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More hurdles cleared; so far so good

June 24th, 2014 at 09:06 pm

Getting closer to the home purchase and trying to sell our current home! For a while it's felt like hurry up and wait, but now things are really snowballing and moving quickly, I think.

- The appraisal went well; home actually appraised at $550K, well above the $464,500 we'll be paying for it. Good news! Now I'm wondering if we can refi the $407K main mortgage almost immediately and get out of PMI. But we don't even officially have that loan, so trying not to count my chickens just yet.

- Heard back from our main contractor; he's not sure about dates but feels confident he can fit us in really soon (we asked him to move us way up in the schedule from our initial consultation). Haven't heard much from our floor guy, but I'll bug him again in a day or two. Our realtor said he's really good, so I want to use him if possible!

- Since we've decided to try and list in July, before we close on our new home, we need to move some of our stuff so our condo looks less crowded. We found a storage place near the new house with good rates, so we're going to pack up stuff we don't need, rent a U-Haul and get that stuff out -- hopefully the July 4th weekend. Then we can move it all into the basement of the new place Aug. 1, so we'll only need to pay for a month of storage.

- Bought some things at Ikea and on Amazon: light fixtures for bedrooms and dining area, living-room lamp, sofa cover, duvet cover, shower rod. About $130 at Ikea and $130 on Amazon (using CC reward Amazon gift cards). We still have a couple hundred dollars' worth of credit on Amazon and should have another $500 coming in early July, so hopefully we can use it to buy any other staging/decorating stuff we need. We had so much gray paint left over that we've decided to do the whole condo in it; it's a really nice gray that seems to change color depending on decor and lighting, so I think it'll look OK. Lots of places for sale do all gray these days.

- This week (maybe tonight), going to map out a to-do list by date, so we know what's happening when (at least the stuff we can control; the contractors are wild cards). I think our main tasks are:
--paint bedrooms, kitchen and bath
--replace doorknobs
--replace toilet seat, towel racks and shower rod/curtain
--replace light fixtures in bedroom, dining room and kitchen
--box up and move out stuff we don't need (obtain boxes, rent truck, rent storage space, get friends to help us move)
--clean kitchen, bath & floor before contractors tackle each
--clean clean clean, especially the balcony floor
--buy a few more staging things to make it pretty
--get pictures taken (our friend will be able to do this; he's a photographer as well as a lawyer!)
--hold breath and hope for best!

8 Responses to “More hurdles cleared; so far so good”

  1. Rachael777 Says:
    1403645411

    exciting news. keep it up

  2. creditcardfree Says:
    1403645704

    Awesome!! I despise waiting for contractors. It seems they are often terrible at communicating their timelines and plans with customers.

  3. rob62521 Says:
    1403654935

    We called a contractor (twice) and left a message and the person has never contacted us. We used to work with his dad who did great work. Sounds like you have great plans!

  4. Looking Forward Says:
    1403674776

    Very Exciting!
    Can't wait to see the staging photos. Smile

  5. SecretarySaving Says:
    1403698543

    Ikea has some cool things.

  6. CB in the City Says:
    1403707298

    A friend of mine just bought a condo and is painting it gray throughout!

  7. FrugalTexan75 Says:
    1403754003

    Great news!

  8. LuxLivingFrugalis Says:
    1403790114

    Hello Old Friend!!! Woo - new digs!!!! To Do List - When we sold our last place we did the same. Working backwards from our upcoming signing date to today on what has to be done by when and allowing ourselves plenty of time to get stuff done! Moving stuff to storage sounds like a pain, and it is, IT's WHAT WE DID, but so worth it for a well staged home that moves FAST!!! Blessings on your new adventure!

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