We don't need no stinkin' survey!

The attorney's office received the new abstract today and it turns out the encroachment on the property from the neighbor's driveway is completely taken care of in an early agreement. So long as we don't have a problem with it - and I doubt we'll be asking them to tear out their driveway! - we don't need a new survey. So that knocks $325 off of the legal costs for us, and that would be a very good thing.

Here is the map, noting in the bottom left the 6.5 ft encroachment, for a very short distance into the land:

Yay Debt!

Well over this long weekend, Aaron and I decided to take advantage of the Black Friday sale on appliances at Sears (20% off plus 12 months interest free financing) and ordered a new dishwasher, smoothtop range, microhood and refrigerator. They aren't schedule for delivery until early February in case the closing gets bumped back a bit, but we secured the cheaper price - if you can call nearly $2,500 cheap!

We opted for all black Kenmore appliances in the mid-to-high grade range. Not the most expensive stuff out there, but models with nice additional features. Aaron kept repeating "$2,500" in shock, but he was also the one who thought we should go for the extra features. Everything was rated high on Consumer Reports in their 2007 Buyer's Guide, if not one of their "CR Best Buys" - plus the fridge and dishwasher were Energy Star rated. While I'm totally confident with our choices, it's a little scary having all that debt for appliances when you don't have a house to put them in quite yet. But as Aaron says, we do have a house, we just don't have the keys yet!

Aaron's handy buddy Matt also came up and got his first look at the house. He wants to tear down the drywall in the main living area because he can see a little more water damage than we caught. Thankfully he's got a hook up for getting drywall very cheaply, plus he's such a fabulous friend he said he'd take off a week from work to come up and do the work. If he does a whole week's worth of work on our place, I certainly want to pay him some way, but he says he's set as long as he has food and tunes. He definitely gets a free room to stay in when he visits, that's for sure! He and Aaron also have ideas for how to fix the wood floor, what flooring to put down to replace the lino (probably not doing this right away), among other things. Also, since the drywall in the livingroom is coming down anyways, Aaron would like to install in-wall surround sound. Sounds like quite an undertaking, but I would hope it'd be a cool selling point down the road, not to mention better than having speaker wire running around on the floor and awkward looking speaker stands to bump into.

We are totally on task for closing as far as the lender is concerned, and I'm awaiting a call back from our attorney's office tomorrow to see how the abstract and title search are coming along.

Inching along...

Yesterday and today I received hard copies of our septic and well test, which both came up clean and have been mailed/faxed to our lender and our attorney. We also had a water hardness test done, which I faxed to the local water softener retailer to give us a recommendation on what kind of softener we want. Methinks I should do a little reading up on water softeners and hardness because I have no idea what the hardness results mean and depending on what this company quotes us, maybe we'll just buy the water softener ourself.

Our attorney found a survey from 1989, but we may have to pay for an updated survey because the '89 one doesn't note the neighbor's driveway which may be encroaching. The cost of a new survey is estimated to be $325. All told, the extra legal-type costs we are incurring because this house is a foreclosure is about $1200 or so:

• Abstract: $400-450
• Survey: $325
• Deed Transfer Tax: $356
  
• Tax Search: $25

That doesn't include the $400 flat fee we're paying our attorney for the typical house buying services like a title search, closing day, offer review, etc. Foreclosure buying is expensive stuff, but it's still less expensive than buying a move-in ready house around here.

We received a packet of information to read from SONYMA and we have to call for a phone interview style "counseling" session where they basically check to make sure we understand the information we were sent and we know what we are getting into. Aaron's handy buddy Matt is coming up next week and Aaron will have our realtor open up the house so they can go through and talk out what projects they might tackle together. Men and tools, I'm sure it'll be good times!

Ok, so now we wait?

Guess I spoke too soon about it being a waiting game, since our lender called last night to give us our "packet" - AKA a whole bunch of papers to sign! Not that it took very long, just about 30 min. of her describing the papers to me (Julia) and then Aaron and I signing them and going over them together later. We also wrote out two checks, one for $475 to cover our application and appraisal fee and one for $932 which is our "lock in" to the 6.25% interest rate - we are required to "buy a point" off of the 7.25% rate at the cost of 10% of our total financing - $93200. The $932 check is actually returned to us at closing and we add that amount into the really big check we write.

I passed the papers and checks in this morning and signed two pages in front of a notary and Aaron will stop by after work to do the same. I've also given my attorney a call because it appears that the neighbor's driveway actually goes onto our land a bit. Not something I'm upset about, but we were told it may be important information for our survey. I'm also trying to get estimates from him about the cost of the tax search, survey and abstract - our lender gave us a guesstimate, but of course the lawyer has more knowledge of how much those things can end up costing.

I'm starting to pinch our pennies where I can because although the downpayment and the proceding mortgage payments are taken care of, I want a big cushion for all the little things that come up when you move into a new house - curtains, waste baskets, cleaning supplies, organizers, etc, not to mention the cost of moving itself. Nothing worrisome, I'm just hoping to get the house as put together and organized as it can be as quickly as I can manage. If you couldn't tell already, I'm big on being organized!

Yay! (I'm easily amused)

I looked at www.ithacarealtors.com and www.realtor.com today and our house is no longer listed! It's a small thing, but just makes everything feel a little more real and official! Yay for the small steps that mean the big one is getting close, it's a cheap thrill but I'll take it!

And now we wait...

As of this afternoon, it became a waiting game. A couple of things we are waiting for should come fairly soon (water and septic info) but everything else has been passed in to start the very slow approval/money retreival process. The shortest closing that our mortgage rep. could do with a SONYMA loan is 45 days plus SONYMA needs 5 days notice on the closing, so we are right on track for a January 2nd closing. After a single whirlwind week of researching, scheduling, and taking half days at work to get things handled, I don't know what I'll do with all my nervous energy for the next nearly two months! Our lawyer is handling all the abstract, tax search, title search, etc, so our active part is pretty much done - you'd think it'd be a good thing, but I think I'd rather be involved for the next 7 weeks or so rather than sitting here twiddling my thumbs and wondering about the choices I made!

Current Place in the Process:

• Lawyer has reviewed the signed offer and addendum and found nothing out of place, so he's beginning the task of coming up with an abstract, survey, as well as tax and title searches.
  
• All papers turned into lender for SONYMA loan, including estimates for $7,101.47 in repairs (plumbing, carpet, patio door). Total loan amount will be $96,101.47 when all is said and done.
• We are expecting the well test results around the end of the week, and expect the septic test/letter for closing around the same time as well.
  

The weird water tester... and a step forward

Last night we had a 4pm appt with the well guy. He called previous to the appt to tell Julia that he forgot his tools at home (?? #1) and could we bring a crescent wrench and a hammer so he could remove the well cap (since we can't run water in the damaged pipes indoors, our sample had to come straight from the source). We bring Xena to check out her new yard while it's nice and mild outside and she definitely enjoyed all the smells. The well guy shows up late and it turns out he needs slightly different tools to make it work, so he starts driving around nearby to find someone with the tools (?? #2) - he finds a guy who does motorcycle repair who asked him "You mean they finally found someone to buy that place?"... boy, that sounds encouraging...

He finally gets the rusty bolts free, runs a bottle down into the pipe and collects the sample.. all the while telling us repeatedly that he's conservative, and that he travels about 40 min to get his haircut at the Cornell Barber Shop because he can read Playboy while he's there (?? #3) To his credit, he was nice and even playful with Xena, he just seemed a little odd to the humans around.

Current Place in the Process:

• Accepted, signed offer has been returned to our realtor from the seller. It's really official and they can't back out now! Our lawyer has a copy, which he has 3 days to review to be sure there is nothing we need to change.
  
• Financial paperwork has all been submitted to our lender and she's begun entering the info for processing.
• All estimate appts for repairs (that will be built into the loan) have been completed and will be submitted to the lender as soon as we receive them.
• The well test has been performed and results on water quality and water hardness should be back by the end of the week.

The storm before the calm?

It's only Monday and we're already jumping with activity! The patio door installation guy called to make an appt last night and I'll be meeting him on Tuesday at 10am to see how much it'd be to replace the patio door with a new, secure, Energy Star Pella door. We're waiting for estimates from the plumber, we met w/him Friday, estimate should get to us today. We have to go to Lowe's today or tomorrow, our capret installer submitted his measurements to them, and we pick out the exact carpet we want installed, then get our *complete* estimate from them. The well tester called me this AM and I'll be meeting him this PM to collect a water sample - he'll test for safety and for hardness. The safety info gets submitted so we can close, and we get the hardness tested so we can choose the correct water softener to be installed.

Current Place in the Process:

• Plumbing and carpet appts have happened and awaiting estimates
• Patio door appt made but hasn't happened
• Well test appt made for this PM, results needed before closing (plenty of time)
• Mortgage specialist is asking for all financial paperwork and estimates to be submitted by Wednesday, Friday latest - financial papers are gathered, estimates are in various states of completion.
  
• Waiting for paperwork back from seller so our lawyer can go ahead and start the research on the title, abstract, and survey.
• Have already visited Lowe's many times to peruse, estimate, and dream.
  

If you buy a foreclosure, get an experienced agent!

Well more modifications to our plan are in place, but we would have planned the right stuff in the first place if our agent knew more about dealing with a foreclosure. She's nice and wants to learn, but it leads to a big of frustration when we are told one thing for several days, only to find out 24 hr before an appt that actually she was wrong, there isn't a chance in hell that the seller will let us turn the busted water system on (which we thought was odd to begin with) so we have to cancel the water softener guy and the final inspection by our inspector team. I go from having 3 appts today to just one. And now in order to have the water tested, we have to go to a completely different guy and we have to get the survey so we can locate the well. And I'm still unclear on how we have the septic checked out, but I'm letting that one go for today because I can only focus on so much!

I'm just thankful that our lender and our lawyer are experienced with foreclosures, so if something our agent says doesn't sound right to them, we know to have her double check what she's saying and get the correct information. With luck, our paperwork will come back from the seller today and we can have our lawyer go over it and sign off on it. After that's done, he gets started on the title, abstract, survey, etc.

Already an adjustment in plans...

No worries, folks, everything is still going smoothly with the process, but we've already rethought one aspect of our financing.

The roof re-shingling wouldn't happen until Spring and the policy of the bank is to hold back 1 1/2 times the cost until the repair is actually done. So we'd have to give them half the cost of the roof repairs and wouldn't get it back until spring. Our friend Matt is actually fairly experienced with building, so it's possible we'd finance it and fix it ourselves or take out a small shorter lerm loan to have a pro do it. The less financed for 30 yrs, the less interest and the lower our mortgage payment and downpayment have to be. The end result is more money available at the time of closing and a less expensive mortgage overall. Sounds like a good plan, right? We think so!

So as it stands now, we've got an appointment with the plumber and the water softener guy tomorrow so we can get estimates to submit from both of them and an appointment with the carpet guy on Saturday. If the prices of those are low enough, we may also finance the replacement of the sliding glass door with a new Energy Star door, since those doors are the biggest energy drain in a house and the house currently has electric heat. We're going Energy Star whenever it's feasible, we want to save money and have our house be more environmentally friendly.

Current game plan:
$89,000 for House +
$ 6,000 for renovations (we hope!) =
$95,000 loan, minus downpayment

Current place in the process:
- All appts for estimates currently set up
- A call into our friend Matt to see what further upgrades we can do low cost with his help.
- Julia and Aaron have both collected the financial paperwork listed below:

Required items for our loan:

• 1 month pay stubs
• 2 months financial records
• 2 years ('04-'05) W2s
• 3 years Federal Tax Returns
• 3 years residency addresses w/landlord contact info

I thought I'd give people an idea of what we are working with and show the "before" pics that Aaron took on his initial tour of the house. Some you can really see the damage in, like the surface mold on the drawers by the fridge, and others just give you a more general idea of "needs work." Hopefully it's easy to see that the place has great potential!

The kitchen:

The scene of the crime - the laundry closet in the kitchen where the water softener exploded!:

The dining room and it's damaged but easily fixed wood floor:
The hall bathroom and master bathroom (you can hardly see the master bath because it's hardly there!):



Closet in the master bedroom:Master bedroom w/view to backyard:

Our future office w/builtins in the closet:

The floor of the guest bedroom, carpet removed showing the subfloor is in good shape:

The livingroom:

The garage w/backdoor to backyard. Already drywalled, just needs paint!:

Yesterday, on Halloween, we got a treat instead
of a trick: Our offer was accepted on a cute little 3 bed, 2 bath modular ranch in Brooktondale, NY.


We are purchasing the home for $89,000 from Fannie Mae as a foreclosure. We are also working extra money into the SONYMA mortgage as a renovation loan to repair water damage from a water softener accident and reshingling the roof.

Depending on our closing costs and what deals we can get, we may also our personal non-loan money to make some more asthetic and comfort based improvements like upgrading light fixtures and buying a few small pieces of furniture.

Come spring we'll probably be chopping down the 2 huge pine trees because they are already rubbing against the house and garage, and tear out those ugly little bushes that block the front windows for something a little more attractive, like ornamental grasses. Aaron's step-dad has a connection that lets him get alot of landscaping plants cheap or for free, and we'll probably be borrowing his landscaping equipment quite a bit!

Current Place in the Process:
- The offer was verbally accepted and the paper versions were Fedex yesterday afternoon.
- We have an appt with the plumber to give us an estimate on the repairs for Friday
- We have calls in to a roofer, Lowe's carpet installation, and a water softener seller to get appts with them, hopefully for Friday, so we can get estimates from them as well.