Filing an Abatement

Last year, we realized that our taxes were high. Really high. Not like Canada/Europe high, but still pretty high. Did you know that you can request that the town take a look at your home's value to see if it's still worth what they say it is? We did some research into this last year and filed a real estate abatement in the first part of 2011. It was a LOT of paperwork and required us to turn in a copy of our assessment report from the purchase of the house, which we still had on file. We filed, and waited. And waited. And then we met Don.

Don is the town assessor and an incredibly nice guy. He came to do an interior inspection of the house this week. (Yes, Chris and I did have the discussion beforehand - do we tidy the house up? Or trash the place?) After his inspection, he went back to his office and crunched some numbers. Here's how we made out:

Sale price: $270,000
Former Assessment: $375,000
New Assessment: $307,000

That saves us a little over $500 a year! Just for filling out some paperwork and taking the time to meet with a perfectly nice gentleman. Sometimes it's these little silly things that really end up helping. We had promised outselves when we bought the house to do this, and now it's done. Go team!

The Bids are In!

Okay. So here's the thing with our house. Or things, I guess. The roof leaks in a bad way (photos of our bucket brigade left out for your peace of mind), there's a giant nasty old disconnected sewer vent pipe pulling on one side of the house, we have no idea whether or not the heating system is functional but know that the oil tank is moments from death, and, last but not least, Chris hates the upstairs bathroom with the passion of a thousand burning stars. It's built directly into the roof and comes in at a slant, so that even the shower ceiling is slanted. For someone short like me, it's no thing, but Chris finds the whole room intolerable.

Upon purchasing the home, our first priority was to pop out the bathroom roof with a wee little dormer at the same time as re-roofing. Makes sense, right? While the roof is off, add a tiny little addition. Ha. Three quotes later, we're realizing that everyone warned us for a reason. Homeownership is expensive and unexpected things always pop up!

We have three bids from local contractors at this time, and all three are much higher than we expected. Today, we are meeting with a guy named Joe who is a plumber to discuss the state and fate of our heating system. We want to upgrade from oil to natural gas, leaving the option for AC in the future open, and this is expensive even with the gas company providing rebates etc. We've learned more about power venting furnaces with forced hot air in the last week than we'd like to admit. I'm hoping that the news from the plumber today keeps our budget in line so that we can upgrade the heating but still have our headroom addition in the bathroom.

All that said, it's still fun. I still love this little house and can't wait to move in. I taught myself the basics of caulk sealing yesterday using the power of the internet and some good old fashioned MacGyvering, and managed to seal up the kitchen and bathroom counters along with the downstairs shower. Today, I'm heading over there to meet with Joe and keep working on my floor cleaning project. This weekend, Chris and I are changing the locks (finally), putting a new pane of glass in the broken door window, and hopefully diving into the painting part of this project. Once the roof is on (and one of the contractors claimed that if he was hired, it would be done by August 5th!) we will be moving in and diving in to all the rest of the little projects that will absorb our lives for the next...hmm...thirty years? :) Stay tuned, folks, more before and afters coming...

Before and Afters, Already!

As you can see, the first big change came outside the house! Chris took down a huge bush in front of the porch that was keeping a lot of sunlight out. It looks so much better now, and the breeze out there is nicer. My parents and our wonderful friend Jess came by to help, and everything is so clean now! Thanks again for coming out, guys. We're still waiting to hear about the roof project quotes, etc, but should be starting in a couple of weeks. For now, we're cleaning and planning and hoping to move very soon. It was a great first weekend!

Today was the second day...

And it was exhausting! We spent most of today meeting with contractors to get quotes for our roof and bathroom dormer projects. When we weren't repeatedly asking and answering the same questions, we were CLEANING! After today, I can completely endorse the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser - it helped us destroy the 6 months worth of grease, mold, and generally nastiness that festered in the depths of our kitchen. Pictures below...

Chris found a Kraft Single in the fridge. Michael, your dad did a great job inventing these! This one still looked tantalizingly edible after a 6-month stay in the deli drawer.

This is us in the master bedroom last night. That color is changing, don't worry!

Our first attempt at getting into the house yesterday failed - we tried to get in the back door and realized that all we had was a key to the front. Oh well!

Today is the First Day of the Rest of Our Lives

I remember my 8th grade history teacher saying that on the first day of school. Boy, was she wrong. Of course, I think she used to drink wine out of a thermos all day, so maybe she was allowed to be dramatic. I would say that MAYBE the first day of college fits that level of drama. But for today - it's perfect. Today is a dramatic day that has had drama preceding it and will have even more drama in its' wake. Today, we destory our bank accounts in order to bite off our piece of the American Dream. I kept quoting Of Mice and Men in my head yesterday, as inappropriate as that is - "When we gonna get that little place, George?" Well, today is the day. (Hm. Does that scenario mean that I'm Lennie? Oops. At least there aren't any firearms around the house.)

So today's checklist is as follows:

1) Bank, followed by immediate dry heaving (note the lack of breakfast).

2) Scoot to the house to read the electric meter.

3) Head to our CLOSING!

Philip, the Greek God of Real Estate Law, will be meeting us there, and hopefully the whole thing shouldn't take more than an hour. Hopefully. I tried to look out for things that could go terribly wrong and avert them, but I can only do so much. After we close, we're going back to the house to drop some things off from the boxes I packed yesterday. This is going to be a very gradual move - we might rent a U-Haul and move all the furniture at once next weekend, but we have the apartment until August 15th and I'd like to get it painted before we move our stuff in. However, saving $100 on Chris' bus pass by moving in earlier may change my mind...

This weekend will be spent cleaning, cleaning, planning, and meeting with contractors. I'd love to get painting but no promises. I'll post more today in case of emergency, but count on a Sunday night picture post of our new place!!

I packed our first box yesterday!

I couldn't sleep at all last night - so much to think about, to be nervous about, to be excited about. Finally got up early this morning and made myself some tea. Here's to a great day, I hope!

Shhh...

We are all set to close on Friday. But don't tell anyone. We need all the luck we can get at this point! I'll post once and for all when we have keys in hand...meanwhile I'm going to go work another 13 hour day...

YAY! :)

We Have A Permit!!!

Just take a look! She's about to be ours. We have an occupancy permit at last and we are still set to close on July 24th. Things have been going so well so far that we're now looking into the remodeling process - and boy, does she need some work done. Recent weeks have highlighted the differences between our families. Chris' dad today remarked that the hardest thing to manage would be the lawn, as it is in rough shape. My father, after seeing it last night, had this to say this morning:

You need to do three big things right away, the chimney, the roof with the added dormer/window, and the heating system replacement with a gas furnace and removal of the old oil tank - probably in this order, as you need the chimney done before you do the roof, and the chminey before you re-do the heat. You may want to think about talking with your neighbor about what good contractors he has found in his building process...

On the heating subject you may want to find plumbing/heating specialists (most of them are), and have them look at all the plastic plumbing used in the renovations - I don't think that is done right, and think it will be a problem downstream (I know, poor word choice). They also need to look at the ductwork, and repair all this so it at least works with the existing floor grates, etc. I would not think about finishing the A/C now, leave that for next year...

Just a guess, but I would say you are most likely looking at the better part of $20,000 to do all of these things - and I am always low in my estimating.... On the roof especially, with a house that old, you may have surprises once the contractor goes into the attic and looks at the structure of the roofing timbers and underlayment. In the old days they used boards not plywood as underlayment both on walls and roof. I noticed a gradual sag in the roof towards the middle last night, and this may mean - only may mean - some work to repair the substructure and plywood the whole thing - it has to be stripped, don't let anyone fool you into just a re-roof, and the chimney work has to be done first.

The only worries I have about the house other than the above are 1.) the bow in the front wall - but it is possible this has been there for 100 years, 2.) where they excavated the foundation wall for the kitchen remodel - I would have the mason repair this and leave an opening to crawl through for access, but it is too wide for my liking the way it is, and 3.) the sill damage by the bulkhead - but we can figure out how to fix this - rent some jacks and go at it - I have done this before, and with Chris for muscle and my mind/tools we can fix this, but it should be fixed.

Other than the above, you should plan on lots of buckets, Murphy's oil soap, some bleach, ammonia for windows, not a lot, and TSP, sponges, mops, rags, etc. as you really need to scrub before you move in.

As you can see, this is a bit different from "good luck fixing that lawn!" Chris and I are trying very hard to stay in the middle - heed my Dad's caution and excellent advice, but still enjoy and embrace the situation like Chris' parents insist. It's a beautiful thing, having two caring and involved families, and we're lucky for any advice we can get!

And on top of all of this - Chris' brother and his girlfriend had an offer accepted today, too! Hopefully there will be enough pickle-colored paint to go around. Their property needs less work than ours does, so hopefully we'll be able to have a couple of barn-raisings where we help them, you know, paint the walls, and they'll help us, you know, jack up the back of our entire house....

So it begins! Stay tuned, as I think this is about to get much more exciting. :)

Extending the extension's extension...

Another week without a permit. The electrical inspector is set to go in on Monday, and if he's happy, the building inspector will go back in and check the whole thing out. If he's happy (why are these all men?? Are there female building inspectors??) then we will have our permit! We gave the bank another extension, so we now have until the 17th to back out of the deal.

It was a really exhausting week. All of this waiting is really starting to wear on us. Hopefully it will be over with soon...if all goes well this week, we should have keys in our hands on the 24th! And then the madness will really begin...

A couple of pictures from the weekend attached. Great fun with great folks! :)

Champ swimming in his new home!

Ash enjoying the sunshine

Gloucester boats!

Updates and Snafu's

This week, I started working on my summer job that goes from 7/6 - 8/4. May not sound like a lot of time, but many of those days are 8:30am-8:30pm days that are really long. It also means I don't have time to do a lot of house buisness. Chris has been handling a lot, but I took a half day out of work today to try and get some stuff done.

First of all, we can't use Philip as our closing attorney. Our mortgage broker said that he would do "everything he could" to make sure Philip could be added to "the list" of lawyers they use, but to no avail. So now we have another lawyer to bring up to speed on the deal before we close. Ugh. This morning, I paid $583 for our home insurance policy so that New Lawyer would be happy. (Bringing us to $1300 paid already, for those of you counting) So New Lawyer got his paperwork, and the insurance lady got her money, and we still don't have an occupancy permit!!! The bank is telling us that the city inspector is on vacation, but the work is all done, blah blah, we should have it all by Monday, Tuesday at the LATEST. I'm crossing my fingers but not holding my breath...

Things are moving, though. Slowly but surely. I'm just hoping that we end up moving eventually.

And in the midst of all this, I had to deal with Bally's Total Fitness this morning. I lack the stamina to discuss the whole situation now, but please know that Bally's is not the gym for you. We cancelled our membership with them this morning after about a month of arguing about price and location. Needless to say, I'm going outside for a run today...

More info soon, I hope!!!

Just So You Know What We Know...

Well, the 4th weekend is over, and our relaxed feeling of calm complacency is replaced with...more waiting. This is the e-mail that I got this morning from our realtor:

Chris and Emily, Good Morning. Hope everyone had a pleasant 4th of July.As you know Chris, I had gone to check out the work that had been done at the property.  As far as I could see the door was changed over and he new banister was also completed. I am not qualified to say the entry staircase is completed, if that is the staircase  (the listing agent) was referring to, however he left me a detailed message yesterday. He said that he is 99% certain that all the work involving the electrical and plumbing is done and is waiting for a substitute inspector to sign off. The original inspector is on vacation. He will keep me posted on when this will occur.  I would assume the occupancy permit is the last step, and soon I hope.

I hope so, too! We are so sick of dragging this issue around. Hopefully this email is an indication that things are getting done. We drove by the house with Matt, Tom and Ashley this weekend and there were work trucks parked out in front. Now, this means one of two things:

a) the guy next door is using our driveway, which is okay as long as he bails when we need it, or b) there were people working on the house on the Friday before the 4th! I'm hoping that it was the electrician doing the final things necessary to get our permit. As long as this "substitute inspector" works out, we should be good to go this week...

But look at my words. "As long as", "99% sure," "hoping", "hopefully." We are running on hope at this point and need some basic facts to help get us through! If we can get a permit this week and our financing can get in line, we should (again, look at the wording. Ugh.) be closing the 24th!

All this drama aside, however, we did have a great 4th weekend with friends. We spent the 3rd with Matt, Tom and Ash at the Samuel Adams Brewery in Jamaica Plain. Great tour and lots of great beer samples! They also had an awesome indoor bar that I would like to replicate in our new home, and which I have already been told is too large for our space. We spent the 4th in the sunshine of Matt's family, and their pool, playing lawn games before the fireworks. The 5th found us back north, to celebrate my youngest sister's 12th birthday and to spend some time with Chris' parents, who are FINALLY back from their vacation to South Carolina. We are so lucky to have the support of friends and family (although everyone feels like family to us!) to help keep our spirits up through this trying time. 

I'll post when I know more. For now, I'll post some pictures that are pre-brew tour. Let's just say that while we may be old enough to buy a house, we're never too old to converge on the ice cream truck...

And I can't lie, it was Matt's idea. :)

Persnickety Permits...

Okay!

Some updates. We have the approval of the:

Building Inspector

Plumbing Inspector

Fire Inspector. 

However, the Electrical/Wiring Inspector was NOT happy. As Chris' dad (thanks again!) had noticed, much of the electrical work was rough at best. Before we can get an occupancy permit, the following work has to be done:

Finish electrical work and tidy up wiring. 

Reinforce staircase

Flip around basement door (so that it doesn't open up into the upstairs staircase!)

Put railings on the basement stairs. 

Everything but the electrical has already been done. We are extending our agreement by a week to give the bank time to get the electrical stuff done now that the building stuff has been taken care of. The best part of all of this is that we had been planning, mentally and financially, on doing much of this exact work ourselves - and now we're not!! The bank is required to sell the house occupyable and up to code, which means that they are responsible for making the repairs. So far (knock on wood) the bank has been very pleasant and seems to want us in the house as soon as possible. At this point, we are still planning to close and move the 24th of July, but can still bail out of the deal as of July 13th. How bad can that be. 

And oh, by the way - our total cost at this point is about $800 between a home inspection and mortgage fees. Before we've even sealed the deal! Outrageous. 

But still great news. Thanks again to our amazing lawyer, Philip, who has been a huge help. Think about joining us over the weekend of the 24th for a cleaning and painting party...

Still nothing.

Still no word from anyone today. Still no permit. Flurge. 

I'm frustrated. This waiting is getting old. 

However, in other news, Chris did get a haircut yesterday. I do love when he is freshly shorn. 

I also bought our first house things today - bathroom soap on sale at Bath and Body Works. Not fancy, but something...

Keep your hopes up!!

Occupancy Permit Update...sort of.

We heard today that the city fire department and building inspector have indeed visited the property in question. The fire department was happy with everything, which is good. The building inspector is the one we really care about, though - he's the guy with the occupancy permit!

Well, the guy from the bank made it seem like the inspection was Friday, and then the inspector went away for the weekend including today (possibly on my father's fishing trip?), so we are still waiting (impatiently, on my part) for details. The only good news is that it is official - if the house does not get an occupancy permit, the bank has to pay to bring it up to code, and we can still back out of the deal. Other than that, we don't know anything until we hear from the inspector, who seems to be taking his precious time. Which is his job, duh. I'm not really mad, just anxious...

In the meantime, I've been looking at paint colors online. Sherwin Williams has this cool thing on their website where you can try their paint colors on different rooms. My favorite so far is a dining room painted "pickle" - just for Jess. :)  

Will update as soon as I hear about this permit!!!!

End of Week One

We got a LOT of work done this week, all towards our acquisition of the house. The only dealbreaker left is that stupid occupancy permit! Still no word from the bank as to whether or not they have even tried to get one. They have until next Friday, 7/3, to do it, and if they do not do it by then we can walk away with all of our money returned. However, everyone involved wants to get us into this house, and I'm thinking it will get done this week if not already. Here's to hoping...

In the meantime, we sit and wait and plan. It's at the point now where we lay awake at night and talk about tearing down walls and ripping up floors, anxious to see what this old house has to teach us. I spent some time chatting with our good friend Colleen, who also bought a fixer-upper about two years ago. It was great to hear from her that even though things pop up and surprise you, and nothing ever costs what they say it will, in the end you love your home and the things you have done to make it yours. Hopefully this time next month will find us in the middle of a roofing job, possibly with Chris' dormer being put into the upstairs bathroom so that he doesn't hit his head in the shower. Or, we could be right back to square one, hitting the pavement and continuing to look for the home meant for us. This experience so far has taught us so much, and we are ready for the challenge if it is ready for us!

It wasn't much of a vacation week - tomorrow it's back to work for both of us, me at a summer program and Chris back to his job. Thankfully we did get some time to relax outdoors over the weekend. We stuck to our very tight budget for the Phantom Gourmet BBQ festival yesterday, and had a great time eating food with friends. Hopefully the next BBQ will be at our house!

Been a Long Week...

But we've come a long way! We now have:

- NO RADON!

- All of our mortgage docs ready to be faxed out

- A homeowner's insurance policy (with an 8% discount for being a UNH grad!!)

- Basically everything we need to close!

We still need:

- An occupancy permit. 

Tomorrow, we're going to fax all of our mortgage docs to the mortgage guy ASAP. Then, we are celebrating our hard work this week with a couple of days of real vacation - a day at Matt's pool and the Phantom Gourmet BBQ Beach Party!! Hopefully things with the town go well and we'll be in our house a month from today. 

Thanks again for your good wishes, everyone. Keep your fingers crossed for that permit!!

Grand Debaucle Photos

Here are some pictures from our Day of Mortgage Malarkey yesterday. We basically destroyed every room in our apartment with paperwork, spread it all out, sorted it, and re-spread it this morning on the kitchen table. 

And, just as a reminder of WHY we're doing all this crazy stuff, a picture of Chris with his napkin drawing of house plans from last night at the 99 with friends. We DO have a plan! And a mortgage, and a home insurance policy! Now just pray we don't have radon...

Mortgage Malarkey - Day 1

Yesterday was supposed to be a relaxing day, with a bit of mortgage research between some shopping, cleaning, going out with friends, etc. It turned into an all-day ordeal that took us over six hours and we're still not done. We did get a great deal through Chris' company (I'll note here that I called the Teacher's Union mortgage rep three times yesterday and he didn't call me back until 6pm, after we had another deal) but it took a lot of haggling over the phone on Chris' part to make sure we could make everything happen by July 24th. Then, we found out all the stuff that we have to fax to the mortgage company - W2's, pay stubs, retirement statements, etc - and found out that all of Chris' stuff is saved on his desktop at work. Okay, so let's try an offsite log-on. Chris figures out how to log on from home, and his computer shuts down. Like, dramatic noise and everything. Hence why Chris is headed to work today, while on vacation, in order to print out some stupid pay stubs. Argh!

Hopefully today will be the FINAL day of mortgage malarkey...hopefully....

Grand pictures of yesterday's mess to follow. 

Things That Could Still Go Wrong / Bad Karma

Okay. First things first, I'm worried that I may have cursed this deal by creating the blog before we even signed a Purchase and Sale agreement. I'm not usually this superstitious, but we took steps with this home to make sure that it was as secret as possible. In previous deals, we were shouting our offers from the rooftops and basically having family parties in the house while filling out paperwork. That led to not only dismay at losing the deal, but hours of lengthy explanations why we lost it over and over again. This time, no shenanigans, and here we are with the P&S signed. However, here is a short list of how this deal could still go wrong:

1) No occupancy permit (see yesterday)

2) Radon gas in the house (we'll find out Thursday)

3) Issues getting a mortgage (not a problem so far, but Chris has yet to remove himself from the couch to check things out.)

Here is a list of the things that have gone right so far:

1) Our original offer was too low, but we countered and the bank accepted it. 

2) Our offer was accepted two days before we were both off from work our one week's vacation together all year. 

3) All of our vacation plans fell apart, leaving us open for inspections, paperwork, etc this week while the P&S gets taken care of. 

4) Our closing date (7/24 if all goes well) is the week after we go to NJ for Lori's party and the week before I wrap up my summer job, leaving me all August to get us moved in and started with renovations. 

5) My Dad has claimed that our buying this house is a good reason for him to buy a wet saw, which Chris has been hankering after. I guess you cut tile with it? So maybe we'll get some new tile? I dunno. 

All that said...I will not be posting pictures of the house until we have keys in hand. Sorry. I hate to be superstitious, but things have just barely worked out so far and I don't want to jinx it! I promise that the day we close will find this blog splashed with photos...

I'll post later if we hear anything. At this point, we're waiting on an Occupancy Permit from the city by 7/3. Anything could happen between now and then...

Did it!

Signed the P&S, contingent upon the Occupancy Permit. WOOT!! :) Almost there...

Tomorrow's crisis - mortgage malarkey...

Buying a home? Get a lawyer!

Honestly, I didn't really understand why Amanda K. at work was so adamant about getting your own lawyer for real estate transactions. The bank brings a lawyer at closing, so why get your own? 

Now we know. 

We hired Philip Eliopoulos at my stepmom's encouraging. If you ask Chris, we hired him because he's Greek. However, he's a real estate lawyer who does a lot of work with foreclosures and bank-owned properties. His expertise has been so important in this process! For example, here's what happened today...

So yes, we have no occupancy permit - aka we can't occupy the premises until XYZ work is done if we buy it. We offered to pay to get the necessary inspections from the city in order t

o get the permit, and then have the ability to back out of the deal if we didn't like the results. What our AWESOME LAWYER was able to do was to get the BANK to pay for and schedule the inspections for the permit to occupy. So, if the bank doesn't get the permit by July 3rd, we get our money back and the deal is off. BUT, if the city is happy enough with the state of the property to let us live there while we rehab it, and gives the bank the certificate to occupy, we are good to go! And if the city is not happy with it, and refuses the permit, we ge

t our money back and start from square one. Best case scenario so far today after a long day of stress!

Moral of the story is: Planning to sign the P&S tonight. Stay tuned for whether or not we're allowed to occupy it...

This is a great resolution to a whole day of horribleness! Hopefully we can fit in some REAL vacation this week.