House Changes--Part 4

After house hunting for only a short time, Ward and I thought maybe we had found what we were looking for, so we decided to make an offer.

I spent another sleepless night before we met with Tom, our agent, to begin the paperwork. (In case you don't remember, spending big money makes me anxious.) I began the session with putting my feelings up front. I wanted to put in a very low offer because that's all the money I wanted to spend and was feeling anxious about the whole thing. However, I said that wasn't exactly what I was going to do, but I wanted to put it out on the table where my thoughts were coming from. We started filling out lots of papers even before we got to the offer part. At one point, I was getting cold, so I told Ward I was going to the car to get my sweater.

I wonder how long our 94 year old seller has had this oil?
Notice the pictures on it.

When I returned to the building, the door was locked. I knocked to no avail. Tom and Ward were in a conference room not close to the door and didn't seem to hear me. I knocked some more. I knocked on the glass, I knocked on the wood. I knocked continuously and I knocked in patterns. I went around the building to see if any other door was open. No luck. I figured sooner or later they would come looking for me, so I waited. I should also mention that my cell phone was in the conference room with them. I was only going to the car for a minute, so I didn't think to bring it. I waited some more and knocked every little bit until my knuckles were getting sore. Finally another agent showed up and let me in. I joined Tom and Ward and they exclaimed, "There you are." I told them the door was locked and I couldn't get back in.

They hadn't heard me, but they thought I was so stressed that I had left the room to gather myself. Ward said I was probably calling one of my sisters for emotional support. All the time I was trying to get back into the room, they were giving me time to collect myself. And all I wanted was in.

We all had a good chuckle over it and I was feeling better. A short 3 hours later, we were finally done with all of the paperwork. The offer was ready and Tom would present it tomorrow to the other agent. Now it was a waiting game. Interestingly, we learned that the person selling the house was a 94 year old woman, who just moved into a 55 and over community. If she is any indication, we could live a good long time in this house.

Well, we had done it. I don't know if you are keeping up with the timeline, but after only four days from our first meeting with Tom and seeing only two houses inside, we put in a offer. Yes, my head continued to spin and a good night's sleep was eluding me.

So what did our 94 year old think of our offer?

Stay tuned...

House Changes--Part 3

My husband and I are in the process of house hunting. 

The Hunt

Nice trees helped make this house attractive.

After discussing it for a a couple of years, Ward and I were finally sitting around the dining room table with our real estate agent, Tom. Ward had given him general parameters of what we were looking for in geographic area and style. We wanted one level living with a workshop for Ward or a good lot to build one on. We still wanted a little land around us, but something definitely easier to take care of than we have now.  We also wanted to be within 30 minutes of my work. Tom came prepared with maps and listings for us to look at.

At first glance, it was discouraging. They rarely build ramblers in this area any more. They were common 40-50 years ago, but not so much now. Two-story giant houses are the name of the game around here these days. Many of the ramblers built long ago were chopped up with small rooms and needed a lot of work. However, he advised us to drive around some of the communities within our chosen radius and see what they look like. He also sent us with four listings he had found that we might be interested in.

The entire weekend we drove around looking at houses for sale. We saw at least a couple of dozen. And among all of those, we found two that we wanted to actually go into. We scheduled appointments for the next day and just a few hours before we were to see them, both were taken off the market. That was very discouraging because we had fallen in love with the pictures we had seen on the internet of one of them.

However the next day, Tom found one that was actually on the market for us to see. It was a flip that had been beautifully done, but it was not for us because it had a swimming pool. It was hard to walk away from because we knew it was a rarity, but we did.

And then it happened. When widening the search parameters (meaning going up in price a little), we saw a house that just might work. It was a well-built house in a nice neighborhood with all living on one level--even the laundry. (Not a common thing because most laundry rooms are in the basement.) But more importantly, it had a HUGE detached workshop. I think Ward's eyes glazed over when he saw it and the house faded into the background.

After we saw that house, we spent a sleepless night thinking about if we wanted to put an offer in on this one. While there were drawbacks (needs some work), we knew this was it. It fit every important criteria we had for a house.

But could I overcome the fact that it was a above the price range we had hoped for?

Until next time...

A Second Look--August 10, 2016

Here are a few things a saw this week 

during a Second Look.

Zinnia

Marigolds. I have a lot of marigolds this year and they all came from last years seeds as volunteers.

More big mushrooms/fungus sprung up almost overnight. Notice the 12" ruler for scale.

I got several begonias at the end of the planting season for half price and they're doing very well. However, the geraniums I also got on clearance don't look so good. But I'm still holding out hope for them.

Hydrangea. You can see that it was sprinkling when I took this picture.

Most of the coneflowers are drying up and turning to seed. Here's one that is a little behind schedule.

This box is full of noisy baby wrens. However since it only opens in the front, I haven't looked in. Several years ago I did that and all of the babies fell out. I managed to put them all back with success, but I don't the open box any any more when there is nesting going on. Just before I snapped this picture, the mother bird was peeking out the hole. Timing everything and it wasn't good this time.

However, I did manage to get a picture of the mother when she flew out of the box. The babies were really loud until she called something to them and then all of the cheeping stopped at once. I guess I represented stranger-danger.

How many butterflies can you see in this picture?

House Changes--Part 2

My husband and I are in the process of house hunting.

The Beginning

Getting the floors redone in the present house

Yesterday, I said that Ward and I are pretty good about making long term plans. Well, sort of. We are good at making them, but I am anxious about implementing them if they involve any big changes. It's the the known vs. the unknown thing. So if I can deal with what I am doing today, I'm afraid to venture into the unknown. What if it's worse? What if it doesn't work out? What if something happens that we didn't anticipate? Some people are invigorated by change and actually need it. That's not me. Predictability is the name of the game as far as I'm concerned.

So when the discussions about moving started a few years ago, I was hesitant. (Ward may have another word for it.) But I agreed in theory, so I cooperated.  We talked about what we wanted in a house. We pointed out the look of houses we liked as we drove by. So while I was nervous, it was so far so good in our action plan.

Then we started to put a timeline to the whole thing and the anxiety level shot up. Tied to the house change timeline was retirement for Ward (another story about whether the stress of the job is worth the money). We wanted to do this while there was a decent salary coming in. We called in a real estate agent to tell us what we should do to the house to get it ready to sell in a couple of years. That would give us plenty of time to work on what we needed. We carefully noted his suggestions and then set about getting caught up in everyday life and ignored the list.

As Ward was recovering from surgery, his suggestions that we call the agent back and start looking at houses became more frequent. I said not yet. I wasn't ready. He said there's not a commitment, let's just see what's out there. I said we haven't done anything on the list he gave us. We're not ready. He said, it's okay. I said we will waste the agent's time.  He said let's just look. And finally, I agreed because I knew I was balking for no good reason except I was anxious. And just three days later we were sitting around the dining room table looking at listings .

Stay tuned...

House Changes--Part 1

Plans


Ward and I are pretty good about making long term plans, not the best but pretty good--especially if the stats I hear in the news these days are true. Most Americans aren't ready for next month let alone retirement, but we're in reasonable shape.

We have always put maximum into our retirement plans and lived below our means. This was whether we had two jobs, one job, a good job, or a mediocre job. This has allowed us to mostly live debt free.

We're now in our late 50's and retirement is becoming very real--particularly for Ward who has talked about retiring for a few years now. So besides making sure our finances are in order (a trip to the financial planner recently confirmed this), we have been talking about what we want to do, where we want to live, etc. And the conclusion has been, that we want to stay in the area we are in to be close to the family here.

However, what we do want to change is the house that we live in. We want to get a house where we can age comfortably in place. And that mostly means, no steps. We have watched our parents age in houses that were not good for this and the subsequent problems that occurred. So while we love many things about where we live now (just look at the Second Looks to get an idea), three level living with a two acre lot to take care of is not the way we want to do things in the future. And this is a change we want to make before we need to, so it is not made in a pressured situation as we have seen both sets of our parents deal with.

So you can probably guess where this is going. We're in the process of house hunting, etc. This was what I eluded to in another post when I said I was pretty busy these days. I will be chronicling here, some of this process.

So, until next time...