Success!

According to the 2 stucco guys from yesterday, there really isn't much wrong with the house! Our inspector just made the situation sound terrible.

We have asked the seller to replace the electrical panel and fix one exterior section of the stucco where it is bowing out. One guy said nothing really needs to be fixed and another said he saw a few areas, but nothing that needed to be done right away.

I feel so much better!

One of the guys even wanted to buy the house out from under me!

Success!

Progress?

After a very frustrating Wednesday, things are looking up. Two guys have agreed to come and give estimates tomorrow and hopefully we will be on our way.

I also had a ridiculous conversation with out current landlord yesterday where she asked if we would like to renew our lease for another year. When I told her we were buying a house, she decided to let me know she wanted to raise the rent again and also she wouldn't agree to let us go month-to-month without us helping her find a new tenant.

Two problems with this:
1. She has to give us 30 days notice for any rent increase.
2. If she cashes our August check she is essentially agreeing with the month-to-month agreement.

I am not sure if she understands this.

Because it is the law, I will accomodate any showings of the house and help with what I can, but I am not going to go out of my way to try and rent her house for her. If she was smart, she would hold on to it for a few months, fix some things, and raise the rent by a lot. If the house was nicer, she could certainly do that.

But back to my house, I think I made phone calls to 10 different places yesterday, basically everyone listed as a stucco contractor on the BBB website, some multiple times and was only able to get one guy to come out. Katy was also able to wrangle someone so we will have two estimates.

I am hoping we can wrap up paperwork tomorrow afternoon and be done with all this before 5 with no extension. I still want to close on August 25th and our lender has assured us we can still do that, even with the new loan! Fingers crossed.

Spirits are pretty low for me at the moment. I've called a few stucco guys and everyone is too busy or doesn't call back. It seems like this process might stretch on forever, and I am not a very patient person. A guy promised to call me back this morning and I still haven't heard anything. I guess he is only a few hours late but when I talked to him Monday he said he couldn't even see the house until Friday and our extension deadline right now is Friday at 5pm. It is giving me knots in my stomach as we wait around. I know no one is currently on my schedule but they should be! We want to pay you thousands of dollars to fix a house! Please call me back!

In other news, we took a look at appliances over the weekend and found the style of refrigerator that we like as well as looking over a few stoves and washers. Nothing we would purchase right away, but something for the future. I think we will stick with white in the kitchen because I had no idea, but all those dumb "brushed aluminum" refrigerators cost like $200 extra just for the aluminum. I think they look terrible anyway if you get fingerprints on them, so white it is.

Oh, and the seller was able to convince someone to come out and give him an estimate on the stucco so that will be interesting to see. Out Realtor brought up the idea of doing one of those FHA rehab loans and having the work done our self after we negotiate a lower price for the house, which would be fine as long as the work can go on while we can still live there. That way the seller could leave and we could get a check to do the work at our convenience.

In some good news, hubs got a raise which will help big time if we ever get to move!!

The "stucco guy" made me feel a lot better about things and our Realtor has assured us that the seller really does want to fix everything and sell his house. I feel a lot better and have been assured everything is moving forward. We are getting a stucco estimate next week so we can present that to the seller. The seller is also getting an estimate so we can compare. He will take care of the electrical panel and plumbing issues. Hopefully we are still on track with everything.

drats

We had our inspection yesterday and it did not go so well. Major problems with the stucco and wood on the exterior of the house. Now we get to call contractors and are trying to find a "stucco guy" to come out and give us an estimate on how much it will cost to repair everything so we can present it to the seller. We also have to get an extension from them since we were supposed to have everything done by 9pm Friday. What was easy, has now become hard. The inspector found other issues but those are easily repairable. If this can't get resolved, no pink house for us.

Our offer was accepted last night verbally and today, on paper. We signed about a million pieces of paper yesterday and again today. We are paying $5,000 less than the house was listed at and the seller is paying all of the closing costs. I feel like we are getting a deal, if I do say so. The seller only countered with moving the inspection up by 5 days, and we said, "Sure! No problem!" Closing is the 25th of August.

The inspection is tomorrow and hopefully nothing too broken will be found. The house has recently been remodeled, so I can't see there being too many issues. Of course, what do I know? The whole thing might be about to fall down!

The one thing I am not looking forward to is moving, but I am going to think of it as an opportunity to get rid of any crap I don't want and pare down what we have. It should be good for me. I see many trip to Goodwill and the dump in my near future.

All for now!

First

We made an offer on the Spanish House last night. It's cute. It's pink. And hopefully it will be ours soon.