This Old House

A week ago today, we rolled up in front of the house for the home inspection. The inspector was already there and had gotten right to work. It was great having a few hours to wander the house and take in all of the things we had overlooked when going through it the first time the week prior. We got to see everything operating and were relieved every time an appliance turned on and functioned. Living in an older building in Ghent, you get used to certain things. We don't currently have our own washer and dryer. All of the residents in the building utilize a single coin operated washer and dryer in the basement. We don't have a dishwasher unless your count our four hands combined. Our kitchen is long, but narrow. The door to the refrigerator only opens about halfway before it bumps up against the counter on the opposite side. Considering all of these things, it felt like we hit the lottery to stand before the stainless steel refrigerator in the new house. It really is my dream appliance. A large full sized fridge on top (that opens all the way) and a deep freezer drawer on the bottom half. As I pulled open the freezer door, I nearly sucked all of the oxygen out of the entire house when I gasped at the ice maker. No more filling empty ice trays after longing for something cold to drink to discover that they hadn't been filled after the last of the ice cubes had been twisted out of their nesting spots. The dishwasher actually turned on and ran through an entire cycle without issue. While there isn't a washer or dryer already in the house, I still felt pretty emotional just staring at the empty hook ups where a set will eventually sit.

As the inspector continued to do his thing and Matt's dad was checking out the heating and air conditioning systems, I stepped out onto the big front porch and just gazed up and down the street. People were strolling along the sidewalk on their way to either of the two church's just down from each end of the house. I was dying for someone to ask if we were buying the house, just so I could say yes, why yes we are. It was a great feeling.

The inspection wrapped up and it was time to hear the verdict. I prayed he didn't find anything that would kill the deal for us. We had kept in mind that we were buying a house that was nearly 113 years old and it would be unreasonable to think that everything would be perfect, but still, we hoped that anything found would be minor and wouldn't come between us and this house we had fallen in love with. For the most part, the Manor got a a clean bill of health. The roof was probably less than a year old. One of the a/c units was less than a year old as well. The boiler for the hot water radiators that heated the first floor was less than 10 years old and was in great working order. All wiring had been updated and was compliant with code. All in all, the house was in great shape, however...there it was, the caveat....there were some things that needed to be addressed pretty quickly. Once of the pipes under the kitchen had a leak in a joint where it connected to another. Not only was it leaking when the water was run in the sink, but it happened to be leaking directly onto the power outlet for the basement sump pump. There were a couple of pipes leading to the boiler that were fairly corroded and needed to be replaced in addition to the drain pipe for the washer. While the wiring to the washer and dryer outlets was connected, there was no juice. It could be a bad breaker, but it needed to be fixed. A little bit of wood rot due to age and moisture was found under the porch and in the decorative bases to the large columns on the front of the house. That last one is what made my heart stop. Were those columns about to collapse and send the entire front of the house into the yard? Obviously I wasn't aware that the real support runs through the center of them and that everything around that was just cosmetic, so I began breathing again. Then came debate. At one time, there must have been a second floor portico above the porch roof. Currently, there is a door that provides access, but no railing around the roof of the porch. This would present a problem with the insurance company when we obtained home owners. It would absolutely be seen as a liability that someone could technically walk out there and fall off the roof of the porch, so some type of barrier would need to be installed, such as a guard rail mounted to the door frame to prevent someone from walking out there until such time that we would rail in the area as a whole or convert the door to a permanent window. There were other things, but nothing critical and each could be addressed over time.

While it seemed to me, that what needed to be addressed right away was a lot, the inspector and agent reassured us and made me feel better that these were things any buyer would want addressed before closing on the house. I kept telling myself that these are not unreasonable requests, but in my mind I wondered what the seller would thing once presented with them and our desire for him to correct them prior to closing.

That night we received the addendum that our agent would present to the seller's listing agent. We reviewed the items, agreed that these would address everything we felt was most critical, and we signed the document. It was now in the hands of the seller's agent. Again, we wait and again, we worry.

Monday goes by and we hear nothing. Tuesday comes and goes and again, nothing. Oh jeez, he probably got that list and is trying to make up his mind whether to tell us to hit the bricks or not. I tried to remind myself of what the agent told us about any buyer wanting these things fixed. I'd feel better for a while, but then I'd ask myself then why hasn't he agreed? Wednesday arrives and the termite inspection takes place. As with any property that has sat unoccupied, it was expected that they would most likely find evidence of termites. Our agent told us that actually, it was in our best interest that they find something. That way, the seller pays for the initial inspection and treatment and then we could simply sign a new pest control contract and not have to foot the bill for that initial step. As expected, they did find evidence of termites and worked up the quote for treatment to get us in a good spot for just annual inspections after that. Like the home inspection, that report was sent on to the seller's agent as well and we continued to wait.

By Wednesday night, I had myself so worked up over not hearing anything, that I had convinced myself this deal was not going to go through. I came home from work in somewhat of a funky mood. Never had I stepped back away from the situation and thought about the fact that we were only a little over a week into this whole process and considered how much had already taken place. I was acting as if we were days from closing and were trying to work out details that would prevent us from actually closing the deal. What a relief it was though when the phone rang and it was our agent on the other end. The seller had agreed to our list of items from the home inspection and would be paying for the termite treatment. Wait for it...wait for it....ah yes, there it is...that wave of relief, the third one I think in the past week slowly moved down my body. I calmly set down the cup of coffee I had fixed myself that evening and pulled a bottle of wine from the rack in the dining room.

So where are we now? We are two days before Christmas so not much is going to happen over the next several days. On Thursday of this coming week, I have my appointment to take all of my documentation to support everything that went into the automated underwriting system into the mortgage company and to sign the formal loan application. We still have a couple of details to work out with the down payment. We have it, but since we are moving ahead of schedule, Matt is going to have to "gift" a larger portion than originally planned since I had my savings goal based on our original timeline of February which was dependent on an end of year bonus and my annual tax refund, so we have to get that money transferred and complete the required documentation and return it to the mortgage company. Once we are through this week, we should only have to wait on two more things. The appraisal has to be ordered and completed and final underwriting. I'm not that anxious about the appraisal. The tax value on the home is a good $50K above what we are paying for it, so I think we're going to be ok there. Obviously waiting on final and absolute loan approval has me a bit anxious, but I'm told that as long as you can back up the information that went into the automated underwriting system, there should be nothing to worry about. Luckily, when we first discussed starting this process back in November, I immediately went out and bought two bound notebooks of pocket folders. I then researched what type of documents are required for a mortgage and labeled each pocket for things like bank statements, W2 forms, tax returns, pay stubs, my 401K quarterly statement, and our current lease agreement and contact information for the landlord. One folder has originals and one has copies. Our loan officer is going to email us with the complete list of what's needed, but I feel confident that I already have 95% ready to go.

I just realized that through all of these posts, I've yet to include a picture of the house. She's very stately and I feel such a connection to it already. I truly hope that's a good sign that it's meant to be and that five weeks from now, we'll be calling it home. In the meantime, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

How Does All This Work?

Coffee in hand, we anxiously awaited our agent's arrival to write up the contract and offer on the Manor on Broad, which is what we've "termed" the house we so desperately want.  Once she arrived, we sat down and got right to work.  Wow, I always thought that at closing you had a ton of paperwork to sign, so I was floored at just how much goes into the initial contract.  We went over pages having to do with military noise zones, lead paint, asbestos, etc.  It makes it sound like we're buying a death trap, but due the proximity that nearly everything in this area is to some type of military base and the fact the house was built in 1900, it's all just formalities.

We finally got to the actual offer.  The house was listed at $179,900.00.  Our agent felt like we could go lower, so we wrote the offer at $170K.  We were well prepared to pay list price if need be, so this left plenty of room for negotiation.  We also included items such as the seller contributing 3% of the purchase price toward settlement costs, which should pay most, if not all of them.  In addition, there were provisions for anything critical resulting from the home inspection and of course, the termite inspection.  What really hit home though for me was the closing date documented in the contract, January 28th.  Wow, could it really be that by the end of next month, we could own our own home?  We spent an hour going over everything, signing and initialing what seemed like a thousand documents. By the end of it, she left with contract in hand along with our earnest money deposit and the waiting game began all over again.

I've probably watched too many episodes of Million Dollar Listing on Bravo because in my mind, the two agents would get on the phone and hash it out, probably before she even pulled her car away from the curb out front. In reality though, we went all day waiting to hear something.  Finally around 9PM, we got an email from our agent that the seller lived out of town and the listing agent was having trouble reaching him.  We'd hopefully know more tomorrow.  I don't think I slept more than a few hours that night as I ran through multiple scenarios in my head.  It was about 9:30 the next morning before I got the next email.  He didn't accept our offer for $170K, however he would counter at $174K, keeping all other terms of the contract the same.  This still put us about $6K below asking price, so not only was our reply yes, but hell yes.  Within an hour we had the updated contract back to initial and just like that, we bought a house!

Our agent is very no nonsense and a full steam ahead type of person.  Within that same hour, she had our home inspection scheduled for the following Sunday.  That would be only one week since the holiday homes tour when we walked around the neighborhood and simply toyed with the idea of calling her to  look at some of the homes we saw. This was moving at lightening speed, which in my mind was good.  It left less time to be nervous about the entire thing.  As the weekend approached, we were excited and anxious about the home inspection.  Would it give us all the more reason to be excited about this house or dash our dreams and force us to start over with something that we in no way loved as much?  Is there ever a time in this entire process where at least something isn't present to worry about?

Speaking of worrying, I nearly left out another gut wrenching moment.  What about our apartment?  We obviously can't wait until the finality of closing to tell our landlord, "yeah, by the way, we're moving by the end of the week".  Now that we had a contract, the right thing to do is to tell him, so he can begin planning as well.  Our landlord owns and lives in the building.  He's been very good to us over the last six years by making improvements and addressing any issues before we could even get the words our of our mouths explaining what as wrong.  We had seen many people in the building come and go at various times in their lease, so I really wasn't too worried about the fact that we had missed our renewal notification window by about 30 days, but still, what would his reaction be?  I was down in the basement doing laundry the day before the home inspection.  I could hear him in the next room in his workshop and kept praying he didn't come out while I was down there switching loads of clothes.  He had to know, but I just didn't have the words formed in my head yet about how to tell him.  I am one of those people who can't just spit out what I have to say.  I have to start everything with a back story, sometimes dating as far back as the day I was born.  On the next to the last load of clothes, my luck ran out though.  I heard that door open and we came face to face.  He thanked me again for inviting him to our Christmas party and stated that he wasn't sure what we could ever do to make our annual event more over the top than it already was.  There it is, the perfect lead in without having to go all the way back to 1967 and the birth of a child in the Catskill Mountains.  So I did it, I just spit it out...a new big house, THAT would make our party more over the top! There is was again, that flush of relief.  The same one that came over me after hearing from the banks, again after hearing we had a contract, and now, after telling the landlord we had started the process to buy this house.  He couldn't have been nicer and more understanding.  He congratulated us and expressed how much he'd miss us and the way we treated the apartment and paid our rent on time every month during the six years we've been here.  He even offered to let us use our deposit as our January rent so that we could keep that money aside for whatever we needed it for.  Wow!  How could that have gone any better?  And oh yeah, he had someone in the wings who was dying to get into our building, so he'd be up with them in about thirty minutes to see the apartment.  Well damn! As I knew anyone would, they loved the apartment, gave their deposit to hold it and now we must pray harder than ever that everything goes as planned!

Oh Lawd!

The day following our adventure with the real estate agent, I was nervous beyond belief. This was the day that the loan officer we had been referred to by our agent was going to call to get us rolling with preapproval. I don't think I've ever stared at my phone so much waiting on it to ring. Would she be nice? Would she seem indifferent to what was surely one of the biggest steps we have taken in our nine years together? I tried to stay busy and to keep my mind off of the pending call. I was just about to eat lunch when I jumped nearly out of my skin as my phone vibrated across my desk and rang. Oh Lawd! The number was not from one of my contacts. It had to be her. I took a deep breath and answered in the most positive and cheerful voice I could muster up. How relieved was I when the conversation began to feel like talking to an old friend. She was so nice as we talked about what loan programs were available as we decided that indeed, an FHA loan was the best solution. We spent several minutes going over my income, employment history, current rent payments, etc.

As I hung up the phone, my heart was racing. Would she really call back and give us the green light to proceed? I felt pretty comfortable with my credit rating, as I had just checked my report fairly recently. Still though, forever the pessimist, I began mentally preparing myself for the worst. Whatever you do Chuck, don't cry when she calls back and says there isn't anything she can do for you. I went through the afternoon without jumping out of my skin from the phone ringing. I wandered the grocery store after work, increasingly becoming more certain that this wasn't going to work out. If it was a sure thing, she certainly would have called back by now. I came home and put groceries away, right angrily in fact. After slinging food into the refrigerator and slamming the door shut, I walked out of the kitchen and literally froze when I noticed the missed call on my phone. Was it her? Most likely not. The number didn't match the call from earlier in the day and there was no indication of a waiting voice mail message. Surely she would have left a message had it been her. As I plopped down onto the couch, I bitterly punched the buttons on the remote. After Matt got home, it was probably ten minutes or so before he noticed an email on his phone from our agent. He began reading it aloud. I nearly fell on the floor. "Hey guys, I'm sure you know this by now, but we are good to go. Lets set up a time to write a contract and make the offer". What???? How could this be? I hastily grabbed my phone and looked again. Still no voice mail indicator. Could it be that of all calls, this was the one where my phone decided it would keep the fact I had a new message a secret? I immediately began to manually dial into my voice mail before I realized I had forgotten how! Damn relying on those buttons and touch screens to do the thinking for me. I finally got in and listened as sure enough, a message from the loan officer played, congratulating me on the automated underwriting system approving me for a mortgage. The weight I had been carrying around on my shoulders for the past twenty-four hours began to lift. Within five minutes, we had an appointment set with our agent for 8am the next morning to write the contract and submit an offer!

A Nice Sunday

December 9th rolled around and it was a rough morning. Our annual Christmas party was the night prior and we didn't get to bed until 4am the following morning. The weather though, once we woke up, was unseasonably warm and in the 70's. We decided to do something fun and go to the Port Norfolk Holiday Homes Tour. There were six houses open and we spent the afternoon with Matt's sister walking the neighborhood and seeing how beautifully the homes on tour were decorated for Christmas. When we arrived, we opted to purchase our tickets in the central business district, which of course happened to be right next door to the house we had been stalking on the Internet. After buying our tickets, we climbed what felt like a flight of stairs onto the front porch and peered through the large front windows. The house was empty but just shined from the refinished hardwood floors and fresh paint. With a deep sigh, we descended the steps and went on our way, looking back over our shoulders every few seconds until finally, that big house was out of our range of sight.

Throughout the tour, we noticed several houses for sale in the neighborhood. We'd look each one up on our phones and by the end of the afternoon, had about four or five houses that we thought were worth looking at once we were ready, if they were still available. We laughed and joked a few times about calling the agent we were going to use in February to see if she'd meet us the next day to look, just out of curiosity. Well, about the third time of joking about it, text messages were exchanged and just like that, we had a time set up for the next afternoon. I was a bit nervous, but what's the harm? It isn't like this is the official trip to go house hunting. We just wanted to see how they compared to the pictures online and get an idea of price points compared to the condition the homes were in. A completely harmless afternoon.

The first home we chose to look at was of course the big manor we had fallen in love with online. We climbed those front steps again, this time though with the magical key of entry. We stepped inside the large foyer and just gazed around. You could feel the house calling for attention and some love in spite of its excellent condition. After about thirty minutes of exploring, we hated to even leave. Whoever ended up with this house would be getting their dream home. We went through the other houses we had noted. Most of them needed a lot of TLC and all but one were certainly not move in ready. One of them was just down the block from THE house and as we stood on the front porch thinking yes, this house is cute and has lots of potential, our agent nailed it. "Will it be cute to stand here and stare at the house you really wanted"?

The three of us gathered to chat at our cars before parting ways. She asked us our reasons for waiting until February and we talked about our savings goal being the real reason. We had based our savings on a price higher than what we had seen that afternoon. With only 3.5 percent down, and if we even offered lower than list price, this might actually be doable sooner. What was a certainty, is that this house would not still be on the market in February. If we were serious, and we wanted it, we'd have to move on it.....now.

Fast forward two hours and we are sitting at our favorite sub shop having a beer. We are staring at pictures of the house. It seemed like a pipe dream to even think about owning that grand house as our home. But the price was right, it appeared to be in excellent shape, and had just been renovated. Should we do it? Could we make it work two months before we thought we'd be ready? Would the owner even consider a purchase price lower than the already unbelievable list price? So many questions.

Why Did We Even Look?

It has been several weeks since I last posted.  We've been coasting along doing what we committed to do and putting away our scheduled amount into savings.  As I mentioned before, it has not been fun, but keeping the goal in sight is helpful.

It's hard not to keep looking at the MLS listings.  I kept trying to tell myself to stop.  Any house we see and like will mostly likely be off the market by the time February rolls around and we're ready to start. As well, the prices were really starting to push me close to an anxiety attack.  We really want to stay in Norfolk and the price to do so, at least in terms of the houses we really liked, were looking beyond our reach.  Sure, there are some great cape cod style homes, and a few bungalows that fall within our range, or even some described as needing some TLC, however most have square footage less than our apartment, and I really don't want to have to spend months making a house livable.

So just as I was making the commitment to give up my Trulia and Zillow addictions, I swiped my finger along the map displayed on my iPad and crossed the Elizabeth River into Portsmouth.  Portsmouth, or P-Town as some lovingly or not so lovingly describe it, is the city where I grew up and where we lived prior to moving to Ghent.  It's less than two miles from where we live now, but many people look at it as if it were hundreds of miles away.  This is due mostly to the fact that Portsmouth and Norfolk are connected by tunnels due to the Navy presence and shipyards that require access along the river.  The tunnels for the most part are old and antiquated and create bottleneck traffic jams on a daily basis that can turn a two mile drive into a 45 minute nightmare.  Traffic however, didn't pose a problem for my finger as it scrolled over the river on my back-lit screen and landed in the neighborhood we lived in six years prior just beyond the Midtown tunnel.

Port Norfolk (www.portnorfolk.org) is a historic district and a quiet neighborhood with tree lined streets that was established from farm land in the late 1800's.  Large Victorian homes are complimented by smaller cape cods, older apartment buildings with character, and craftsman style homes.  In the center of the neighborhood is a small business district with a hair salon, a high end restaurant, a pizza place, and a renowned hot dog joint.  It has a strong and active civic league that promotes the neighborhood well and boasts events such as a historic holiday homes tour and porch crawls, where neighbors go porch to porch for cocktails and nibblies over the course of about eight homes.  We loved living there, but our apartment at the time was small and we were simply over the commute, as we both worked on the opposite side of the tunnel. That last factor alone is what made me question why I would even introduce either of my real estate apps to Portsmouth.  What's the harm, I asked as I tapped on the "search here" button and began to browse what was available in our old stomping ground.

It was a nice trip through familiar surroundings as I looked at the houses for sale, many I recognized and had known the owners of.  But this particular one, how did I not recognize it?  Large and stately, this house screamed Atlanta or Charleston. Huge columns rose from the front porch up three stories to the attic window that jetted out from the main frame of the house. A front porch that was made for wicker, a porch swing and fabulous nights sipping wine while the breeze from the river down the street cooled the evening.  As I tapped through the pictures of the inside, I was just as captivated as I had been by the exterior.  Beautiful restored hardwood floors ran throughout the house.  A large foyer, beautiful staircase, french doors, great kitchen, deck off the back, sleeping porch upstairs, and a listing price that made our jaws drop.  Something must be wrong, in spite of the listing description stating that everything had just been renovated.  As we compared listings and prices, what I had previously suspected became obviously true.  Simply crossing the river made a huge impact on prices.  This same house would easily list for $300-400K on the Norfolk side, and here, it was less than $200K.  Oh man, what I wouldn't give to live there!!!  As we both drooled over the listing, it hit us.  It would take a miracle for this house to still be available and on the market in February.  We put our iPads away, and swore never to talk of this house again.  The sheer thought of someone snatching it up over the next eight to ten weeks was too much to dwell on.  It's just best we pretend we never saw it.

Oh was I ever proud of myself for keeping my word to forget that house.  I never even glanced at it again, until about 7AM the next morning.  I just couldn't help it.  There was some kind of draw to it.  We both felt it and we both broke down time and time again and just gazed at that grand home.  Within a week, we tortured ourselves even more and drove across the river to ride by.  I think we were secretly hoping that we'd see it and realize that the photos online did it much more justice than seeing it in person.  That would certainly extinguish this burning need to have that house.  Well, so much for that idea.  In a rare turn of events, the house actually looked that much more incredible from the street than it did online.  I don't think we were prepared for just how big and grand it was.  We literally had to open the sunroof just to look up at it from the car.  So yeah, that was helpful.