Current House Status Update - Week 11 and 12

Well its been 2 weeks since we posted an update regarding the status of our current house and we are now into August with no offer in sight.  We heard back from the couple that we were hoping would submit an offer (see post Cross Your Fingers...) and were shocked with their response.  They stated that they didn't like the layout of the kitchen and that there is not enough cabinet space.  This was a little shocking to us because we believe that our current kitchen has more cabinet space than the kitchen in our new house and we just added a huge pantry to the kitchen.  The cabinets were new to the house 13 years ago; and are in really good shape.  For a 108 year old Victorian house, this kitchen is about 3 times the size as a typical kitchen for this style of house. 

Pictures of our current kitchen.

Needless to say, there is not much we can do about it; so we continue to focus our energy on the things we do have some control over.  Last week we decided to drop the price and we were hoping to stir up some activity.  However, it was another very quiet week. 

Update on neighbors:
Not much has evolved with either neighbor.  Both neighbors have yards that are despicable and we see no help in sight from the borough.  It leaves us no choice, but to move this issue to the county health department and/or even the media.  We will keep you posted.

That is all for now, until next week...

Current House Status Update - Week 10

Well another slow week; however, as mentioned in a post earlier this week ("Cross Your Fingers...") we had a young couple stop by to take a look at the house.  Unfortunately, our realtor has not heard back from their realtor.  So we play the waiting game.  Hopefully, they will approach us with an offer. 

Update on neighbors:
Not much progress....the neighbor that had the mulch delivered has not done much.  The mulch is still in the driveway, less about 3 wheelbarrow of mulch.  The other neighbor has cut his grass, but the playground set is still sitting broken down in the backyard covered in weeds.  We have received no follow-up from the borough. 

Until, next week...

Current House Status Update - Week 8 and 9

Sorry we didn't post last week regarding the status of our current house. So we decided to add last weeks post to this weeks post.  Not much to report...still no calls, no showings.  We didn't get a chance to contact our Realtor regarding our next step.  However, we plan to follow-up with him within the next week to discuss our options. 

Update regarding the neighbors:
We haven't heard back from the council president regarding the status of our complaint.  However, last Friday we noticed that the one neighbor had a bunch of mulch delivered and that he has been spending some time (a very small amount of time) in the front yard with the weed whacker and laying some mulch down.  However, we believe that this is just a band-aide to the real problem and that it is not going to take care of the problem.  Also, we are still waiting for him to remove all of the junk from the front and back porch and to take down the Christmas lights that they hung up 13 years ago and never use. 

We plan to reach out the council president AGAIN to see if we can get a status on our complaint... i.e. how long did they give the neighbor to comply with the complaint. 

For now we are trying to stay optimistic that we will get an offer and be under contract by the end of July.

Current House Status Update - Week 7

Well the second week; no showings, no calls!!!!  We understand that it is summer and people are very busy and are on vacation.  However, we were hoping that it wouldn't come to this.  We plan to meet with the realtor next week to discuss our strategy. 

Update on the neighbors:
We received a response this morning via email from the borough's Council President (not from the borough's Compliance Officer) stating that (paraphrase), "sorry for the delay; however, I didn't realize your emails were going to SPAM.  Please send me the address of the property."  What...we already gave you the addresses.  After the initial frustration wore off; we were thankful that we at least received a response.  We provided the address information and we will continue to follow-up with them until we see some results. 

Thanks everyone for your support with this.  We will continue to keep you posted as we receive more information.

Until next Friday...

NO TURNING BACK NOW...AND MET ANOTHER NEIGHBOR

Hooray, what a beautiful blue sky and day for ground breaking day.  We stopped by the lot this afternoon to catch a quick peek at the progress.  Also, we met another neighbor - this one will live next door to our house in the Esquire house.  She is already planning on adding a fence...to keep the deer out of her yard.  We can't wait to meet more of our neighbors.  So far everyone has been very nice an inviting.  It is so nice that we will all be moving in within weeks of one another. 

The following are a few pictures taken today.  We probably won't make it back to the property until Friday, which by then they plan to be done with all of the digging. 

our lot fenced in



approaching the lot



front yard

front yard

left-side of property

where the public sidewalk will go



start of the driveway

driveway



end of the turn table driveway

...and we have the start of a hole.
(middle of the house)

We have stakes and we met a neighbor.

We went out to the lot on Friday (05/27) to meet with the PM and to go over the layout of the house.  Overall we are very pleased with the layout, except we are a little concerned with loosing some of the backyard because the PM suggested to push the house back an additional 15 feet to decrease the slope in the front yard.  We hope that after we see the final product that we have no regrets.

We went back out to the lot on Saturday (05/28) to take another look and to make sure we are happy with the layout.  While we were there we met one of our neighbors that just put a down payment on a lot and plans to build the Ravenna.  We told him about the blogs and we hope he joins the RH blogging community.

The following are a few pictures of the lot and neighborhood. 

view of the front yard from the street
not sure what happened to the "SOLD" on the lot sign



closer view of the lot from the street

  

view of lot from property line
neighbor's house (Esquire) on the left

left-side of property
this is where the driveway will be located



view of front yard and down the street from where the driveway will be



view of the garage from the front yard



view of the lot looking at the front of the house from the front yard

closer view of where the porch will be from the front yard

view of the backyard from where the morning room will be

 

view of where the morning room will be from the back yard

view of the lot from the backyard

Our neighbor's a cross the street
the house on the left is a Jefferson and the house on the right is a Waverly

view of where the solarium will be
taken from front yard

another view of where the soloarium will be
taken from back/side yard

view from the lot looking down the street and at the model. 
There are 2 lots between our house and the model;
however, the lots are still available.

view of the front yard looking up the street




our daughter trying to find the right place to put the playround and sand box



We plan to post more pics on Wednesday (06/01) from the ground breaking.  We are sooo excited to get started into the next phase of the building process.

Current House Status Update - Week 3

Well another week and no offers.  Due to the lack of attendees, we decided not to have a Realtor tour this week.  However, we did have a man look at the house on Thursday that indicated he would bring his wife back to look at the house.  To date, we haven't heard back from them, but it has given us some hope that the house will sell.

Update regarding the neighbors: Well it appears that the "hoarder" was removing items from his back porch so that he could replace a refrigerator.  Neither neighbor has made any additional attempts to clean up their yard or house.  It looks like we will make another complaint to the borough compliance officer...this time it will also go to his superior.

We look forward to another week of great weather and hope it will bring out a buyer.

Have a great weekend everyone...thank you to all of the armed forces who have served or are serving to protect America.

Current house page - click on the link to view some pictures of our current house

CURRENT HOUSE - NEIGHBOR UPDATE

This is an update on the posting regarding our neighbors.  We arrived home today to find out that the "hoarder" neighbor actually removing items from his back porch...that's a start.  And the other neighbor actually cut his front yard and we can only hope he will clean up the back yard as well.  We guess that the code enforcement officer was getting tired of us filing complaints.  Our next step is to contact the mayor and then the county.  We will wait a few days to see how much progress is made before we move forward. 

On another note, we had another potential buyer look at our current house this morning and we are waiting for feedback, even better maybe an offer.  We will keep you posted.

Thanks to everyone for their positive feedback on our current house and we know we will eventually get a buyer.

Well we are off to enjoy the beautiful (non-raining) day.  Let's go Bucs (for those of you that don't live in Pittsburgh or follow ML baseball, that is the Pittsburgh Pirates).  Have a wonderful day everyone!!!!

Current House Status Update - Week 2

We received a text Sunday morning from our Realtor stating that another agent has a potential buyer interested in seeing the house.  So we tidied up the house and took off for a few hours.  A few days later we received some feedback from our Realtor, which is nothing that surprised us.  However, anytime you receive negative feedback - it hurts.  Especially, after you spent so much time and money to fix up the house. 

There is one issue that is out of our control - our neighbors on the right and left - lets just say to be nice have let their house and property go.  The one neighbor has never cut their grass and we believe they are hoarders and the other neighbor cuts the grass about once a month and the backyard has a wooden playground set that has fallen down and the grass has never been cut.  We filed a complaint with our borough, but nothing has changed.  We don't know what to do next and it is soooo out of our control and it is driving us nuts.

Thursday was local Realtor tour #2 - so we tidied up the house and took off for a few hours.  We returned home to find out "no show" again.  Our Realtor states that we don't have a lot of agents or activity where we live so this is not a surprise. Regardless, it is very frustrating.

Saturday is supposed to be nice; hopefully, we will see some activity this weekend.

Current house page - click on the link to view some pictures of our current house