OUR LIFE IN 3D

The Home of Daddy's Day Dare! ~ I am just trying to stay above water

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Its never over till its over….

A quick update on the misadventures of our house sale and purchase.

I don’t know if I told you that we are in the process of purchasing a house. That’s right we found one that “will suit” and so we are trying to land it. With a finite amount of time left before we had to be out of our home my wife comes to the conclusion that finding the perfect house, or floor plan, is just like finding the perfect man…it doesn’t exist so we have to settle for one we can live with.

Thanks hon.

We ‘settled on’ a brand new home in a neighborhood close to work that has the great school system. It is a 5BR 4Bth house with a sun room. It has a smallish back yard but big enough to fence in and put our pool, although that may not be this year due to all this misc. things we have to buy or get or fix as we ‘settle’ into our new home.

new house

Here’s a pic of the house close to the end of its construction. There aren’t many pictures of the inside since it was just completed but this gives you an idea of the living room and how open it is….

a look at the upstairs

But if our journey sounded hectic before it just gets crazier and crazier. A new contract with 50 signatures, moving money, figuring mortgage payments, closing on our old house in the morning and closing on the new house at noon; or else there is no place for us to stay. Will the funds wire through on time? We can’t move into the new home until we pay for it, which is after we sell our old home to get the full deposit.

Its like for 18 hours we have no place to stay. We will be living out of our cars as we hand over the keys to our first home and await our funds to wire through for the deposit on our new home. What happens if the banks hold up on the sale of our house? No stress!

So we are figuring all that out. We have a long list of things that have to happen before we sell our house or buy the other. Home inspections, transfer insurances, bank appraisals, sign this, initial here, sign this that says you already initialed here, and there is a fee for that too. No stress!

My family was down for a week over Easter and Dylan’s birthday. That same week our dishwasher went out. Easter dinner….no dishwasher…except mwah! The alternator on my car also decided to quit. And it looks like our clothes washer wants to follow suit.  We just got done paying for the hot water heater that went out last month. No Stress!

So this past week our home’s buyer sends his home inspector to evaluate our home and look for hidden dangers. We waited 5 days for the results. No news is good news, right?

Finally our realtor gives me a call. She starts out by saying, ” We just got the report back from the buyer. I forward it to your email. Now I don’t want you to get upset when you see it.…” GASP!!

You know when any conversation is prefaced like that it is not good news. He submitted a 23 page article of things that needed to be fixed! GASP!!

She says “its not that bad. Most of these things are easy fixes.”

Sure enough it turns out the home inspector found lint in the dryer vent, tree limbs that need to be trimmed away from our roof, leaves swept out of our air conditioner. I can do that! Give me a break!

And then we see the pictures of the rotted wood beneath our kids bathroom. The inspector notes the wood rotted all the way through to the mortar of the existing tile in the bathroom floor. Our realtor says, “I don’t know why that toilet hasn’t fallen through yet the way these pictures look.” …..GASP!!

Mentally we have already moved into our new home. We are planning furniture and pictures on walls. Snap back to reality. If we haven’t put enough money into this house already these past few months now we have to tear out a floor and repair some rotted wood; rotted wood I never knew existed! No stress!

This money was already ear marked for new patio furniture at our new digs. Or a fence, or a pool deposit. Now I have to fix my house…again…and in a timely matter that it doesn’t screw up this whole house buying/ selling transaction that we have worked so hard to put together. No stress!

I made some calls. Did some appointments. One day I literally had 6 people after me at one exact moment between texts, phone calls, emails, and Instant Messenger. We found a good contractor that can do the work on the rotted wood from the crawl space below. It is going to snatch a lot of our pre-sale funds for the new house but what else can we do? Stay?

So we are moving forward again. The work on the house will start, and hopefully finish next week. We still need an appraisal from the banks on both houses, do our own walk through in the new house, get insurance for the new casa, and probably sign a few more things.

Then box everything up the weekend before, take apart the kids swing set (that won’t be easy on the kids) so we can move it and prepare for the big day at the end of the month where we sell and buy a house over the course of a few hours. …And then meet the truck(s) that have our things and unload and unpack in our new zip code that afternoon. No stress!

Our new address will be “Wild Indigo Lane“. It sounds like a cheap fruity wine, doesn’t it? We already met some of our new neighbors; all nice folks. We are currently accepting names and initial dues for ground floor prices on ‘Wild Indigo Pool Society‘ memberships.

So I wanted to open it up to all of you. If anyone would like to come by and swim in our future pool, swim up to the pool bar, relax in our hammocks, get challenged to pool volleyball and enjoy some burgers and dogs at our cookouts please click here on the pre-construction prices. Hurry! Memberships are limited!

And I promise the money won’t be used to replace some old rotted wood under our current home. Hurry! Lines are now open!

We are facing some tough times and hard decisions that need to be made quickly as we try to sell our house.Its been daunting for both my wife and I at times. New things to fix, sign this (these!), how to qualify, when can we move, where best to allocate our funds, mortgage payments we can afford, when do we have to be out, the list goes on. Similar to this latest post by the Leadership Freak, its time to hang on during turbulent times; time to sink or swim, and sail through this turbulence…

Dan Rockwell's avatarLeadership Freak

turbulence

I chartered a sailboat for our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. It was clear, sunny, and we could see the shores of St. Croix, when the captain invited me to “take the helm.”

Even a former farm boy can steer the boat in calm waters. I felt more important than I was. But…

Leaders matter most during storms.

Turbulent times and threatening circumstances call for skillful leadership. People depend on you. Challenging times make or break you and those around you. Rise up.

Your response impacts their response.

7 Surprising secrets to sailing in rough seas:

  1. Give power don’t take it. Tough times paralyze powerless people. Stifle your inner control freak!
  2. People feel most powerful when they feel in control. I still remember the feeling of holding the helm. I wasn’t doing much but I felt in control. Focus on controllable behaviors not uncontrollable circumstances.
  3. Ramp up compassion; tone down harshness. Embrace the tension…

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Doggy Manners

I went to one of my friend’s house last weekend. He has the coolest dog! He is a super friendly dog but my buddy still loves to tease him. Its so sad its funny.

We were watching some basketball Saturday night and my buddy says, “Watch this…”

And he goes to the refrigerator and gets some snacks. Then he just teases this poor dog! Take a look:

OK….I embellish a little sometimes.  🙂

Thanks for dropping . Have a great weekend!

 

Walk Like An Egyptian….

So Dylan, Skylar, and Aunt Sue are all playing Princess Castle. The girls have their fav Princesses and are talking about their fav Princes….and marriage! 

Aunt Sue offers in, “Well when you are ready I can marry both of you”, holding the King Triton action figure in her hand. 

Dylan counters, while clearly misunderstanding the meaning of Sue’s offer, “Oh no! We are ONLY allowed to marry one person in this country!” 

Ya gotta love her. 

Reality kicked in a bit yesterday after riding the high of a bid on our house. We put a bid on a house this weekend as well (we need to move now) but our offer was so low, in the owners eyes, they didn’t even acknowledge it.

This house listed for $295K. The current owners bought the house 2 years ago for $265K. We offered $260K, planning on going up to $275K  if we had to. 

That wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t even good enough to make a counter offer.

I want to ask the owners if they know what house prices have done over the past 2 years of foreclosures? It certainly wasn’t double digit growth!

My wife and I have been looking in this neighborhood since last Spring, mainly for the ideal school system it resides in. We have looked at several houses in this very same road stay on the market, with their prices dropping regularly over the last 9 months. Remember that one house with a pool?  

Roma out

This house has been on the market as long as we have been looking. It started at the same $295K price and is now under contract for 255K. Big drop! I guess the realtor of our preferred house is not disclosing this gem, which is right down the same street from the owners. And that house had a pool! 

Another, larger house, that is closer and on that same road as the house we bid on, has been on the market for over a year. We actually looked at it last Spring. It has dropped from over $300K to the current contract price of  $259K.  Amazing. What have the rates been doing since then? They are not going down anymore. So go ahead Donald Trump, watch your house sit for awhile. And sit. You could have been moving while the rates were still low.

So going back to yesterday’s post, reality tells me we actually have not sold our house yet. We just have an offer. There are still a few more thi ngs to cross off before we…have to get out!

OK! I got that outta my system. Sorry for the rant. 

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We had a birthday party last night at our house! Among all the chaos and stress of hoops and obstacles in the month(s) ahead it was nice to see some happy smiles on the kids. 

My parents and the Great Aunt Sue were in town for the fun. And it was good fun for everyone. 

My parents aren’t getting any younger either. Dylan was helping them unload their car Saturday when they pulled in. She was slow walking bent over as she carried a bag up the steps of our front porch. Confused on why Dylan wasn’t springing up the steps like she normally does, Mom asks, “Dylan what’s wrong with you? Why are you walking like that?” 

Dylan, in her innocent nature responds, “I was walking like and old lady”, mirroring how my own Mom covered the stairs after an 8  hour ride in the car. No matter how wrong that was you couldn’t help but laugh knowing she didn’t mean anything bad by it.

Dylan, enjoy it now. In a few more years you won’t be able to get away with that remark! Except maybe with your Dad

For a quick look at some of the weekend festivities and gift box destruction check out the video below. 

Thanks to everyone for making this a great birthday weekend!

HAPPY MONDAY!!!!

How’s your Monday going so far? 

If it’s not a Happy Monday come on along for a ride in 3D 

Because…. 

WE SOLD OUR HOUSE THIS WEEKEND!!!! 

That’s right, we listed our house on Monday online. We had 3 showings in 3 days. And the 2nd visitor opted to buy in! We closed the deal on Friday. Friday! Five days! It was so exciting. We actually counteroffered via texts. Is this the way it is done now? 

I asked some others in the real estate business if our asking price was possibly too low? Almost unanimously they all said, “no it was offered just right.” Thanks Anna! 

I think you all remember the hurdles and hoops we had to jump through to get to this point. And then it sold just like that. 

I think everyone should meet our All-Star Realtor. 

Anna

If Realtors had a board she would Chief. If they honored their own she would be in their Hall Of Fame. If they had a league she would be an All-American. If Realtors were a pizza she would be Supreme. If they were ice cream she would be Catfish with brown gravy! Lol Sorry Anna. I had to put that in there. 

I found Anna through a friend of mine from grad school. He’s in the mortgage business so I asked him when we started this house hunting journey if he could recommend anyone. Anna is who he suggested. 

Anna had a reputation, if not legend, of selling a house in 7 days in the development she now resides in. My mortgage broker knew of this. My recent contractor and painter of our abode heard of her name this way and of her 7day selling feat. Know what? I think she just topped her own record. If you need to sell your house fast you can find her here at CarolinaOne Reality

So hats off to Anna and many, many thanks! Only problem is we have to be out of our house by the end of April now. But that’s a good problem to have I think. 

Happy Monday? We are absolutely giddy her in 3D land. Birthdays start this week. 

They began with a special, huge gift box in the mail from one of our, now famous, grandmothers and daughter. This box was so big it would have a hard time fitting in the back seat of my car. Once opened it was literally packed, layer after layer of great. Great (not allowed to use the word ‘awesome’ any more) birthday gifts and Easter gifts for both our girls. Videos will be offered as soon as they are processed buy here is a look at the fun things inside.

Dylan asked if I could blow these ballons up right now?

Dylan asked if I could blow these ballons up right now?

 

But unwrapping this gift treasury was just the start. 

Our girls got a visit from some long-lost cousins (and their family) of theirs. Long lost cousins you ask? Here is the last picture of our girl(s) with their one cousin. Dylan was 4 months old! It was from their mom’s and my brother’s wedding, almost 5 years ago. 

John's Wedding 023[1]

One of the girls was in town visiting a college for next year. 

Four Cousins Family Photo. See the resemblance?

Four Cousins Family Photo. See the resemblance?

Some might notice an age difference? But not these great girls. They played and laughed and danced (the girls are trained dancers) Two nights in a row all 4 girls ran upstairs and played and jumped and laughed until something got broken. 

The girls came down stairs then and gave our girls some more b-day gifts. We threatened them enough to sit still for some quick family pics until the next 4 year reunion. Ok we will see them this summer. 

They taught my cherubs the fishy-fishy face.

Practicing their Fishy-Faces

Practicing their Fishy-Faces

Here is their “Fat Duck face’ 

“Fat, fat ducks never, never smile….

But we do!”

Fat-Duck Faces don't smile

Fat-Duck Faces don’t smile

Here they did something terrible to Skylar….

They told Skylar she had to stand on one foot...

They told Skylar she had to stand on one foot…

It was tons of fun having them and their parents in town. We all had a great time…once we were all healthy. And are really looking forward to the next fishy-face faceoff. 

Thanks for all the great toys Marty, Jordyn, Sara and John! Happy Monday! 

The birthday’s actually start today. Happy Monday! If you have a chance come on by and have some fun.

PS…We sold our house!

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