one of the basketball players pushed a few buttons and nothing happened. We began to debate pushing the help button but decided to wait just another minute. I was getting nervous that I was going to be late, although let's be honest, it's hard to start without me and the bridesmaids!  But anyway, I think a few of the guys could tell I was starting to worry and one of them said, "Don't worry, we'll get you out first and to that wedding if we have to push you out of the top!" That definitely lightened the mood. A few seconds later the thing kicked back on and we made it safely to the ground floor where we all came out with a story to tell. I'm still left wondering how their version goes though.