Aside

Oh you will all love this. While I was giving the realtor a gentle
tirade, she asked me if I had ever heard of 'The Secret' and proeeded to
quote from it. Something about wanting things and they will happen etc
etc.

Appraisal Pt. 2

Of course she screwed up the appraisal again. Apparently the tenants were not there to open the upstairs apartment so the appraiser only managed to do half the job. He will have to return to finish it.

Honestly, how hard is it for a realtor to just make sure tenants are there when the appraiser comes? I understand that people are unreliable but if this is your only job, I would make darn sure that they were in.

Anyway the appraiser (like the inspector before him) will have to return and get paid a second time by the owner (not my us!)

That means, the whole process is delayed which means an end June move-in date is very unlikely. We are now shooting for Aug 1. The dead of summer - I will only have 2 months at most to fix up the place cos we can't tear up the side of our house in the winter!

So annoying...

They get 6%?

I seriously cannot believe that realtors get 6% for the work they do.
That is $40,000 for our house just for (a) screwing up my inspection (b)
screwing up the appraisal.

Somehow our illustrious realtor misunderstood the appraiser as to
whether the appraisal was Wed or Thur (because those are the 2 days most
people commonly mistake) and so the appraisal isn't till next Tues.

In terms of tenant situation, it looks bad. She thinks July is more
realistic for moving in. She told me she's trying to find them a new
apartment. She said "it might push the closing date back a week...no big
deal".

No big deal? I have to tell my landlord when we are leaving, we have to
vacate my place and move, we have to do this on a weekend, we have to
possibly pay the entire month's rent because landlords don't extend
rentals by one week and we all have to work in between this and pushing
one week is no big deal??

Its no big deal for her cos her 40 grand commission is secure!

Appraisal

The appraisal is today and the realtor hasn't responded to my phone calls which sorta worries me. Besides the appraisal, she was also supposed to help the landlord offer his tenants some money to leave earlier than August 1 (there is an eviction notice for his tenants) If all goes well, we move in June 25. If not, we move July 15. (double rent & mortgage...yuck)

I hate the thought that people have to be evicted for us to move in but apparently they weren't paying rent (which explains why the guy wants to sell I suppose) I met them too, they have kids and I doubt they will be difficult to evict. Generally when you have children, you don't kick up a big fuss...maybe.

Either way, I hate the idea.

Otherwise, things progress at a normal pace. I am working frantically to get as much saved up as possible for renovations. I think the first thing we want to do is the masonry wall (of course). Then we want to move an interior wall (giving the master bedroom a walk-in closet) thus removing one of the 3 bedrooms. I think one guest room is sufficient and anyway, we will probably house guests downstairs in the basement where they will have their own kitchen & bathroom & be infinitely more comfortable.

After moving the interior wall, we will concentrate on the pergola outside which I have my heart set on. I want to plant climbers so it will provide some shelter but gives a great sense of being outside. We will see how long this idea lasts...

The current layout of our house is very similar to the new place so there wasn't much discussion with what goes where. Our total square footage upgrade is only 250 sq ft more (and of course a yard of another 1000 sq ft) but I think the space is ample for our needs especially considering the basement.

I am a little nervous to leave this current rental because we have grown so comfortable here and the thought of moving...! But I have found someone to move in to this rental apartment after us which I feel will help our landlord out and also, if we move 2 weeks later than 25 June, maybe I can get him to come in earlier too and save me the 2 weeks rent I would have had to pay.

Moving Along

Our loan has been approved and we are on pace to close June 25th! The appraisal is on Tuesday which is giving me slight twinges of worry cos of the illegal basement rental unit but the realtor assures me they know what to do (remove the stove and locks to the basement etc) to circumnavigate the inspector.

Our loan processor has said this is the cleanest commitment she has seen in a long time (whatever that means...) and bar a bad appraisal, we are good to go!

In a few days, we should be locking down an interest rate. Our mortgage broker estimates it to be in the low 6s which is fine with us. There was a small scare with the contracts but mostly because our real estate lawyer is very jumpy.

If I had to re-do this process, I would probably prefer a different lawyer. It's not to say he's bad or anything, but he does tend to the histrionics and that has made this whole thing that much more uncomfortable for the first time buyers that we are.

I can't believe we are going to tell our landlord June 1 that we are leaving in a month. That's less than 2 weeks away! I can't believe we are moving out of this apartment...this is all we've known as a couple and we've definitely become very entrenched here. It will be sad. But I'm already planning paint colours and pergolas!

Once we've moved in, I've decided to re-position this blog to become a renovation blog! I figured it would only be fitting.

More good news!

My mortgage broker has informed me that with an Undertaking by us, the lender will have no problem closing on the house with the existing violations! Things are slowly falling into place and I have to say, if we didn't have experience with the first house that fell through due to violations we would have had no clue what to do.

The first house we almost bought (208) sold for 736k! The one we are buying is only right across the next avenue and costs 100k less. Of course this was a year ago when the market was red hot and that house showed really well (not to me, of course, I immediately saw the flaws...hahaha)

I have to say, having all those deals fall through really worked out for us in terms of timing and all. I couldn't be happier with this house because the layout is great and it's completely unrenovated. Sarah has all these plans for the layout and I can't wait to sit down and discuss them. The Grays are excellent spatial planners (you should see how they laid out their existing 500 sq ft apartment) and are a great resource to tap.

The mortgage payments come up to about $400 more than rent but we were paying way below market rate anyway and the Grays are actually paying the same amount in rent currently. Of course, we still get the write off and an occasional tenant in the basement so I think this is going to work great!

My only concern (and it's not even very major) is the masonry work we have to do right away of about 30k and we will have to dig into our savings for the share. But it's a few months away and the work horizon looks good and just knowing we have that basement unit relaxes me even if we never really rent it out!

They signed the contract!

Which means this is definitely on! Now it depends on how long we take to get the loan etc etc which I am currently working with our mortgage broker on. He estimates that we will get a rate of 6.125% which is not bad I suppose. Of course you hear about lower rates out there but we are talking about a fixed interest Principal & Interest loan for 30 years which means it is a little more expensive.

I chose this type of loan because should the Grays move back to the UK and we buy their share from them, I dont want to have to refinance especially if the interest rates could be higher then. In all likelihood, we will probably sell up with them and get a one family somewhere else but you never know...

Contract Signed!!

Finally signed the contract and deposited $30,000 (yikes!) Our lawyer left the violations removal clause in to cover our behinds in case the deal falls through for whatever reason. But verbally we have expressed to the seller that if the lender is willing to close with these violations then we are happy to deal with it ourselves.

Sarah spoke to the Landmark people and this particular person she spoke to was very encouraging and even gave her number to help if we had difficulties closing. This is great news indeed!

We are one step closer to owning and Oli is already forwarding me emails about countertops etc. We are responsible for the costs of renovating our own units but have decided to concert our efforts re: appliances and other common things so as to save on costs.

We upped our deposit so the loan now becomes a Fannie Mae loan which is the best rate possible. There will be no PMI and our mortgage payment looks to be quite manageable.

I never talk about work on this blog but since it relates to the house, it's ok I guess. I have been offered a tv job which means steady great paying work for a year so if I have to, I can just do that and our renovation cost worries are over!

I can't believe it's taken this long to find a house and even then, we are not out of the woods, I know. But I have such hope.