Posts Tagged "buying a home"

Priscilla and I bought a house in March of this year. It is a suburbanized home in Smyrna right outside of Atlanta, Georgia. We took our time to find the right one. We worked with a mortgage broker and determined how much we can afford and how big of a loan we can get.  In turn we would know how much house we could buy. Priscilla and I got a kick ass deal on the two story, three bedroom house in Atlanta. The economy told us it was the best time to buy with the home prices and interest rates being at an all time low. We dove in head first and bought our first home. I had saved up some money from freelancing and had a chunk of money from my late grandparents inheritance so we used that money as a down payment and to do some much needed renovations to the house. When we finally moved in we were in a good place financially. We had a great house with money still in the bank. We were happy.

It has been almost 6 months since we have been home owners and the time seems like it has just flew by. Since March we have made several improvements to our new home, some of which we knew about going into it and some we didn’t. When the weather started to turn hot and humid as Atlanta normally does come summer, we noticed that our upstairs bedrooms and closet never seemed to cool down the way they should. I didn’t want to believe we had an issue with our air conditioning, so I put off calling the repair crew as long as possible. Now, we got extremely lucky these first couple of months of owning our first home. The air conditioning needed a new compressor and that was looking to cost over $1500, but our awesome real estate agent David Willard bought us a home warranty on the day we closed on the house as a wedding gift. The warranty covered the entire thing except for a $200 deductible. It was incredibly lucky and we knew it.

The warranty came in handy one other time when our water heater valve was leaking. Only a $50 deducible covered that small fix. Oh, and before the compressor was replace we spent $50 on a deductible for a guy to come replace a non-working thermostat. As you can see, things are starting to add up. We just had our new kitchen table delivered from Room Togo which is just what we needed. It fills a huge hole we had in our main living area and it was something we were planning to buy the moment we moved in. Another expense. The list of things we need to improve or fix grows by the day. Priscilla and I are both somewhat perfectionists and we need to have things a certain way. Because of this I’m sure the list will ever go away.

I love our new home. It is everything I have ever wanted in a house. It is expensive though. Very expensive. I have never been so aware of my finances as I am now. Credit Cards are the devil but they are saving my ass right now. I know things will settle down and my debt will recess, but until then I am watching every bill and pinching every penny. I guess it is good for me. I figured I would eventually have to lean on my credit one day. Living without debt is unrealistic, but I tried as long as I could. It’s a helpless feeling owing money you don’t have. I don’t like it. Not at all. But again I love my house and it’s worth every penny.

My wife Priscilla doesn’t cook.  She never has and I don’t think she ever would have either.  That is until about a month ago when we both decided to trade off days during the week when we both cook dinner.  Not a Fast Food pick up order or a pizza delivery guy.  A real home cooked meal.   Now, cooking a meal at home may seem simple to some people, but to Priscilla, cooking is a really, really big challenge.

Priscilla can clean and organise and even do yard work with all the confidence in the world.  She can take a messy closet and turn it into a rainbow of organised shirts, undershirts, button downed shirts, dress shirts and suits all in order and all color coordinated.  Don’t get in her way when she is in her “”clean mode”.  She is like a runaway train.  She will clean the house til you can eat off the kitchen floor.  I can’t even take a shower two days after she cleans cause it will dirty the tile.  (just a joke there)  She will spend hours pulling every weed in the yard after she mows and edges the grass.  It’s incredible how meticulous she can get over some of the smallest things.

Well, as domesticated as she sounds, she has never been a chef.  Apparently she has never cooked in her life.  Ever.  I, on the other hand, was a line cook in a restaurant for 5 years as I made my way through college, so I know my way around the kitchen.  Now I have always been proud of my cooking ability and have always cooked for myself and then for Priscilla when we started to date and eventually got married.  I didn’t mind then and I don’t mind now but I do want Priscilla to learn how to cook so she can appreciate the world of the Culinary Arts and try new and exciting foods.

Priscilla has always been a picky eater.  Ever since I have known her she has been very particular about what she orders off a menu and what restaurant she attends.  She is usually not  ”in the mood” for anything other than chicken fingers and quesadillas.  She has her moments of being open minded about what she eats, but most of the time she just isn’t feeling it.  The idea of having us both cook opens up the idea of making new foods and trying new things we normally wouldn’t want.  We are letting the other person choose the meal and make it the way they like.  The main thing I wanted wanted to achieve for us both was to appreciate these meals because it took time and effort to create them.

Priscilla was all for it.  She knows she is a picky eater and wanted to learn how to cook.  I would be there to help and she would be there to help me too.  So far the meals ranged from Polenta to frozen chicken fingers.  All in all, we have leanred a lot.  Eventually I want us to take some cooking classes and learn even more.  I want to try new things and cook new vegtables I now consider weird or gross.  Eggplant?  Not sure if that is good or not but I want to try it out.  Priscilla has eaten everythign I have made and cooked up some excellent things herself.  The Pulled Pork was some of the best I have ever had.

We closed on our house on February 24th 2009 at 12:00.  The events that lead up to that day were littered with fear, anger, frustration, stress, and excitement.  You see, after the official acceptance of the offer we had three weeks of Due Diligence and Financial Contingency.  What this means is that we had three weeks to get financed, get appraised, get inspected and make a decision.  During this period, we could walk away for any reason at all.  So we had a lot of decisions to make.  But, in the beginning, it was a waiting game.  We had to wait on our Mortgage Broker and our Realtor to set up our appraisal and inspection and get us financing asap.  Fortunately this was the least of our worries as the appointments were made for early the next week.

We didn’t say much to the appraiser, but the inspector took us on a quick tour of our new home pointing out all the imperfections along the way.  From the beginning, I was nervous that Priscilla would find something to make her change her mind as I knew that inspectors are paid to find something wrong.  That wasn’t the case though and she was surprisingly accepting about the homes tiny faults.  They were minor though.  A few boards that needed to be replaced.  A leaky pressure valve.  Some other little minor things, but nothing to keep us from closing on our new home.

Next we had to wait on the finances.  At the moment we had an acceptance letter James Willard was in contact with us requesting a number of documents including proof of employment, credit checks, proof of funds, etc., etc.  After that it was in someone else’s hands.  Mostly the Banks as they have a list of potential mortgages and they were not going to even get to ours for more than a week.  We waited, but I wasn’t too worried.  This market wants buyers like us and we fit all the requirements.  Plus we had the money and credit.  We waited.

Closing was on Friday, so we decided to do a final walk through on the Monday before.  Everything was looking perfect.  That was about to change.  

Quick back story on the house:  There was a lady living in the house that was not the true owner.  She was renting the house from a young guy that bought the house in 2008.  The details from there get a little cloudy, but all I know was that she did not want to move out.  From what I can gather, she had been doing small renovations throughout the house since she had lived there.  I am not sure why a renter would spend the money to renovate a house they do not own, but, as far as I know, she was responsible for a the dishwasher, the carpet, the unpainted crown molding throughout the kitchen, the updated thermostats, and alarm system, to name a few.  She did these things thinking she would be buying the house.  I guess.  We found out she had lost her job and ran out of funds.  All in all, she was not happy about loosing the home.  OK end of back story.

Our walk through was interesting from the start as when we walked in we heard noises from the upstairs.  Not wanting to freak anyone out, we talked loudly to make sure they knew we were here.  A young African American man came down the stairs and said all of three words to us.  Our Realtor David Willard asked if his mother was home and that we had an appointment to see the house.  That is when we noticed some things.  A broken marble fireplace corner, a broken baluster, and a few ten inch gashes on the stairway wall.  These were things that were new and the boy confirmed that.  We also noticed the alarm system and the thermostats had been yanked off the walls throughout the house leaving large holes in the drywall.  It was not pretty.  As we were leaving the lady living in the house came home and as she walked in the door she threw her hands up in disgust.  Unaware why we were there, she was pissed.

We didn’t know just how pissed til a couple days later.

I get a call from David Willard stating that they would offer $500 as compensation from the new damages, but there was a kicker.  The Lady had taken a key to the front of the super nice dishwasher and scratched up the whole front.  We were not sure just why she did it, but we assumed it was out of spite.  This lady was growing more annoying by the hour.  After I had agreed to the terms and a few hours later, I got a call from David that she has done damage to the dishwasher and that it may not work.  Now, let me remind you, this was a “short sale.”  The seller was broke and had now way of compensating us for the new damages.  The $500 was the limit.  Our only choice was to completely back out, and David seemed to think that they would just let it happen if that is what we decided.  In other words they would call our bluff and let the house go into foreclosure.  He seemed to think we had no other choice but to let it ride out and take what we get.  We were stressed and confused and pissed.  We let it ride out.

The next day the owner decided to replace the thermostats and try to fix the dishwasher before we moved in.  We were pleasantly surprised.  By this time he had kicked the Lady that was renting out of the house and changed the locks.  She had no more overnight privileges.  The only thing was that when we signed he was going to put the old locks back on.  Crazy Lady had the keys to the old locks.  First chore and expense in our new house was a set of new locks throughout. (but that’s for the next blog entry)  We found out the dishwasher was not broken at all.  It was disconnected because the Lady tried to take it!!  We couldn’t believe it.  But really we could.  She was nuts.  But is didn’t matter.  We were happy with our functioning dishwasher.  When we signed the papers, we were content and convinced this was the house we wanted. 

We are officially home owners.

3037 Montclair Circle is tucked away in a little town called Smyrna.  Smyrna is a small suburban town sitting directly next to it’s big brother Atlanta.  Located just outside the perimeter, Smyrna is close enough to the city to still be considered part of the city yet just far enough away to loose most the traffic and craziness.  It is close to the freeway, close to a little town square with shops and restaurants, and just close enough to my office.  The neighborhood itself is a cookie cutter community that has about 35 homes that share about ten different styles.  It’s not too bad, but they all definitely look similar.  They are all brick.  Some of them have basements, and some have fenced in yards.  3037 has neither, yet it is in the best spot in the neighborhood.  Montclair Circle is one street that simply goes in a loop.  At the end of that loop, it continues to a small community of blackstone styled townhomes.  We both share the name Montclair.  Overall, it is a great little neighborhood.

3037 Montclair Circle was built in 2003 and has three bedrooms, 2 and a half bathrooms, a kick ass kitchen with an island and a cool back splash, two story tall ceilings in the living room and a two car garage.  The current owner had leased the property and the current tenant was making some renovations.  They were putting in hardwoods in the living room and crown molding in the kitchen.  The only problem was that they ran out of money before they could finish. Plus, the house was selling “As Is” so we would have to fix the floors before we move in.

 It was originally bought in June of 2008 for $352,000 and the owner soon realized they could not afford it.  It soon began to go into foreclosure.  When we made our offer on the house it had two weeks before it was to be auctioned off to the highest bidder.  We knew we had to act fast.  The house was listed at $299,000 so we made an offer of $280,000 with a month of Due Diligence and two weeks of a Financial Contingency.  This basically means we have a month to make inspections, get financing and commit.  Mr Willard also added some small stipulations that will cover our asses from the seller and the bank.  Overall the process of making an offer was way more complicated than I thought and involved signing a large contract with a lot of things I didn’t really understand.  But we did it.   It was our first official offer.

About a week went by before we heard anything.  We found out that there were two other offers on the table but the seller was interested in ours none the less.  They wanted to slice some of Mr Willard’s small stipulations off, cut our Due Diligence and Financial Contingency down a week and wanted to know if we could up our money offer.  Before we came to settle on this house, we had seen 40 others that didn’t peak our interest.  We were willing to negotiate.   We let them have their cut stipulations and threw on another $10,000 to tell them we mean business.  When we first starting looking, my top price was $300,000 so I was willing to give in alittle.  We submitted our second offer.  After talking with the listing agent Mr Willard told us that they were very interested and they were going to push to make it happen.  The excitement started to build.

After a few days they came back with another offer.  This time they wanted to slice the Due Diligence and  Financial Contingency down to 15 days.  This is where things got sticky.  I really wanted to not have to play hard ball and take a stand because I really wanted this house.  Priscilla thought the 15 days was just too short of a time to decide and I agreed.  We turned down those stipulations and stuck to our guns.  We took a stand and resubmitted our final offer.  

We received the signed offer sheet from the seller three days later.    They accepted.  But this is not the end of the madness.  In a “short sale” the owner and the seller have to agree on the terms.  So now the seller needs to submit our offer to the bank.  Mr Willard says that because it was about to be auctioned off, the bank should act fast and accept within a couple of days.  Priscilla and I are trying not to get our hopes up, but we have our fingers crossed.  If all things go as planned, we could soon be on to the next phase: inspections and financing.

to be continued…