I mentioned that my family and I are moving a few entries back, but now I think I have enough to make a full blown post about it. We have only ever moved once before, and we had 6 years less crap to make the trip with. We moved from a rental townhouse to our current home. It was somewhat disorganized process, but luckily everything that was supposed to come along for the ride did. Moving from one private residence to another is a whole different animal by comparison.
We are fortunate in the fact that our real estate agents and loan officer are close personal friends. That has afforded us quite a bit more information and understanding of what is going on than if we had just chosen at random. This time around, we didn't serve up a notice to our landlord, instead we were held responsible for a list of repairs requested by the buyers. Now we were told we could flat refuse them, but that was amended with, if you do their loan could be refused, and you'll lose the sale. We negotiated for the less expensive items, but ultimately got saddled with the whole list, which carried a $3500 price tag.
We were told at the very beginning stages of this process that it is much like a circus and the real estate agent was directing all the acts at once to make sure his buyers got they paid for. That was never more apparent than this afternoon. Our contractor was in the midst of repairing our chimney; a job he has assured us was going to take until next week to complete, due to the materials delivery schedule he had to adhere to. The type of siding he was using is only delivered on Wednesday, so there was no way he could be back before Thursday of next week to complete the repair. The idea was to close on that day, and he was aware of our completion deadline before he ever accepted the job. Unfortunately, there was no way for him to have known the extent of the work that was needed until he was elbow deep in the mix.
I relayed this bad news to my agent who contacted all interested parties and had our closing shifted to next Friday so all the work could be complete and necessary supporting documentation prepared. My wife took on the task of contacting our utility companies and the movers. The 1st snag came in the way of the movers being booked solid next Friday, followed by the utility company advising us they do not do shut offs on Friday, it would have to be the following Monday. Bottom line was we would have to pay an overnight holding fee to keep our movers (or change movers altogether) and do without utilities for 3 days while paying to keep them running in the house we had just vacated. No thank you! As the day wore on, emotions and stress levels were redlining.
I took a walk outside at 4:30p and found almost all the siding hung, and 2 full slats sitting on the driveway. I looked to the GC's 2nd in command and said, "I'm thinking we're going to have enough siding to finish this thing today" He answered, "We have exactly enough!" These were just the words I needed to hear. With exception of a coat of paint, the repairs are complete. I called my agent back with some good news for a change, and by the grace of God all interested parties agreed to set closing back to next Thursday. It seems this is just meant to be the day, everything fits into place on Thursday.
The countdown is back on track, and 7 days from now we'll be sitting in our new, albeit hellishly disorganized, house. The stress from the last 7 weeks will be a memory and I can finally focus my energy on the next chapter of our lives. There are new rooms to arrange and a whole new yard and garden to tame. The age of New Guedryfell is fast approaching, and I am finally excited about it.
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