UNDER CONTRACT and UPDATE ON LIFE

It took 10 months (305 days to be exact), but we are finally under contract.  The inspections are scheduled for the end of this week and hopefully, by the end of April we will be double mortgage free. 

On another note, I can't believe it has been months since I have been out on the blog.  It looks like everyone is moving along very nicely on building, closing, and settling into to their new homes.  Welcome to all of the newbies, I will be checking out your progress.  Feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

Our community is finished; the last house closed a few weeks ago and everyone is moved in. Several lots still need trees and landscaping, which RH will probably start working on within the next month.  I will take some pictures this weekend and update the "Our Community" page.  Also, we had our HOA meeting about a month ago.

Now that the weather is getting a little warmer, we have been meeting with landscapers to develop a plan for the yard.  We are also working on narrowing down the paint colors for the inside.  We will post our final color choices later.  We haven't bought much for the house, we still need window treatments for most of the windows and we need to purchase a new bed for the master bedroom; we already purchased a king-size mattress --- LOVE IT!!

Also, RH finally finished hooking up the custom tub in the master bathroom.  We will post some pictures later.  We love the tub and shower...well worth the $$$ spent. 

We had to address a few service issues:
1) family room ceiling - the tape on the seam where the ceiling meets the slope is coming down; RH had a contractor come out a few weeks ago to fix it.  It looks good, but I read other blogs where this is a trouble spot and may need repaired more than once.  We will keep our fingers crossed.

2) solarium HVAC - had a minor gas leak.  The gas company came out and shut the unit down.  Thank God, we had the other 2 units to warm the house.  It took RH almost a week to come out to fix the leak. 

Other than that, we are tracking all of the other minor issues that we will address at the 10 month inspection. 

I promise to post more and to add some updated pictures.  I really missed blogging and following all of the blogs. 

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 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

Current House Status Update - Week 1

Well it has been one week since the current house went on the market and "no interest".  The local Realtor tour was yesterday and no Realtors showed up.  We spent many hours getting the house prepared to show and for noone to show up was very disappointing.  We wished for a quick sale, but knew with the way the economy is right now that it probably wouldn't happen.  We can only hope that next week will be better.

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

REALTOR MEETING...

Today we had a several hour meeting with the realtor regarding our current house.  Except for a few minor things, we are ready to put the house on the market.  The realtor will return on 04/26 to take the video and pictures.  As of May 1st the house will be listed and we can only pray that it doesn't stay on the market for very long.

FOCUS...

We have spent so much time focused on searching for the right existing house or the right plan, lot, builder and we haven't spent as much time on getting our current house on the market.  Over the past 3 years, we've been making improvements to our current house (painting rooms, fixing what needs fixed, replaced appliances, etc.); however, now it is time to get serious to finish up all of the outstanding items and place the house on the market.  We have a "To Do List", we just need to focus.  With that said, the next few days (except for Friday, which will be spent with the flooring and electrical contractors) will be dedicated to getting the current house in order and to schedule a meeting with the realtor to get the house on the market and with a lot of prayers and luck get the house SOLD!