Home Inspection

The people who bought our house are doing the home inspection today at 1pm. They want to "rush" it because they want to firm everything up before they hand in their notice to the apartment they're currently in. It should be fine, except for one small "issue" with one window sill. It's been an issue since the first year we moved in. Instead of using one solid piece of concrete for the sills, they laid bricks down horizontally. Not a problem, except that the mortar keeps on cracking and falling out, leaving the bricks very loose. It's never caused a problem as far as water leaks or anything that we know of, but if the home inspector sees and notes it, they might want us to fix that before going firm. It all depends on what the inspector says. We had the builder fix it once already, but I don't believe it's covered anymore (it fell under the 2-year warranty. The 7-year is for Major Structural Defects, which this is not).

Echo is heading to doggy day care again for the day...

PS, it's also Marn's LAST DAY at home with Violet!!! :(

This is her new face (while waiting for our Chinese food)... we're not really sure what it is, but she does it a lot lately. Marn thinks she's trying to imitate her when Marn tries to act surprised or happy about something. She's also saying "Happy" now. She started saying in after her Birthday party. It kind of comes out as "ha-pee". We thought she was just imitating again, but she says it all the time, if you ask her to.

Accepted!

They accepted the deal this morning! Wow... it feels very surreal right now. They still have the home inspection and lawyers "approval" before it's official, but as of right now, we've just sold our home!

The Sign Back

The potential buyers didn't accept our return offer, and signed back again. Again a little lower than we were hoping for, but closer. So after some hard decisions and some finagling from our agent, we came up with a solution that we think they will accept. We had to come down a bit and include the washer and dryer, they had to come up a bit, and both agents agreed to take a slight commission cut to make the deal happen. They have until 10 PM tonight to accept it, or not. We think we'll know by noon today. If they accept this, we'll have done a little better than we were hoping for in the end (our absolute minimum number) and we'll have "made" almost exactly $100k on this house in 5 years. Unbelievable!!
Fingers crossed. Potential move-OUT date will be November 19. We're going to see if the lady in the home we're buying can bump out the date we closed on by a week so that we only have to bridge for a week instead of two.
The other couple who were potentially in the running for our house had decided against it, and opted to try for a larger house with smaller property that backed onto the Baden school grounds (yuck). The girl apparently loved our house, but couldn't win over the guy, or something. Anyway, they probably wouldn't have been the best choice for us given the time frame and if this deal is accepted, I think it will be nearly the best possible outcome (other than paying full price!) :-)

House!

We received an offer to buy our house last night. It is on the verge of being low-ball and insulting, but our agent prepared us for it to be low. The buyers did a market analysis of some other houses in Baden, but neglected to include homes that were comparable to the lot size and location with ours. So their comparison come out to look like ours was way overpriced. Anyway, it's funny that this offer even came in because earlier in the day we received an email from our agent that said they were going to continue their looking around. They sent the email on Friday morning.
Their exact words were;
"We have decided to continue our search. Certain things about the house we wouldn't be comfortable with include the location of laundry, the size of the en suite, and most importantly basement size (little small).”

So, there must have been something that they really liked about the house, or location. Marn thinks the lot is what made them change their mind and decide to put an offer in. What made us extra mad is not only the low-ball offer, but that they wanted all of the appliances including the washer and dryer. That's about $6000 worth of extras. When you include the Deck and Shed, that's more like 12,000 of "extras" that they are not getting with any other house on their analysis. Not to mention the court location and large lot that the others also don't offer!

Regardless of the price that this may end up at, this becomes more interesting because our agent also had a couple through (twice) who really like the place and were going to decide about an offer this weekend. They were away for the weekend, so won't know about the other offer until this morning. So hopefully they'll decide to put an offer in as well. The PROBLEM with this scenario is, we need a quick closing date and the people with the offer in right now have no conditions to sell an existing place. They are in an apartment so they can give their notice quickly whereas the other couple have a semi in New Hamburg to sell first. So for us with a quick close, they are the better option as long as they come up in price to a level where we need them to be! If this other couple also puts in an offer, the first people won't know that they have a place to sell. They'll just know that there's competition now, and hopefully "scare" them into the price that we signed back with. They have until 10pm tonight to sign back, or accept. If they sign back low again, we'll most likely cut them loose, or try to hold them off long enough to get this other couple in the game. A reason for us wanting to accept an offer from our agent's client is that his commission fee's go down on our house, which may offset some costs in a lower offer, but of course, they have the semi to sell first....
We should know by tonight what's happening!

Birthday Party

We had a "small" birthday party for Violet on Saturday. Both families, minus the Asbury's, which still managed to pack the house -- 18 people (including us)! We had burgers, potato salad, pasta salad, greek salad and chocolate cake and I'm sure other things.
It was a lot of fun and Violet didn't play shy at all to anyone. Not even Dad or Tony, who historically have caused some tears with her! lol I mean at first, she just sort of looked around at everyone in a stare, but no tears which was surprising. She was very good all day long and crashed hard at around 3:30pm. As far as cake eating, she wasn't too crazy with it. She definitely liked it, but didn't inhale like some of her cousins! She didn't even eat it all or get that messy. It was a really fun day, I just wish the Asbury's could have been there!! Maybe Marn can attach some pictures at home?

Happy 1st Birthday Violet!

Violet is on the verge of walking on her first birthday! Marn told me that she stood up by herself and took about 4 steps without help tonight. Up until now, she's been "walking", but with lots of help, and while falling forward. She's on the brink of getting up and around and we can't wait!

Some good news regarding the house; the first couple who came through the house on Friday last week is coming back for a 2nd look today (Wednesday). They are clients of our agent, so fingers crossed! (It means that his commission goes down if they end up buying it).
I just feel bad that I've been away all week so can't help get/keep the house cleaned up. I was supposed to fly out Wednesday at 6pm Central, but there's one other flight leaving at 10am, so I'm about to call Air Canada to change to that flight. It will cost $75 to do it, but I think it's worth it to get home 8 hours earlier. I'll miss the last little bit of the conference here, but most people leave in the morning, so there's not much going on anyway.

Conditions Waived

Except for selling our house, of course! We removed the Financing and Home Inspection conditions last night. We also added on the agreement to remove the old oil drum in the basement at their cost, which they already said they had to do before selling, but just so that we have it in writing.

Anyway, there is another showing of our house tonight at 6pm. This will be only the 2nd one so far and hopefully many more this weekend! Depending on how it goes this week, we may have an open house next weekend.

I'm heading to Nashville bright and early on Sunday morning for a work conference which will cause Marn to be extremely busy if there are more showings while I'm gone. She'll have to clean up, watch the baby, and get Echo out of the house all on her own. Taking Echo out of the equation would make it so much easier... he makes such a mess sometimes!

MLS

Here's the MLS listing, which is basically the same as the daveshomes.ca listing;
http://www.realtor.ca/propertyDetails.aspx?propertyId=8704052

The "emergency" walk-through yesterday didn't result in anything. Bottom line was the buyers were looking for a bigger place. They didn't like how the island wasn't built in, and the en-suite was a little small compared to other places they were looking at. But, at least it's drawing people in. No word on whether we'll have an open house or not. Our agent thinks that they're more beneficial to the selling agent that his client (us), so he tends not to do them, but will if we ask.

We had the Home Inspection yesterday afternoon, and all in all, the house is in great shape considering the age. The biggest concern is the roofing -- the front of the shingles look less than 5 years old, but the back and side look like hell. Almost like they re-shingled only half the roof at one point. The seller said they look like that because she had trees scraping along there which caused the wear and have since been cut back, but the home inspector didn't buy it. He said the wear type and pattern weren't consistent with the explanation. There are also no signs of leaks in the attic, so it's something that we'll have to keep an eye on. I also had some concerns in the basement which were somewhat alleviated. We were concerned that we wouldn't be able to take the wall down between an unexcavated part of the basement and the "finished" side, but it looks like we can with the help of only two jack posts (there are two I-beams holding up the floor joists in that section). I say "finished" because whoever did it, didn't put any electrical outlets in the walls! When the time comes, it shouldn't be a problem (the only problem is money to excavate and to pour a floor at this point). Anyone know an excavator on the cheap???
All in all the inspector was impressed with the condition of the home, minus a few "cosmetic and layout quirks that we'll have to figure out". He meant the bathrooms and decor inside...

Our listings

http://www.daveshomes.ca/

I haven't seen it on MLS.ca yet, but it should be there today at some point!

You will notice (maybe?) we painted the garage to try and match the siding, the front door is dark green. It looks really sharp, but doesn't come through in the pictures that well.

UPDATE!
Marn just called and someone is going through the house right now! Our agent called and appologized for the 45 minute notice, but someone was ready to put an offer in on another house in Baden, then saw this one list today and wanted to see it. Yikes, that was FAST! Marn had a friend over with her baby and was just about to sit down for lunch, so they scrambled to tidy up and get out of the house!

so much time, so little blogging

I thought I would blog a lot while being off, but the obvious truth is I didn't really want to be on the computer much. While at work it's easy, because it's right in front of me all day. At home, not so much. Sure, I checked email and the regular news/tech sites daily, but that's about it.
And then 6 weeks fly by and I wonder where it went and what happened? Wow, summer is over (pretty much). We only went to the beach twice in all of that time. Didn't make it to the zoo. Didn't make it south for a vacation. Didn't make it to BC for a much wanted visit, didn't do a lot of "house stuff". There are a lot of didn't's in there. What I did do is a lot of playing and hanging out with Vi and Mom, ripped out the den and kitchen at my sister and brother in law's place, spent too much during a US shopping trip, yard work when it was nice, and in this last week in particular.... buying a house!
Yeah, we have a conditional offer in to buy a little open concept bungalow in old westmount, Waterloo. Is it an absolutely ideal house? No. But it's pretty close and has a lot of potential. You can't "fix" lot and location, and this house has those both.

The lot is large - 80 across the front and 106 feet across the back while the sides are 128 and 156 feet deep. So it's big, and has privacy and mature trees surrounding it. As far as inside, it's old. Built in 1955, and last updated in 1955. Original "sea foam green" kitchen included as well.

It has a cool 12x12 foot sun room off the back, southern facing yard. The neighbour behind us probably has a 4500+ sq. ft. home (guessing?) along with his million dollar neighbours that are along the private only Westmount Golf Club. The backyard property line is the divider between the have's and have not so much's... :)
So, the deal was confirmed on Thursday night after a little back and forth with the seller. She didn't come down as much as we would have liked, but cest la vie. So on Friday morning, we went into a little panic and realized just how much work needed to be done to get our house ready to sell. We spent most of the weekend madly decluttering. The basement looked like a bomb had went off - it was seriously embarrassing as it was a dumping ground for whatever we didn't want, or have room for in the house. We ended up renting a storage unit that is now packed to the gills with crap and toys after 3 trips. The house looks good now, but so barren looking -- a good thing, I guess. Sunday was mostly spent cleaning. One trip to the dump should clear out a lot of the garage "crap" as well and we'll be ready.
The mad scramble was on because we needed to list quickly - Today to be exact! Three days to thoroughly clean and declutter is quit hectic, but can be done with late nights!! It's a November closing on that house which is why we needed to list as soon as possible. You should see our house on MLS tonight. The photographer is coming this afternoon at 4:30 and the sign should be up right now. Everything now is a "go", and it's been such a blur! We're not as ready as we'd like to be, but we're pretty darn close. If only I had another week or so off! ;) (seriously could have spent a whole week just cleaning...)
The home inspection is this week where a lot of questions will hopefully be answered as well. If things look grim after the inspection, we'll have to decide to move forward, or back out. We'd really hate to have major problems in structure and things, since the house is already at the top end of our budget and it needs a lot of work off the hop. So we'd either back out, or go back to her to drop the price. Finger's crossed! After the inspection, the only thing left is to sell our place! Yikes!!

We're so sad about leaving this place and the neighbours, but also excited about our possible future in the new place (envisioning the changes and updates that need to be done).

Maybe I'll blog a little more about my time off at a later date. Right now all I can think about is the house!

The little red roof, could be ours! (notice the "mansions" behind it...)

Walking?

For a while now, Vi has had NO interest in walking if you let go of her hands. She plops right down and starts to crawl...until yesterday. Daily, Andrew and I try to convince her to walk to us using various objects (as mentioned in the previous post). Yesterday morning, we had a few steps but really they were just leg movements while she was falling towards us. Jump to driving to pick Vi up from my mom's place (we had dropped her off while we went to test drive new cars - woohoo!). My mom called us as we were pulling in the drive to say 'why didn't you tell me she started stepping out yet?'...well, mom, that is because she really had not started to yet. Loveley. First steps for my mom and dad. Granny and Pop. Boo.
But later she walked towards me and today we got a few on tape. The are not 'walking' so much as a fun balancing act, but I LOVE IT!
Maybe Andrew can post the video!