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.