An update

Here's an update for you....there's no update. No offer, nothing about it, no reasons for the delay, we don't even know if they are still going to make an offer. Supposedly, they had to go to their bank and get pre-approved before they made the offer. We were told they were already pre-approved, but not for whatever it is they were going to offer, so they had to go back to the bank.

It doesn't take 4 days to go back to the bank and ask if they'll approve you for a little more money. All we can think is that they did it, and the bank said no.

We have heard nothing from them, and Margot the Agent is pretty frustrated, too. She doesn't know what's going on and doesn't know why we are having a hard time. She was sure we'd have an offer by now.

Yuck. This unknown is the worst.

John did some research and found that mortgage applications have dropped significantly in the last month, mostly due to the first time home buyers tax credit the government offered in early 2010. That's over, so there's little incentive to buy now.

He also read that we are set for the second dip of this recession that's eating away at our savings, 401ks and home values. It's like a big 'W' he said. We went WAY down, and then came back up a little. Now, we're going to dip back down a little before the economy really turns around. That's not good, home sales are already low enough, we don't want them to go lower!

We're just going to have to leave the condo on the market, hope for more traffic and continue to save and save and save. And keep the place clean! At least we're teaching Kyle how to put his toys away now!

The waiting begins...

After our listing went public, we had some great responses! So far, 6 couples have come in to see our place. Not bad for only having been on the market for 5 days or so! The amount of viewings was encouraging, it reinforced that we priced the place well, decorated well, and advertised well. All those things are drawing people in and now we just have to wait for an offer.

And that's what we are doing. Waiting for an OFFER! Yep, that means there's one coming.
There were 2 couples that expressed real interest this weekend. One wasn't 'readable' according to Margot the Agent, and 3 other either didn't like the layout, or wanted more space (helloooo? There were pictures on line and the exact square footage... were you expecting something different? Why bother to come out if you knew you wanted a different layout or more space? stupid)

Anyway, we had a couple come in to our Open House on Sunday and love the place. I got a call yesterday from Margot and said she heard an offer was being put together. This was an indepentent couple (no agent) so she asked one of the agents in her office to handle the buyer side. Technically, she can do both, but it's tough and she prefers not to. She said that the new agent was going to get in touch with the couple and start working on an offer.

We got this great news later yesterday afternoon. Margot didn't think it would happen that afternoon (it would have been about a 30 minute turn-around and that's fast!) so we should expect something later today.

It's later today. I don't have anything...

Patience is not easy in the real estate market! I'm sure there are a million reasons why we have nothing solid yet, but that doesn't make us feel any better!

Let's go, people!

Margot held an agent open house today during the day for agents to come see the place and get to know it before they start showing it. This is good. In case this offer doesn't end up coming, we've had agents running through the place all day who are no doubt just itching to get people in to our adorable place!

Even if this first offer doesn't happen, or isn't what we want, at least we know 3 things:

1. Someone liked our place enough to buy it. Which means others will, too.
2. Our pricing was not totally off the wall. It wasn't so high that no one wanted to even try.
3. All of our decorating, cleaning, straightening, organizing, neatening, keeping-the-toys-put-away efforts are worth it.

Good news!

Now why isn't my phone ringing!??!

We're listed!

Our condo is officially on the market. Sad and scary and exciting all at once. It's very weird to see pictures of your own home on all these real estate websites. (Especially because right now, it's cleaner than it's EVER been!)

Check it out:  COOLEST CONDO EVER

Please feel free to put a nice generous offer on it. Thanks.

We have showings available on Saturday morning and an Open House on Sunday. We're really hoping for a call from Margot the Agent to tell us that people are lining up to see the place!

Now we just have to wait. Which neither one of us is very good at....

January 28th, 2011

If all goes well, this will be MOVING DAY!!! I'm sure it will be cold, snowy, miserable and totally awesome.  On this day, we will officially be residents of 15 Ridgewood Street. FOREVER! We're not doing this again! :)

We recieved the official P&S from Steve the Builder this morning. We have until June 25th to submit our mortgage application and then July 12th for the mortgage contingency. Don't ask me to explain. All I know is that by June 25th TDBank has to say "yes, you can buy this house for this amount" and it's all due July 12th. I think...John is getting a lawyer to look at it and then we'll get to signing!

Meanwhile...Margot the Agent is at our condo now taking pictures for the official condo listing. Should be live today! We'll have our first showings on Saturday and an Open House on Sunday. Everyone cross all your fingers for us!

Last night we cleaned up and de-personalized and got our house ready for random strangers to walk around, poke things, open and close things and judge everything we've done to the place. Sounds fun.

Whatever, it just takes one person to want to buy it! Margot is confident about our sale ability considering the upgrades we made and opted for in 2006 when we bought the place, but we're still in need of some serious luck on the price. It's not "will it sell" as much as it's "will it sell for the price we need". Lots of stressful showings, I'm sure.

The best part about the P&S from Steve the Builder is the renderings that came with it. Similar to the original plans I posted in May, but this includes the changes we made. Here's the house from the front:

Very cute. You can see the dormer window we added over the garage now. We have no idea what color anything will be yet, but we won't have to worry about that for awhile. You can also see the pop-out window on the front right. This will be a very cute little window seat in our study.  You can also see (barely) on the side, the chimney is sided to match the house. This is for our fireplace which was originally on the back of the house.

Here's a view of the first floor:

This shows the knee wall we added to the kitchen in between the living room and eating area, the french doors we added to the entrance to the study, the double windows we added on the back of the living room (where the fireplace used to be) and the movement of the fireplace from the back to the side wall.

It also shows the new mudroom off the garage, and the extra door off the mudroom onto the deck. Looking good!

Here's the upstairs:

There weren't too many changes upstairs, just the windows over the garage, and the addition of a closet in the laundry room. We kept most of the upstairs about the same.

So that's it! Hopefully in a few short months, I'll be able to start posting pictures of actual house, not just drawings.

Now, we just have to wait for some lucky person to come along and buy our condo. Soon!

Dirt pile update!

Good news, the dirt is being moved! See how much smaller our pile is getting? Thanks bulldozer-thing, or big digger, or maybe it's a backhoe?  I need to read up on my construction terms throughout this process!  We stopped by the new house this weekend to check out the movement. John the Agent told us the dirt was getting moved around so we wanted to see for ourselves.

BEFORE

AFTER

Kyle was extremely excited to see the big truck there. Big Tuck. We didn't get out and he was a bit disappointed in that, but we had already been in the car for almost an hour having come back from the Beach House for the official start of summer!

We did ask Kyle if he wanted to take a trip by our new house on the way home. "Boo How?" he said. Yes, Kyle, this is going to be our boo how.

Margot (John the Agent's wife) is coming to our condo tonight to list it. She's our listing agent for the condo, keeping it in the family! We will have an open house on Sunday and hope to get some good visitors and maybe even an offer or two. Money is tight thanks to the market, so we need offers close to or at our asking price (which we don't think is unreasonable considering it's so much less than what we paid. boooo).

We will be crossing our fingers all week for some interested people!