Gláucia Mir | artist » real estate

we’re finally moving on…

glaucia — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 20:52:03 +0000

The general home inspections happened on friday. Fabio went straight there from the airport in Philly, upon returning from Charleston, SC. I missed it, so this is all second hand knowledge. I’m glad to report that the inspection went very well. There was no major problems, just a few minor things to take care of. The garage needs a bit more TLC, as we’d thought, but it’s not the house itself, so that’s a big relief.

We should get the well water results this week, and on the 24-25th, we will get the radon results. The sellers requested this delayed date, since they will be out of town then, and it will be good to do it with no interruptions.

After all that, we should be home free. If all those results are favorable, then all we need is to wait for everything else to clear, like mortgage and stuff. So, our initial closing/settlement date is July 29th. Please pray that everything will continue to go smoothly, so that we have the whole month of August to settle in.

I’m trying to wait on the excitement ’til the rest of this inspection stuff clears. Then I can start planning the colors we will paint each room, the furniture we might want, and what we will plant in the garden.

Then we will be happy to take reservations for all who want to visit….

the money battle

glaucia — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 20:52:12 +0000

This home buying stuff is a good lesson in math, investments, planning, and borrowing money.

The whole time you are searching for a home, you have to keep in mind your price range. Your price range largely depends on how much you have saved to put down as your initial down payment. Your budget will also be affected depending on what rate the bank will offer you on your loan, and that depends on your credit, and how much you want to borrow.

Then you gotta factor in the real estate taxes, and if there are any other fees associated with a condominium or other common thing.

At the end of it, one has to decide whether all this is a wise investment. Sometimes, you really like a house, but it doesn’t meet your most basic needs and desires. Sometimes you like a house, but it’s price is just beyond your reasonable monthly expenditures, and buying it would be a poor investment.

So, here we are at another financial battle. The original offer for the home we liked was high, so we made an offer, taking about 7-8% off the asking price. Unfortunately, they came back with a counter offer that was $10,000 more than we offered them. Now, as our “final” offer, we went up $2000. At this point, it becomes a matter of wise investing…

If we go higher, the house might not appraise at that high value, in which case we wouldn’t be able to be approved for our loan. Not only that, but then we might feel like on resale, we might never make back what we invested.

Today, the seller will once again be given a chance to accept our offer. If they do, hurray, we move on.

If they don’t, I think we will walk again, and start looking again. Either way, we’ll keep moving forward.

Here’s a picture of the house we’re trying to get, from the front/side view…

we have an agent

glaucia — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 14:12:20 +0000

Yeah! A new, very good progress has been made on our home search. We have a buyer’s agent to help us navigate the process of buying a home.

A couple months ago, we were first recommended an agent, James Yoakum. James was great, but he dealt mostly in Philadelphia, and only occasionally with families with children, so he didn’t have much knowledge on the specifics we’re looking for. He did however, give us much insight into the beginning process and stirred us in the right direction.

Last week, he recommended I check out a site for real estate networking, ActiveRain.com and this is where I found our agent, Heather. After asking her for references, she provided them immediately; and I received a glowing recommendation from one of her past home buyers. She also has 3 kids, 2 of which are the same age as our boys, and she lives in Bucks and grew up in Bucks. So that’s a lot of things that are good. Then, all the email exchanges we’ve had have been right on target, and she gets what our vibe is and what we’re looking for. So yeah! One more hurdle overcome, and now we’re closer to the goal!

We should start looking at “real” listings tonight. Yahoo!!