Update

Not much of one unfortunately...we had our second open house on Sunday. It was steady, but not nearly as busy as last weeks. There were 5 groups go through I believe. If nothing else, it was far less draining this week. None of the 5 were repeats though, unfortunately.

On Monday I got a call from the couple that came through twice last week. He wanted to discuss price. Ok, let's discuss. He thought it was overpriced and explained why. For the market, it's actually fairly priced and 3 real estate agents have come by and agreed that we'd sell it in no time with little problem (so far they're all liars though). So he basically made an offer $30K below asking. Are you serious??? I more or less said it wouldn't sell for that at we went over some other things to consider.

He offered to give me his number and if we changed our mind, could we call him. Sure! We won't, but sure.

So that's it. I've made a couple changes to the listing: the header pic, and moved the kitchen appliances from negotiable to included. And we'll be having another open house this Sunday.

Fingers crossed!

While I was hosting the open house, hubs and a friend went to a couple other open houses we had on our list of potentials. He really isn't eager to move to a town house, so his impressions of those ones were a little biased. There was one in an area that we really like, but the house itself needed A LOT of work. And not good work-like, the addition was sinking and needed to be completely re-done. There was another that hubs was really excited about. Great potential, and the only potential draw back is it's incredible proximity to my parents. We both love them very much and have no problem being close to them or spending lots of time with them, it just might be a bit strange. If that's the only thing against the house, though. It's a very good thing.

Decisions Part Deux

I am having a MUCH more oprimistic week so far regarding our recent-ish decision to move.

Hubs and I both know the decision's a good one-better for us, a great way to make some quick money, and necessary to keep us on the right track to building capital. But that doesn't mean it's easy!

We love our house. Sitting in the family room watching some TV, I see the fireplace I painted (oh my-I forgot what a difference it made!), the potlights hubs installed, and all the other little bits and pieces that make it what we made it, and I'm melancholy.

Combine that with the complete and total lack of inventory, especially that we would like, and we begin to doubt what's going to happen once we make the bucks. Afterall, there's less point in making the money, if we're then just going to get another expensive house and blow all the profit on interest. It's still money, yes, but our goal is to keep it growing.

However, yesterday---I must have had a birthday light bulb. Either that, or I really am getting wiser as I get older-ha!

So, where I've been searching MLS and grapeving using our ideal price range, as you can tell, we've been finding nothing. Run down town homes, condos, complete fixer-uppers and everything in between. There's nothing wrong with any of those options if that's what someone's looking for, but for us, for now-we're trying to steer clear of total fixers, and we're done with our condo days.

Then--I thought "Well, I could expand our range by a few grand and allow room to negotiate in there!". And, voila! Seriously, some of these places that are INFINETELY better than what we were gearing up to have to consider were less than $5,000 away from our original cap.

So now, when I go home and hubs and I check out any new additions I've made that day to our list, it's with a bit of excitement rather than dread. It now looks like we can still use the profit wisely, and not have to totally settle on a place. In fact, with the money we'll (hopefully) be making, we could do some renos and come out with even nicer places, with actual yards (a couple even with pools...nice pools).



We've definitely had to make some choices and think about our plans a bit more concretely than one normally would, but I don't think that's a bad thing. And it's very nice, and very comforting to know that hubs and I are totally on the same page. (It doesn't hurt that with a cheaper house, he'll probably be able to afford a truck he's been pining after like me for Becks).

Decisions...

So, hubs and I are currently deciding when and how to sell our house.

Yep-you read that right. This home that I've been blogging about setting up may soon be re-set up by someone else.
The market conditions are pretty good right now to sell it, and we'd make a good few dollars of it and the work we've put into it the last 7.5 months (has it really only been that long??). We both love this house, but if we eventually want to be mortgage free (or close to it) at an age younger than 85, we've got to keep moving on and building our capital.

So, this puts a lot of things into motion, which is kind of why I've been awol from the blogosphere.

First, we need to decide timing:
We'd like to move before the end of the year because we really don't want another mid-winter move and this winter looks like it's going to be a fairly busy one. So...that leaves us basically 4.5 months! We realize the number of people looking to move (us included) is limited in December with Christmas and the chaos that surrounds it, so...we figure a November 1st-ish closing. We don't know how long it'll take to sell, so we figure we should list September 1st.

That's 14 days from now.

Our list of things to do before we list/show:

1. Completely finish all trim/caulking/painting trim (95% done)
2. Family room pot lights (85% done! Post to come)
3. Rug for family room(done and done! Post to come)
4. Organize garage & shelving(hubs just needs to get the wood and then we can work it)
5. Organize basement(Fortunately an August goal anyways and on my list for tonight)
6. Fix & Iron master drapes(Slow process-they take a looong time to iron, so I'm 2/6 there)
7. Electrical for Master TV(should only take DH about 30 mins or so)
8. Hardwood in upstairs hallway(yee!)
9. Staging (move some stuff around, pretty it up and clean)

I'm sure there's oodles we're missing on there, but that's the bare minimum. I have a write-up done and we'd need to take pics of course once the above list is done.

Since we're waiting until after we sell to buy a new place, there's not technically a rush. If for some reason, there aren't any bites, or we're not getting what we're looking for, we can reconsider since we haven't already bought a place. Do you think that's smart, or are we shooting ourselves in the foot either way?

Therein lies one of the big problems I'm wrestling with today. There's NOTHING out there to buy! Seriously, no wonder it's a sellers market---there's no inventory!

I've been on MLS and Grapevine (the local FSBO authority) very regularly lately, and there's nothing. nada. zilch. Not a thing that appeals to us. Remember-a potential new place has stiff competition in our current home.

Well, let me correct that. There's nothing in our target price range, in our target area and with our target criteria out there currently.

In order to make money off the next house, it needs to be cheaper than this one sells for and have room for improvement (hubs is quite handy, have I mentioned that?). Plus, we like the area near and around where we live right now, and we don't really want to live downtown or much more East than we do now. Does that mean we have to move to the boonies? Kemptville? Manotick? Munster? Arnprior? Carleton Place? How far is too far? Clearly a personal decision and one we've been wrestling with a lot in the past couple weeks.

Another problem? We're cheap. Cheap, cheap, cheap. So we'll be FSBOing it again. No problem-I'm pretty sure our house shows very well and I can handle some open houses. This time though, the cats are staying. Their stuff can be put away, but we're not dealing with that BS again now that there's plenty of room for them to hide in the meantime.

However, with a potentially rushed purchase, do I enlist a realtor? Is that shady---selling it ourselves but then getting someone to help us buy a new place? They may know of better ways to search, better questions to ask us to determine our ideal home, not to mention make the process a lot easier. We've never bought an 'old' house before, only new construction, so a realtor could really help there.

Anyways, there are clearly a lot of decisions we'll be making in the very (very!) near future and, hopefully a lot of progress I'll remember to photograph to post here.

Cabinets are in!

Originally Posted: January 21, 2009

Before I was distracted yesterday, I'd intended to write a blog about our excitement going to check on the house Monday night only to find that the cabinets and countertops were in. Yeah!

I have to give credit to the builder and our shady foreman. I don't think I ever really thought it'd get done in time. I was hopeful, sure, but I think deep down I knew. I know it's not done yet, but the cabinets being in are one big notch off the list.

Here are the 2 shots of the kitchen cabinets I took:

I'm actually a lot more pleased with them than I thought I'd be. I thought they'd be too dark, too boring and too cheap looking. I'm glad that, with the lighter countertops, the darkness is balanced, and with the modern hardware, the simplicity is more sleek than plain (in my opinion at least).

House Progress

Originally Posted: January 19, 2009



Amidst my wild and crazy partying weekend past, I stopped by our new house to check on the progress.

(Note: Judging from the massive amounts of missing snow, it's clear that the header pic isn't a current one. And thank goodness! Exterior siding is actually about 98% completed right now, so that's exciting, I just haven't taken a more recent pic)

We're supposed to close in 11 days (OMG-11 days!!!), and up until this weekend, I (and everyone we knew) were very skeptical about this happening. Preparations for storage had been made, lawyers, mortgage brokers, insurance, utilities, appliance delivery, etc were all informed that we're not firm on our delivery/closing date.

Not to mention, our Pre-Delivery Inspection (PDI) is scheduled for this coming Friday. At a PDI, the house has to be pretty much completed. A few paint touch ups, etc are the exception-everything else...gotta be done. So, the builder actually has 7 days less to get everything done, in theory.

But...I went this weekend and there was some wonderful progress!!!
Painted walls..check!
Baseboard...check!
Window trim...check!
Shelves & Closet interiors...check!
Vinyl/Laminate flooring...check!
Ceramic tile...check!
Half wall & window seat capping...check!
Exterior columns...check!
Extreior Banisters...check!
Ceiling stipple...check! (Unfortunately..I'd love a smooth ceiling, but I'll take any ceiling at this point)
Street address...check! (This was particular exciting...we're 1 step closer to being on the map)

As encouraging as seeing that was, I know there's still a tonne to do to make this house live-able:
Carpet
Kitchen & Bathroom cabinets
Kitchen & Bathroom countertops
Electrical finishings & fixtures
Plumbing finishings & fixtures
Stair Banister & Rail installation
Door Hardware installation
Closet sliding door installation
Garage drywall
Garage door installation
And probably loads other odds and ends

Hubs is very optimistic that it's possible. He works in residential construction, so I tend to take his word over my own skepticism, so I'm very very hopeful. We'll stop by tonight after dancing lexsons to see---if the cabinets were delivered & installed, then we are in fantastic form. If not...I may not sleep well tonight.

Exciting Pics Today

Originally Posted: November 10, 2008

So, I've had a few extra minutes at work today and I took the opportunity to search for photos of our new house. Ours is still in the rough stages---brick just completed last week, electrical, plumbing & ventilation probably getting done this week, so it's hard to imagine how it'll all look when it's done. Plus-there's no model home of ours, so we've never actually seen our house.

Needless to say, I was so super excited when I found the following pics from user Mudz on http://www.buildinghomes.ca/. He's just recently moved in so it's a great opportunity to look at our model. Our floorplan is slightly different as we modified the 3rd floor, and of course the interior choices are different, but it's exciting to finally get to imagine it.

(Disclaimer: Mudz' home is the reverse of ours, so these images have been flipped to better reflect our unit. So any backwards words, etc are explained)

Here's the view as soon as you walk in:

The stairs look like they're coming right from the door, but I assure you there's a good bit of room.

To the left of the front door is the formal room and to the right is the kitchen and great room.
(Here's the drywalled look to the left)

And here are a couple shots of the incomplete kitchen:

And completed views between Kitchen and Great Room:

And if that made no sense, here are the floorplans of our particular model:

It's so exciting to be able to mentally place things and decorate. Another 88 days until closing (unless we can bump it up a week to aid the move, then of course it's 81 days)...and I canNOT wait!