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!