30 Day Check in

We have been in our new house for 30 days and we still have tons of boxes all over the place.  Our life is settling in and we have slowed down unpacking as 90% the mission critical things have unpacked and blinds hung on the important windows.  Our new house is becoming a home.

Old House - Our old house is still on the market but nothing seems to be happening because of the weather and time of the year.  The old house is still getting tons of online traffic and the number of saves on Zillow has gone from 62 to 88 in the first month of having the new agent.  I had the furnace replaced and the fusebox is scheduled for replacing this week.  I was sure a new furnace would help sell the house but the recent feedback is it's too small.  I don't think the house is meant to be a mansion but a great starter home.  It needs some work which makes it affordable, cheapest house in the nicest neighborhood, and close to everything.  Please keep us in your prayer that someone loves it as much as I did and starts a life there.

NVR - They totally sold our loan and have not heard back from them since.

The Landon - I send out PM an email for some things we noticed need addressed.  Nothing is major which is nice.

1) Guardian never finished their install.  The panel in the basement had an outlet installed and Guardian install a network switch but didn't look like they plugged it in.  They also never installed the outside speakers.  We also cant use our speakers from an MP3 player like in the models which was a specific question we asked.
2) We have 1 door sticking really bad.  This isn't a big issue as the door just needs planed.  I am sure its from the shifting of the house.  I expect more.
3) Our morning room door doesn't shut easy.  It doesn't catch and hold.  Literally we have had windy days open the door if its not locked.
4) The painters didn't finish painting some trim over the garage.  They painted 70% of the trim and left the right side white.  I saw this when I was up on a ladder hanging lights.  I guess since no one can see it they didn't finish it.
5) We have tons of spots where the drywall wasn't sanded smooth before painting.  I can see waves and seams which is common when rushing drywall.  It's an easy fix we are going to wait on for our drywall fix at 10 months.
6) We have a circuit breaker that must pop out when it trips.  It doesn't stay mounted in the box.
7) We have a basement light that wont shut off.  It was supposed to have a pull cord but it doesn't.

About a week ago, our husky decided to pull up some carpet when we were not home.  We keep our dogs locked in the office when we are not home.  Our dog shredded a corner of the carpet, pulled it back, and ripped up the pad under it.  We had it repaired today by a repair man who noted that the installers didn't install the carpet correctly.  I suspect they didn't stretch the carpet and get it on the tacks really tight.  The carpet is super easy to lift off the carpet tacks.  Our repair man said the carpet was installed poorly as properly installed carpet is hard for a dog to pull off the tacks.

The Chaos Continues

So we have been in the Landon for over a week and we are still settling in.  Things are so still very hectic and exhausting.

NVR - I haven't heard anything else from them in the form of the mortgage or the settlement.

Ryan Homes - Our PM called me one evening to check in on us.  He said he was worried when he never heard from us.  We've been so busy with moving and boxes we haven't had a chance to do much.  I did point out that our front light doesn't turn on and we have a basement light that doesn't shut off.  He said he would take care of them when the electrician comes to install the garage light they missed.

Guardian - I have not heard or seen these guys yet.  They still need to install the speaker in the back of my house.  Also, the model had speakers that you could plug an MP3 player into and play over them.  I see that plug but the speakers don't play.  Hopefully they will fix the speaker and let us know how to play from an MP3 player.

Landon - Our home is starting to feel like home.  We are unpacking more and more resulting in more things we used to have around us in life back in their place.  My fiance hung a lot of pictures up this past weekend and I put together the dresser.  We had a few incidents.  Our husky decided to chew a corner of the wall so we have trim now that is chewed on and she scratched a door with her paws.  We had delivery men replacing a bad washer from Best Buy rip the washer leak pan off the pipe.  This took me hours to replace.  Overall the house is working out nice for us.  The grass has me concerned though as it's too cold for the grass to grow.  I have a feeling our yard will be muddy all winter.

Old Home - We fired our agent and have a new agent.  She is doing more than our past agent did.  I feel bad for our new agent because I am pretty jaded towards this situation.  She recently asked me to repaint more of the inside of the house.  It's frustrating because I just want to move on with our new home and spend my time working on the Landon and not a house we don't call home.  

CLOSED!!!!

We closed on Friday and it's been chaos since.  We woke up early Friday morning and picked up a rental truck.  We got home and immediately started packing.  I carried and loaded the truck and my fiance packed boxes.  My father came up and helped take care of a few repairs on the current house that the new realty suggested.

At 11am I signed all the papers.  NVR settlement services were pretty decent and the process took about an hour or more.  I did spend some time reading some of the legal documents such as the note payable.  A few things to keep in mind here.....1) they require full signatures with middle initials and 2) often the date.  They actually take the stack of signed documents to a room for review after execution to make sure your signature is consistent.

I arrived home a little after noon right on schedule for the movers at 1pm.  The movers said they had 2 jobs scheduled with a move in the morning and ours early in the afternoon.  A little after 1pm they called and said they were running late but would arrive before 2pm.  They actually did not show up until 3pm.  They loaded the big furniture with ease in there trucks and by 5pm we were on the road for the Landon.

We arrived at the Landon around 5:45 and everything was dark.  Our sales people left us a nice thank you gift of towels with our a variation of our nicknames for them applied to us.  It was cute.  They also left a small bottle of champagne we never had time to open.  My lovely fiance snuck into the house Thursday night and put up some pictures of her and I at the site during construction.  The house looked beautiful.

Then we unloaded and boxes were just dropped anywhere in side.  By 7:00ish our truck was empty and my father headed off.  7:30 the movers were done and gone.  We were left with a sea of boxes.

Saturday we spent it taking care of the needed items.  My father and I built steps on the back of the house (picture to follow) and my fiance and her family got some stuff moved around.  Her parents gave us an old table and chairs plus a china cabinet.  By 4 the steps were up and 2 loads were moved from storage.  Everyone headed out and we were left to unpack.  Around 6pm some friends stopped past with wine and pizza.  It was much needed but after they left we didn't feel like doing anything else.

Sunday was current house chores.  We headed back and cleaned out the first floor to make sure it was ready for a cleaning person and new realtor.  My old house looked so much bigger empty.  We still have things in a closet in the basement and stuff in the garage, but at least it's not urgent to have them removed.  We also had to empty out a storage unit we prepaid and expired on Sunday.  After 2 trips it was cleared and our garage too full to fit both cars.

This is pretty overwhelming but its coming together.

Almost there and a change of course

We are almost ready for our closing.  I have worked so hard the last two weeks on the phone daily with bankers, NVR, Ryan Homes pushing to get us closed tomorrow.  Our house has been done since Oct. 28th and we are about 2 weeks late, but we'll be in before thanksgiving.

NVR

They use Cleaview bank for some of their debt and they are awesome to work with.  I am seriously considering moving more of my banking to them.  Clearview knew this week had a bank holiday in it but went out of their way to get everything back to NVR the day before.  They are great to work with.  NVR still has been asking for stupid things.  My father is on one of my bank accounts and NVR demanded he sign a letter noting those funds are mine.  Really, my father is on my saving in case I am hit by a bus when cycling.  People do that in a family.

I received my HUD on Monday and it's about 1,300 more than my good faith agreement.  The two things that changed were 1) more tax escrow and 2) additional HOA fees.  The tax escrow is confusing as school years go from aug to aug so pushing back a closing should lower the amount of tax needed at closing, OR the tax escrow is always 6 months and the amount shouldn't change.  I truely think NVR missed the Pittsburgh taxes and they are covering their butt saying it's a timing thing.  The HOA fee is a total blindside.  Our sales agreement noted two HOA fees but the HUD has four of them.  Somehow NVR Settlement is charging me an additional 340 for HOA when my sales contract doesn't list them.  Hopefully they will remove them since it was their error.

We are scheduled to close tomorrow at 11.

MOVING

We are frantically packing boxes.  We have so much in storage already and boxed up in our basement but I know it's going to be a mess tomorrow throwing things into a truck.  We had hoped to hire movers to move everything, but our reduced budget only allows for movers to move the big things.  Our furniture and heavy items will be handled by the professionals and we'll address everything else.  We found a great moving company and if things go well, I'll be sharing their information.

CURRENT HOME SALE

This has been the worst part of moving and one of the top suckiest parts of my life.  While we lowered the price of my house for old items such as furnace and fusebox, the fusebox causes every home inspection to fail even though buyers are disclosed of it and they agree to a purchase price with it.  I'll be dropping another 2k into the house just to sell it.  Sadly this puts my investment into my current home at 10,000 and we are selling it roughly 10,000 less what my Realtor assured me we would.  I basically decided that if I am going to take such a hit and feel the entire burden of this, my Realtor should lower her commission for the lack of accuracy in pricing my house and lack of service.  She never offered so this week I terminated my relationship with her.

Coldwell Banker is a horrible broker to use to sell your house.  When I raised concerns to the Broker he just pushed me off to my realtor's manager.  She called me once and offered to come out, but never did.  What helped me realize that Coldwell Banker doesn't provide good service was when I spent this past weekend interviewing other realtors.  Every other broker firm has a better marketing plan.  They pointed out things that Coldwell Banker did not do such as adding captions to the pictures online.  My realtor never hosted any time of open house and the new realtor wants to do a realtor open house first thing before it hits the market.  I really hope this new agent to actually get my house sold for the value it should get.

Is that the finish line I hear.......

Over the past few years, I have done a lot of triathlons.  I have learned a lot from triathlon....specially a half ironman.  In a long race, something will sooner or later not go as planned.  One race I dropped a water bottle when cycling through the exchange and another race I blew a tire.  I have had races where I was kicked in the face while swimming and felt like passing out from the heat and sunburn.  Some of triathlon isn't how well you plan, but how well you can recover and stay focused.  When I blew a tire during a race, the pit crew were right behind me and while they swapped out my tire and tube, I stretched, took in calories and drank.....making the best of the situation and stoppage.  The best part of the triathlon is when you can hear the finish line ahead.  You can always hear the finish line way before you can see it.  It's like that second wind, the reason to push harder, pick it up and straighten up the form to look strong in the chute.  I am pretty sure I can hear the finish line for our Landon.

Landon

No change in the build as it's basically done and waiting for us.  We had our pre-settlement and just waiting to move.

Current Home Sale

Our 2n buyers have decided not to come back to the table.  This is so very disappointing.  We disclosed the house has a fuse box, and that it is old and should be replaced.  We provided a home warranty for any issues that may come up from the HVAC.  They knew they were buying the home as-is and we still offered to make a few repairs and pay for a majority of putting in a new fusebox.  This first time buyer just got cold feet from the opinions of the home inspector freaked them out.

NVR

Yesterday I took it upon myself to push everyone at NVR for a closing date or a game plan which would lead to a closing date.  I called NVR settlement who said they were waiting on things from NVR.  I emailed Ryan Homes sales and PM about my concerns of having to move our storage unit prior to closing since it was already rented to another person.  I also emailed NVR with more concern.  Cleaview still proved wonderful to work with as they reached out to me.

Well, things kind of worked.  I got a call from my loan officer and her manager.  While he was a little snotty implying the delay was on my end due to the buyer backing out and bridge loan, but ultimately shared information so I understood why it was taking so long.  He said worse case scenario we could close November 19th...best case scenario is we could close on Friday the 13th.  It all depends on if Clearview can close my bridge before Saturday.......At 3:30 yesterday I got the call I can close my bridge today and funds available on Monday.  this would give NVR 4 days to do what they need to do.  Hopefully today they tell me if next Friday is a go.

Pre-settlement, NVR Hell, and Cold Feet

A lot has happened since my last post.  Not all of it was fun or enjoyable which has been the usual for this home transition process.  I really can't wait for all of this to be over.

Landon
We had our pre-settlement walk through on Friday with our Ryan Homes Project Manager and his sidekick.  He basically showed us through the house and went over things and their warranty.  He had a few small open items such as a replacement cabinet has not yet arrived along with the replacement garage door panel.  He said this wasn't an inspection, but for us to make a list and he'll have them addressed at the 30 day review mark.  He also had a bunch of papers to sign and went over his survey.

He asked when do we close as we were supposed to be closing today.....seriously.....today I was supposed to be signing papers.  We told him we were told it would be another 4 weeks.  He made sure we knew his survey was separate of NVR mortgage.  He said he would call someone, but I doubt he has any pull to move NVR along.

NVR
Our mortgage broker seems to be passing the buck and not taking command of getting us a closing date.  NVR points the finger to Clearview and Clearview points the finger back to NVR.  Neither is able or willing to propose a closing date.  What is super annoying is that NVR keep harassing me for stuff that I'm waiting on from Clearview and told them that.  I have tried to call people and no one is answering their phones today......so I guess today isn't the day we find out if we close on November 12th.

Home Buyers
Our 2nd set of home buyers are backing out.  We fully disclosed the prior inspection report and they knew what they were purchasing.  After their home inspection, they feel our fuse box needs replaced even though we discussed it with them before they ever saw the house.  This is so dam frustrating dealing with kids who sign contracts to buy and then weasel out of the purchase via the home inspection.  My house is under market price due to condition but they still expect me to spend thousands for replacement of working systems so they feel safer.  I'm tired of all the young buyers getting cold feet after they sign on the line.

Hopefully this week will be better.

Hopefully we will get to live in our new house instead of looking through the windows.

Limbo

Nothing really improved today with NVR.  They had some external credit reporting agency contact me to approve an information request they have with the bank doing the sub debt and bridge loan.  NVR needs this third party credit investigating to obtain and confirm the bridge loan account number, date it was opened, and the day of the first payment.

Up to this point I have been all I can to get the closing done as soon as possible.  I picked up the phone and called my Clearview loan processor who didn't answer.  I decided to shoot her an email.  Clearview responded with they can't provide them anything since it has not started yet.

I think NVR is trying to confirm the bridge loan that doesn't go into affect until the closing on the Landon.  I'm not sure why NVR is pushing for this because it makes sense that it's not in effect yet.

NVR also tried to get me to update a form that they need updated with in 20 days of a closing.  I basically pushed back and told them I'm not investing more time into a form that might not be needed if my closing is going to take longer than 20 days.  When I get a firm closing date I'll fill out the needed forms.

I feel very much disappointed we wont be closing next week and no one is giving us another date.  I feel we have fallen off into Limbo and no one really cares.  How can NVR and Ryan Homes give people a firm closing date 90 days out from closing, but cant give us a date when our house is done this week.

We are now hoping for November 12th....but with the Limbo we are in, I doubt we'll get confirmation of a day anytime soon.

So Close.... but still so far away

NVR Update

Well, last week NVR set the exceptions with me that we'd get a new firm closing date today when my file leaves underwriting.  My NVR loan officer made it sound like she'd know for sure today when the file is done.  Well.....here we are today and yes......the file is done and on its way to Clearview and my NVR loan officer still can't provide me a date.

Today the NVR loan Officer says it could take up to 4 more weeks to clear the next set of underwriting.  That is another entire month.  I have been working with them since October 1st and while we had a bump because of the buyer backout and bridge loan, they still have 2 weeks to process before our pushed back closing date of November 5th.  I don't see how they would need to push it back past November 12th.... that's three weeks still and they should have 1 week of work already down over the past month.

I guess we are stuck in limbo and need to cancel all of our deliveries and movers.  Our house will be completed this week and will just sit until NVR can get all of the paperwork completed.

Home Stretch

Friday my fiancé sends me a text that she wants to go to the Landon.  We had originally talked about going up Saturday after taking a load to storage.  Our weeks have been exhausting and we both could use the excitement of the house.  We got to meet with our PM who stopped past.

The Landon

It’s in the home stretch of construction.  Basically this week they have punch list items to work on.  They put the first layer down of asphalt for the driveway, put forms for the sidewalk, and been touching up problems.  Our PM stopped past and caught us inside with a funny exchange:

PM-How did you get inside?

ME-I have a key

PM-Do you have a construction key?

FIANCE-No, the door was unlocked, don’t believe her.

PM-Laughter

He gave us a quick tour and scolded us for being there and seeing the house a mess.  We honestly didn’t mind it at all.  Friday we emailed him to ask if we could walk through this weekend and create a punch list of items to fix.  He said that it’s not needed until after quality control check that happens on Wednesday.  He said the blue tape would just irritate people.  So here is how he explained it to me.  He’s spending Saturday to Tuesday finishing up the house, cleaning, and his quality inspection.  Then a third party inspector comes in Wednesday and reviews his work.  Our PM noted that a portion of his compensation is based on these third party inspectors and their report is critical for his pay.  This means he has to pass their inspection before doing a pre-settlement walk with us.  Basically he said for this inspection the house needs to be in the shape as if it were being delivered to us.

The electrical problems is because the electricians who did the rough in just pulled wires, and another group put in the fixtures all while the power is off.  The electricians return when the power is turned on and finish their connections.  I find it’s mainly the three way switches.  This should be getting fixed today.

Friday is our Pre-settlement walk through.  We promised the PM we would stay out until then.

NVR

When I pushed NVR for a closing date, they said my file was still in underwriting and can’t give me a date until it is out.  This is so annoying.  I know we lost some days from our buyer backing out, but it happened just as we cleared underwriting so I’m not sure why they need the same amount of time to review….only one thing changed…..the bridge loan.

Hopefully today they give us a date so we can call and hire movers, arrange deliveries, and get utilities moved.

Current Home

We have our home inspection this week.  All of the major items from the last inspection report were addressed with the exception of replacing the fuse box.  This weekend I also banged out some of the smaller items like replacing the old outside outlet with a new GFI outlet.  Hopefully these buyers are more realistic that they are buying a 60 year old “used” house.

We responded to the prior buyer’s agent who has been threatening us with a lawsuit over me not signing their release.  I had my legal consultant write them a blistering letter citing that I’m still within my contractual time frame to decide if I want to make a claim on the hand money or not.  This guy caused a lot of financial damage when he made demands for replacements 1) already addressed in the price and 2) exceeded his own inspectors repair suggestions.  Once we pointed out he breached the contract with those two items and we sustained damages, we haven’t heard back from this agent.

Moving

We bought more moving boxes from Home Depot and kept filling boxes most of the weekend.  Home Depot boxes are cheap and I strongly recommend using them over trying to find free boxes at a store.  We still have so much more to box up and move.   The fiancé found a company that moves you and also puts together things taken apart for the move such as a bed.  I don’t mind taking a bed apart and putting it back together, but I am pretty sure we are going to be over whelmed and they might be worth it.  We’ll know more what options we have when we know when we are closing.

Now for pictures

The Front of Our Home

Yeah....we have a railing

The AC compressor installed on the small side of the yard

What's this switch do?

Things have been moving forward on all fronts and it looks like we will be in the house sometime in early November.  The lenders can't confirm a date but everyone feels comfortable telling me early November. Here's the updates on everything:

Landon
My partner had class cancelled last night and I had a rough day so we decided to go check out our new home and how close they are to being completed.  They started to install appliances which I thought we would be locked out but we aren't.  There was a contractor working across the street who plugged into our house.  We aren't sure if that is why the house was unlocked but we were happy to go inside.

They continue to work on the inside and improve things.  We noticed the carpet was down, toilets were installed, and a lot of the damage to the walls were being fixed.  The house had tons of nicks and dents but most were addressed.  The paint around the railings were touched up.  The sink in the garage was installed and spickets on the outside pipes.  The dishwasher was put into the kitchen and started.  The hot water heater was installed, but the water hasn't been turned on.

Now one thing we noticed was with the electrical.  The two of us walked around trying to turn on lights and we found a bunch of switches that do not do anything.  A good example is there are no switches that turn on our dining room light.  The best is out master bedroom walk in closets.  The 2nd closet doesn't work unless the light is on in the 1st closet.  It seems like the electrical is a mess.

There are still a few punch list items they haven't addressed or taken care of.  They are:
1) We still have a dent in one of the panels of the garage door
2) Guardian never moved the external speaker or even responded to us about it
3) The loose hot water pipe was tightened by the cover and it not lined up with the cold water....basically the hot water pipe is 3 inches lower than the cold water pipe.  It's not that noticeable since it's in a vanity, but considering all the headaches buyers are doing to my house, this should have been perfect.

We also noticed they started to backfill the ground up to the house.  There are spots were it looks like stone is missing as there is a gap between where the stone ends and the ground begins.  Hopefully they fix this.  The morning room door still doesn't have trim and the outside is missing siding.  The seams on the siding on the front of the house was overlapped in the wrong direction so you can see them when standing in the front door.  We can't figure out why so many switches do nothing.

We aren't getting involved and letter our PM do his job.  We'll get out final check soon where we make a final punch list.

NVR & Clearview
The bridge loan officer submitted everything to underwriting yesterday morning.  Her and I talked and exchanged estimates of loan payments, etc. and it seems the monthly debt service will be less than estimated.  NVR is still stuck waiting on a term sheet from Clearview.  I hope to get this today so NVR can do their final check.  Hopefully this paperwork can be ready for a Nov 5th closing.

Home Sale good and bad
The new buyers seem really nice and their agent is working on the closing.  We have a settlement company already and they already asked for utilities.  To make sure we disclose everything, we gave them a copy of the prior buyer's inspection report so there is no "I didn't know" and that this house is "as-is".  I like this younger couple and they are so nice and reasonable so far I am knocking out extra home projects for them.  This weekend I might replace a yucky water trap for them and work on a home owners manual.

The prior buyer's agent sent me a nasty email since I have not signed the release of the hand money deposit.  We incurred financial damages from him backing out of the deal and he did it by making unrealistic demands of replacing the deck when his inspector noted repairs.  He also demanded a new electrical panel even after we lowered the price for it.  His agent noted the repairs were "over whelming and costly" but I did them all last Saturday for under 1,000 bucks......not overwhelming or costly in my view. The buyers contract notes we have 180 days to release the funds.  If they wanted it sooner they should have lowered the days when they drafted the contract, but they didn't.  I have been in business for years and I never sue for anything under 20,000.  It would be costly and a waste of time to sue for 1,000 of hand money.  If they were polite and attempted to understand my position we could work out a solution but they went straight to a legal threat.  We suspect he found another home when their agent never provided us with a settlement company, never participated in repair negotiations, and urgently needs their hand money.  Again..... selling a home sucks!!!

Moving
We are kind of in limbo over moving.  Not having a closing date makes it hard to plan a moving date.  We can't hire movers or plan our furniture delivery.  We are going to try and box up as much as we can this weekend in hope that we can be moved the end of the first week in November.  I'm not looking forward to moving.

Here are some pictures of the Landon:

We found that these lights worked, but not the others

These lights work but not the other recessed lighting

I wonder why they didn't pre-wire the garage so the remotes are under the plaster board

My extra outside line rough in was left in but not hooked up

Almost Home

We are roughly 2 weeks away from the scheduled closing date of 11/2/15 back when we had a buyer for our home.  When our buyer backed out, everything fell apart and the last week I spent it working on survival plans.  Today I signed a new sales contract for another buyer.

That Was Fast

When our buyer backed out last week, we scrambled to find a solution for the missing equity I needed from my house for pushing the Ryan Homes sales through.  While I focused on that, my agent put the house back on the multi list and corrected the square footage.  I had scheduled tons of repairs for Saturday and would start showing again Sunday.  An agent called Thursday and asked to see the house Friday night.  I explained we have some repairs to make and would start showing Sunday, but if they didn't mind some moving boxes they can see the house.  They were there from 5:30 to 6:45, left us a thank you note on the napkins we have next to the cookies and bottle water we leave for buyers.  We thought it was a nice touch.  I got a call an hour later from the agent asking for a few explanations on some wear and tear of the house.  That night, they issued us an offer.  I didn't receive it until Saturday morning and spent the day thinking about it while we worked on the house.  We gave them our best price Saturday night and they accepted it.  We found a new buyer in less than a week.  This is amazing but totally wont sell before we close with Ryan Homes so that stupid bridge loan is needed.  Best part of the deal is we will be in our new home by Thanksgiving and out of the old one by end of the year.

We provided this buyer they previous home inspection report and noted all the repairs we were making even though the prior buyer is backing out of the deal.  Even though my architect says the deck isn't falling off the house and the inspector suggested repairs, we added tons of more support.  We added 10 more lag bolts and 10 more joists.  We basically doubled the amount of support this deck has.  I can't see how this deck could fall off the house now.  I think the prior buyer was just making unrealistic demands.  Here is some of my construction skills:

We poured a new concrete top of the chimney (Not fun carrying concrete up to the roof)

Doubled the number of joist

This new buyer wrote us a letter when they purchased our house.  It was very sincere and kind.  I was loosing faith in buyers as so many buyers are rude, arrogant and unreasonable.  I had first hand experience with this when I was acting as my own agent hosting open houses.  We didn't want to give them a number, we actually wrote them back.  Their agent said the wife cried when she read our letter back to them.  I'm going to make sure I leave these people all that I can and give them a good start in this house.

The Landon

The last time I was up there it was just so big and empty.  Our PM had moved the AC compressor which really meant a lot to me.  Seeing our new home in it's final phase reminds me why we did this.  My future wife already is talking how to decorate it for Christmas.  She wants two Christmas trees....I reminded her we still have to pay off our two wedding dresses.

NVR

I hope that the new sales document will help get our loan through underwriting faster.  Basically we only need the bridge for about a month which shouldn't affect things much.  Stay tuned on what NVR suggests.

Have a good rest of the weekend folks.

Navigating the Storm

This has not been an easy process.  The amount of time I have spent this week on damage control has been overwhelming and expensive.  The buyer backing out 18 days before the duel close almost screwed the entire deal and cost us thousands in extra fees.  I have a background in accounting and spent a lot of time around construction so this has been my saving grace.  Here are the highpoints:

NVR & Clearview

NVR has really stepped up and worked with me.  They seem to have more influence over the closing schedule than Ryan Homes.  While Ryan Homes sets the closing date based on when construction is complete, NVR sets the closing based on when the financial documents can be completed.  I have a feeling if you want to push back a closing date, just slow down the stream of information to NVR and back goes the closing date.  Clearview has been awesome so far. I only need a little bit of equity from my house to make the entire deal work.  They are going to refinance my current home into a home equity line of credit so I can tap a little bit of equity.  This is so much better than doing a 401k loan or distribution or cleaning out our savings account.

So far my proposal is holding together and everyone so far sees no problem with the structure.  Having two mortgage payments pushes me right up to the 45% limit of the back end debt to revenue ratio.  The back up plan is adding my fiancé but our rates would change drastically but then we would clear the debt to revenue ratio with no problem.  Our current plan allows us to pay down the home equity on the Landon when we get the full equity from the current home sale.  Then our interest and payments snap into our financial plan and all is well.

It’s going to suck but this is the best financially sound solution.

Tip & Trick – I’ll share a little trick you can do to help you with getting through a tight spot like this.  Since most Ryan Homes are rather expensive, many of us are going to have bigger than normal tax refunds due to the higher mortgage interest expense and real estate taxes.  Let’s say this year I project out my tax refund to be 6,000 from tax deductible interest and taxes.  Each pay cycle my tax is taken out and given back to me at the end of the year.  If I change my W4 and add more allowances(Dependents) you can have more take home pay and pay less taxes.  So a 6,000 a year tax refund could result in 250 more per pay for a bi-monthly person.

Current Home

We have our current home back on the market with the old multilist.  It’s now past being on the market for 3 months and I feel the ad is stale.  My agent and I discussed this, and she’s going to come take new pictures and relist the house and start all over.  Hopefully this will generate more online attention for it.

Tips & Tricks – I have figured out a lot of things on selling a house.  We have tons of web activity back prior to the sale.  Here are some good suggestions.  1) Push for an open house as they include your house in a ton of additional advertising.  Open houses are moved higher in the list on Realtor.com and Zillow not to mention the Broker advertises them in the paper.  2) Make sure you push your agent to make Zillow’s square foot the actual.  In my case, Zillow used the county assessment’s square footage which is lower than actual.  My house has a finish basement, utility room and basement bathroom that all add to the living space not included in the county.   How this affects you is that many buyers use Zillow’s average price per square foot to compare the price of your home to that of others in your area.  While Zillow is not consistent and much of the data is wrong, buyer seem to be basing price on this more than comparable homes in your area.  Here is what this looks like in a comparison:

	County	Actual	Offers
Square Foot Used	1,022	1,228	1,022
Price	169,900	169,900	160,000
$ per Sqr	166	138	157
Zillow Ave	154	154	154
Over/(Under) Per Sqr	12	(16)	3
Over/(Under) Per Total	12,512	(19,212)	2,612

If your square footage is wrong (most county data is understated) you could be screwing yourself out of thousands.  Once my agent finally changed the square footage to actual you can see my house is nearly 20k less than average homes in the area.  I confirmed that the square footage should be external dimensions less garage space and unfinished space.  Ryan Homes confirmed it for me along with other realtors I use at work.  I should have fired my agent over this when she argued with me 2 months ago.

This weekend we try and address so more home repairs.  While my architect says the deck is not going to fall off the house, he did tell us some repairs would firm it up and remove any concern from a future buyer.  Saturday we install 11 5inch lag bolts into the ledger board and into the foundation.  We’ll basically be tripling the structural strength of the current bolts holding the ledger board onto the house.  I also plan on nearly doubling the current joists.  While on average the joists are one every 21 inches, we’ll add more so that it is one every 14 inches.  I’ll also add metal right angle which will really stiffen up the deck.  An HVAC contractor helped me with the suspected Asbestos external exhaust pipe.  It will be encapsulated this weekend.  I have already chiseled off the old brick added to the top of the chimney.  We’ll build a form and add a concrete top cap to the fireplace chimney.  I also added fire foam to the wood burner steel liner and clay sleeve.  I also have a contractor coming Saturday to spray for pests even though I have not seen a carpenter ant or termite in my basement in 3 years.

Hopefully these repairs will be the last needed to get our house sold.

My readers

I never thought anyone would spend a lot of time reading what I have shared.  I appreciate the blog of others who have built and I learned to ask for things like an extra switch at the front door for the external garage door light.  Seldom do Ryan Homes blogs write about the rest of the process.  Building a Ryan Home wasn’t just about building a home, but it includes a lot of extra things like financing and selling the current home.  I wanted to share all of the experience good and bad.  Sometimes I am embarrassed to share that our deal nearly fell apart and how crappy selling has been.  I was touched by how many readers wrote to me.  Thanks to everyone who wrote me.

The Landon

Last night we went up to see the Landon.  It’s been over a week for us and seeing it was much needed.  It’s beautiful and helps remind me why we are doing this.  I can just see the joy of my partner’s face as she walks through the house studying it, planning how to decorate it in her head, creating a home we both will love.  The only regret I have is that I hired Caldwell Banker and couldn’t sell our house first.  I really wanted to have it sold so I could help my fiancé by the Amish country table she fell in love with.  We still hope it will sell before the end of the year.

Our garage door was locked and we were afraid that they locked us out.  Ironically, the front door was unlocked and we were able to get in.  There was a lot done since this past weekend.  The stone was on the house except for a few spots.  The moved the AC compressor location to the small yard side of the house.  The turned the power on and installed all the lights.  Guardian installed internal speakers and switches(still never moved the external speaker).  The vinyl floor was installed and the tile was put into the bathroom.  The appliances were delivered and put into the garage.  It doesn’t look like they have much more to do and should easily be done by the first week of November.

Here are the pictures: 

Blownup into a Nightmare

Things have blown up into a nightmare recently.  Yesterday I got an email from my agent that my buyer decided to back out because I wouldn't do more of his replacement/repair list.  I felt we didn't need to do any of them since his repairs didn't exceed the discount he got.  The difference in list price and what we agreed to was more than enough to cover his repairs.  We figured he must have changed his mind and wanted out of the contract and the best way for him to do that would be to make unrealistic demands of things he wanted me to replace.  He already lowered the price for the fuse box and we already lowered it for the deck, but then he demanded we replace both which was double dipping.

This has been devastating for our Ryan Homes transition.  I spent yesterday trying to arrange bridge financing that I skipped doing since my agent assured me this deal would go through and we had plenty of time.  It turns out that a bridge loan takes as long as a regular mortgage of 1 month and we have like 18 days.  The logical thing to do would have Ryan Homes just push back closing a week to give us time to get a bridge loan in place....sadly they seem reluctant to do so.  This is rather odd because our sales person told us Ryan Homes can be flexible within a month of a completion date.

I learned yesterday that Ryan Homes will charge you 1% of the home value for each month you push back the closing.

We are faced with a horrible situation of either try and get Ryan Homes to push back a week so we can arrange a bridge loan or drain our retirements and take a worse rate to keep the closing date.

If you have been following my blow, you would know that our realtor has been horrible.  She didn't price the house correctly or do any deep market analysis.  She has not worked any of our open houses and Caldwell Banker only provided an agent for the first open house and we worked the rest of them.  Caldwell didn't give us any advice like get a pre-inspection and appraisal, and our agent only told us to restain the deck as the only repair.  While our buyer is the one who screwed us, our agent's empty promises and careless approach to selling our house lead us to where we are today.

Hopefully today I can find a solution to this mess.

Still Shaky, Waiting, and Movin Movin

The last week has been busy and the three words to describe it is Shaky/Waiting/Movin

NVR

I am still waiting on an updated good faith estimate from NVR.  They said the bank that does the mortgage will be calling me directly to set up and open an account.  I thought they would have called me by now.  I only have a few more weekend available to go to the branch and sign papers for an account.  Nice thing is, this has been low stress since we have time.

Current Home Sale

This is just been the WORST experience ever.  From a lousy realtor to buyers who expect one of the cheapest homes in my township to be perfect.  I received an inspection report from the buyer and WOW it was a nightmare.  The buyer requested I replace the deck and garage doors.  After I spent a few days reading the inspection reports and talking to people, I came to the conclusion the buyer is just exaggerating things.  The inspection said some repairs were needed to the deck as there is a gap in the ledger board.  I had an Architect come look at it and he said it's from the wood drying and the wood is not cracked and the bolts are all still in.  Somehow the buyer thinks its unsound and a safety hazard.  He also claimed my garage door doesn't open, but I had it open to move out old paint.  The worse part of this is that I already lowered the price of our house by 6k for potential needed repairs, and then he bid 9k under that and settled for another 6k in discounts.  The repairs in question do not exceed the discounts given.  Lastly, this really almost made me walk away from the buyer, he originally noted he wanted 1,000 off the price for the fuse box.  We complied and gave it another 1,000 off of the price for it.  Then after the inspection, he included it on the repair/concession list.  The buyer is double dipping and just trying to take advantage of me most likely because he thinks I need him for my Ryan Home.  He's not being very genuine and acting in good faith.  When I thought selling a home couldn't get worse....it has.

The Landon

It's movin, movin along.  We stopped up on Saturday and they took care of some big things.  Our new morning room door was installed and they fixed the light switches that were covered by a cabinet.  They had the front steps forms installed to pour concrete.  All of the stone was delivered and railings were stained.  They are doing the driveway this week so I think we'll loose our dumpster which was nice for moving trash.  We suspect sometime soon we will be locked out as the appliances have been received.  Some things I pointed out to our PM that have lagged in getting fixed:

1) We still have a loose hot water connection that is loose inside the wall and not sturdy at all.

2) They still have not gotten back to me on if the AC unit can be moved to where Ryan Homes confirmed it would be.

3) Garage Door dent

4) Moved external speaker

Now for pictures

Leaps and Bounds

When we were at the Landon this past weekend.  It looked like they had a lot of drywall work to finish.  A lot of the drywall still had a rough top coat that needed sanded down.  We figured it will take them a few more days to finish....we were wrong.

Our Landon had the walls finished and painted.  From Saturday to last night they did a lot.  Here it what we suspect them completing:

90% of the siding was installed
All doors painted, frames installed and doors hung
All cabinets installed
baseboard trim installed
Base coat of paint done
Porch pillars installed
Master shut off values installed at the main
Bathroom vanities installed

Things still left open they need to fix
The backdoor came with the wrong door opening the wrong way.  The new door arrived weeks ago and continues to sit outside in the mud.
The hot water connection installed with no support continues to float loosely in the wall and now they'd have to remove the drywall and vanity to fix.  (Unless they fix it cheaply by spraying foam into the wall)
They installed the AC rough in on the wrong wide of the house.  We confirmed during our Pre-con the AC unit would be on the other side of the house in the small side of our yard.
We asked Guardian to move the outdoor speaker and they said they would take care of it but they have not.  Not the wall is dry walled and siding is up so I'm not sure how they will move it now.
The dent remains in our garage door but this seems like an easy fix

We also noticed last night that the kitchen pantry covers the light switches next to the back door.  I'm not sure how they can fix it.

I am still waiting on NVR to give me a final good faith estimate.  The rates took a dive on 10/1/15 and I locked in at the best rate possible over the past three months.  The rates have since gone back up.  I wish I could have said this was skill, but it was the poor jobs report and other financial news that drove the rates down for me.  I was banking on rates in October always being lower as they have been for the past 8 years......I think we just got lucky.

Our home inspection of our current home was last Friday.  I'd think the owner would have had his inspection report on Monday.  All of the home inspectors I talk to normally have 24 hour turn around.  We haven't heard anything from our buyer and we have anxiety over this.  I was up at 3am worrying about if my house passed or not.

This past weekend we went shopping for the crucial needed washer and dryer.  We went to some scratch and dent places and shopped around.  The best price we found was a pair of open items from Best Buy.  We went to Giant Eagle for Best Buy gift cards to get the fuel perks and headed to best buy.  Sadly the washer that had been there for 2 weeks was just purchased.  The dryer was still there.  We ended up buying the new white ones costing us a few hundred more.  We really didn't want to buy cheaper units as we have a cheap unit now and they damage our clothing all the time.  Considering how expensive clothing, bedding and curtains are......we needed them to not be ruined in the wash.  My fiance also found us some new cheap couches to replace our beaten up leather ones.  She is still wanting her new farm table.

So far things are coming together and the Landon moved forward by leaps and bounds.  Now here are some pictures:

You can see the replacement door sitting outside still

The cabinet for the Pantry covered the light switches next to the door

Kitchen Cabinets

Ok, I had to add this picture.  The slab on the porch is like 8 inches, not the traditional 4 inch slab.

Here is a quick look in the inside

Slow Grind

We spent last week pretty much out of the Landon because we were both busy with life.  We had car maintenance to get caught up on and tickets to see the Pens.  When we were last on site last weekend they had the drywall up and just put the first coat to plaster up.  We expected them to have all the drywall on and finished.  Sadly this wasn't the case.

This week it looked like nothing really happened.  The basement ceiling is still missing sheets of drywall.  There are still numerous spots of the drywall that needs fixed or plastered.  We thought the beading would be on corners and all seams sanded smooth.  The only really big thing that looked to have been completed was that the ceilings had their texture created.

We also haven't heard anything from our PM.  We were getting weekly updated via email once a week, but nothing since last I asked him about a firm closing date.  Odd because I emailed our PM with four questions on 9/25 about some issues I noticed.  I expected at least a response by the next Friday when he would send a weekly update.  He never responded on 10/2.  I plan to reach back out to him today about:

1) One of our water hookups in the master bathroom is free floating in the wall with no support.  This is because the plumber removed the support to fit the extended vent PVC pipe from the sink.  They re-installed a 2x4 on the right side for the cold line, but never installed anything on the left side to hold the hot water hookup in place.  Since they never caught this before the drywall now they will have to cut and remove some drywall to install the missing water line hookup support.

2) When we had our pre-con, we asked what side of the house our AC compressor will be located.  Our prior PM noted it would be on the small yard side of the house.  This is what we wanted so that the big side our our yard wont have a noisy AC unit visible and to be heard.  I noticed last weekend that the copper pipe for the compressor and AC unit was on the wrong side of the house.  This was pretty important to us and I wonder if it was dropped when they changed PMs.  I did send the new PM our pre-con question list and he should have seen we asked about it.  I do hope they can move it or knock something off the price for the error.

3) We have a huge dent in one panel of the garage door.  It's really noticeable which makes me wonder why someone left it.  I suspect they needed to order a new panel and wanted to have the door fully installed.  This doesn't seem as hard of a fix as the prior two items.

4) We talked to our guardian people prior to drywall about moving 1 speaker and they confirmed they would move it.  It never was moved prior to the drywall and not I suspect they cant move it.  I emailed them last week also but all I got was that they would look into it.

We also noticed our replacement back door has been sitting outside at the rear of the house for weeks now.  This is annoying as every time it rains the door blows open and the floor there get soaked.  They started on some of the work outside and we suspect this week the house will have siding put on.  Hopefully the PM gets back to me on our few open items.

NVR has been working on getting me a final good faith estimate.  I think the hold up is getting the discount processed for the interest rate mess-up they had.  Hopefully I get this from them in th enext few days.

Our current house had its home inspection Friday.  We asked them to let us know when they are done so we could go home.  Around 5 I drove past and they were gone so I went home.  We got a message 2 hours later that they were done.  They left a radon test in the basement to keep taking readings for the next few days.  The inspector rang our door bell Sunday night around 8ish to pick up his Radon test kit.  It would have been nice if they would have left us a time frame or a headsup rather than just ring our doorbell Sunday night at 8pm.  Duing my time with him in the basement, he leaked that there is concerns over the fireplace and the deck.  I'm not sure what they will impact as the fireplace we never used and never advertised it as working, and the deck has always been a little saggy.  This is where the home selling process sucks because first they beat up a seller on price before signing a contract and then beat up a seller again when they have a home inspection.  The price was already reduced for "the condition" of the house.  Hopefully no issues comes from this and the price stays.


Pictures of where we are at now:

LOCKED IN

This has been a very frustrating situation working with NVR but all of my bitchyness and waiting paid off today.  Here is what occurred:

Back around August 24th, the rate dropped when the stock market took a dive.  The rate quoted to me via NVR was 3.875 which was very competitive to the local banks.  It took me hours to call around the various banks, get their rates and closing costs to figure out that this rate from NVR was good.  At the end of the day I tried to lock in.  NVR said I couldn't lock in without the estimated closing date from the Ryan Homes PM.  I sent an email to both our loan officer and Ryan Homes for this date.  When they didn't communicate I lost that rate.  The rates change daily from NVR and when Ryan Homes didn't respond to me on behalf of NVR......I lost the rate.

The days following saw rates up to 4.25.  I had several options.1) pay NVR nearly 5,000 to buy down the rate to what I was trying to lock in or 2) have the monthly payment go up by $75.00 resulting in paying $27,000 in additional interest.  This was unacceptable since I lost my rate because NVR and Ryan Homes couldn't speak to each other.

I complained at everyone as many didn't fully understand the consequences of not responding to the email I sent looking for a closing date for NVR.  Both NVR and Ryan Homes agreed to give me 1.5 points to buy down the rate.  Even with these points I still had to pay thousands to get back to 3.85%.

There were a few days where the cost to me would be 1,000 to buy the rate.  I focused on learning the market, focused on analytic and the relationship of mortgage rates to everything else.  PNC's mortgage loan officers taught me to look at the 10 year treasury rate which had a direct relationship to NVR's rates.  I also noticed that October's rates are traditionally less than September.  I pushed the envelope of waiting with NVR until today.

Today NVR told me they can offer me that same rate from August 24th with their points and no cost to me.  This is huge!!!  The fed is expected to revisit rates again in late October and there is still lots of talk about raising them again.  I believe I looked into a rate that most likely will be lower than market for the years we live there.

Patience paid off........we locked in at 3.875