Some of That Good News!

 So... it’s pretty much final; we ARE getting the house! The appraisal came back higher than our offer so there will be no unforeseen costs to get in the way. The seller has to install railings leading out of the back of the house to be up to code, but it should all be ready to go by the closing date, October 5th. My dad, sister and I are getting on the same phone plan (none of our current services work out there) since we know for sure now.

I can’t tell you what a relief it is. I’ve been on edge and relentlessly researching the whole process, just hoping we wouldn’t end up losing that house. The last real obstacle was whether the loan would cover the cost. In case you missed when I explained it before, the appraisal has to come in at the offer price or above for a lender to cover it. You can still get the loan when it comes in lower, but you have to pay the difference upfront to the seller. This is on top of the down payment for the loan (2-3% of the sale price) and closing costs (vary by house value, but usually between 4-10K).

As much as I’d love to ramble on, I think some video gaming is in order! And tomorrow, definitely a packing day! I’m so motivated again!

Reflection

 My nephew Thomas is coming over so I’ll likely keep this short. (Likely.) However, in this chaos of boxes and anticipation (the house appraisal results come Wednesday), I just felt an odd wave of... gratefulness.

For friends, for family, for the oddball groups I’m in on social media. Dolls. Crochet. Money saved. Projects in waiting. Healthy kitties and their many random cuddles. Daydreams (but not my weird night dreams) and dream goals. Plans, as fickle and unstable as they can be, and prospects.

It could be because I’ve taken a stimulant after days of not taking any (when feeling under the weather, the last thing I want is something keeping me awake). However, the focus without being overwhelmed is always welcomed and carefully used when it does hit.

I do feel better today but since Thomas will be here, I’ll reserve my need to clean and sort for tomorrow. Although it wasn’t above me in the past to invite someone over and restlessly clean in front of them while I talk a mile a minute, most of my nervous energy has become internalized over time. Sometimes it works in my favor, sometimes not at all. So I’ll allow myself another day of relaxing (kind of... I still tend to pace while having conversations).

Really, I want the day to come where I can post ‘yay, we got the house!’ but until we’re holding that key, I just can’t do that. Things can happen and even that moment is the start of another big process. I keep picturing actually being unpacked and settled in as the ultimate finish... but yet another beginning to a chapter I hope will mean flourishing in a new place.

I’ve spent some time adding the new city on FB to see what’s up. I’ve studied the school and the area. Lol their claim to fame is a 1954 sports team that won state champion, a feat because they were a tiny school up against much bigger ones. I’m not really a sports person, but I felt a weird twinge of pride for a city that isn’t really mine... yet. I am eager to explore a new place, learn a new area. It almost feels like planning for a vacation with none of the urgency of fitting everything you want to do within a week or two. It’s the caress of a slow-spreading adventure. 

I want this. I need this. I anticipate it wholeheartedly. Yet still, I feel like I can’t release the leash yet. I’m sadly used to disappointment, of things not happening, of having to pick up the pieces. But for this time, I dare to dream and hope it comes to pass.

Days in a Haze

 I wasn’t exactly feeling terrific once my kitties came home to recover. While She-Ra became an absolute 24/7 cuddler the first few days, Seven remained a loner. Until today. She-Ra is still cuddling but is doing more wandering on her own while Seven actually laid on the end of my bed for a while. Not for too long, since her sister’s attentions make her hiss and growl. Both of them are recovering well though, their incisions looking great. I spent the past few days just taking cat naps and checking on the kitties, so I’m ready for a break in tedium myself.

So tomorrow is the fated appraisal day, which I think will go well. While the static appraisals I found online are about $28K apart, I used a different sort of calculator to get an estimate that actually sits a few thousand above our offer. I’m hoping that one is the most accurate since, as I’ve said, a high appraisal is far better than a low one. I’ve noticed that some of the lower appraisals didn’t factor in the additional bedrooms and bathroom added after 2009, so it seems more likely that the calculator I used is probably the more accurate of the many sources I’ve looked through.

Today, I’m hoping to actually get my ass up and help my nephew sort through his junk. I’m actually typing this in the late night/early morning hours, so I’m also hoping to get a nap in before I get going. Really, I just want to get rid of the anxiety of getting the appraisal out of the way. It’s really the last big step that could make or break this one (and quite frankly, we better damn well make it because I’m ready to get the hell out of here). So I’m likely either going to sleep more or stay busy so I’m not restless. And since my dad is one of those nervous types that never shuts up about how everything can go wrong, moving forward is sorely needed.

Yes, yes, I know. Internally, I’m always thinking worst case scenario myself. I just don’t torture everyone with a fatalistic assurance that everything WILL go wrong. My dad isn’t quite hip to the fact that he’s no prophet and his constant negativity and assurances of everything going wrong are not really all that accurate. I also recall quite a bit of him telling me that working shit jobs would get me somewhere one day and, lucky for me, I stop believing that and have since lived my life according to my own intuition and been much happier. ‘Success’ for my generation is simply managing to find happiness amidst a failing economy and an imbalanced workforce. Some of my generation have been lucky enough to ‘make it’ but more often than not, most of us have to expend a lot of energy adapting to some disappointing realities.

Going a little sideways here, but I’ll likely be chasing a racing brain today and tomorrow. I’m going to err on the side of optimism and keep laboring under the assumption that all will go well. Quite frankly, this year can use a lot of encouragement.

More Down Time

 Sometimes a girl just needs serious healing time... and a couple of female cats to heal with. My girls got spayed a couple of days ago; one is hyper affectionate while the other just wants to be left alone. So every time I get up, I have one following me while I check up on the other. I’m feeling pretty run down but that will pass in a day or two.

Dad was in stress mode over the updates on the new house. The lender was having trouble securing an appraisal so my sister looked up a few numbers and Dad gave those numbers to the lender. Lo and behold, appraisal date will be September 28th. There are two more major steps, post-appraisal, so I figured it’s a good time to run a checklist of the process.

1. Get pre-approved for a loan. Before you do anything, and I’ll assume you’re not dropping cash, you’ll need to do this prior to anything else. Now, you CAN do the next two steps prior to this, but it will put a halt in the process until you secure a lender. You might want to know what your loan limit is with your credit or you’ll have a hard time locking in an offer. Once you’ve done this, then they can later provide an estimate for what your loan will cover once you make an offer.
2. Get a realtor. During our process, this actually came WITH securing our first tour of a house we were interested in, but most will advise you do this next. Most realtors are only licensed in one state, so if you’re looking in multiple states, you might end up needing to work with a few. Each house comes with the seller’s realtor, but you’ll need a sort of ‘buyer’s’ realtor to help you with your own best interests.
3. Go house hunting. My family learned early on; physically go look at the outside of the houses you might be interested in or the neighborhood first. We secured a tour first when we started out but when we got there, we realized that the outside of the house needed work, the yard was smaller than we thought and it wasn’t quite as private as we’d hoped. Pictures can omit a lot of important information before you even set foot in the house, so make sure you like the outside first, THEN schedule a tour for inside.
4. Make an offer! When you find one you like, put in an offer! You’ll usually do best with two figures; an initial offer, then the maximum you’ll allow the realtor to put in on your behalf. You may not need the second figure at all. If the house has been on the market for a while with no competing offers or you think they’re asking for too much and they agree, you may not need a secondary offer. However, it will save you some time. It can take a week to be accepted, especially in a bidding war.
5. Inspection: optional. If you’re unsure about the asking price or condition of the home and your offer has been accepted, and you’ve paid earnest money to secure the offer, this is a step which will provide an acceptable contingency to proceed or back out. If there is anything you would like to see done before agreeing on a final offer, repairs, etc., after the inspection is the best place to either negotiate or back out, if it seems too troublesome. This step will require you to pay out of pocket, but if you’re really unsure your offer will hold up to scrutiny, this is a good step to take.
6. Appraisal. Your lender is responsible for securing this step. They will schedule an appointment for the appraiser as well as the buyer’s and seller’s realtors to be present. What you’ll hope for here is a level or high appraisal. If the appraisal price cones in lower than your offer, the bank will only pay the appraisal cost and you will have to pay the difference in full, along with closing costs and your down payment. A low appraisal can be a huge dealbreaker for most people.
7. Underwriting. Provided your appraisal was favorable, this is likely the most secure step in the process. When you first put in an offer, your lender will have already given an estimate for what is finalized here. This is where you’ll get the actual monthly payment cost, as well as insurance, down payment and closing costs. This is the last opportunity to back out (but if it’s just cold feet, you may not get earnest money back). This one is approximated to take one to four weeks.
8. Closing! This is it! Prepare for hours of paperwork, paying all finalized costs... leave with the key to your new home. It was a pain in the ass, but it’s finally done. If you haven’t done so already, get packing and moving. Look forward to a strenuous haul before you finally get to settle in!

Crossing my fingers the appraisal goes as planned and we can hop on over to the underwriting step. It’s very nerve-wracking, trying to tamper down the excitement just in case something falls through. All the same, I’m keeping my hopes present at least, just hoping I get to celebrate a new home on October 5th!

Lazy Break

 My attempts at sleeping last night were futile, so I just decided to call it a lazy day. I realize I have a ridiculous amount of jackets and coats to sort through because I really don’t need all of them, but it shouldn’t take me that long... Tomorrow, I’m going to help my nephew Dameon sort through his stuff and pack. I know that kid has a ton of clothes he never wears and even outgrew, but he’s also got a lot of little junk he needs to sort through. I’ll put him on sorting duty and do the packing myself. Fortunately, no one in this house has as much crap as me to sort through so it shouldn’t be a huge task.

But most of my stuff was craft and hobby stuff. I got away with only about two boxes of regular clothes. My dressers are still full but I can probably get away with not taking about one whole drawer’s worth of stuff. The rest is pajama pants, socks, underwear... most of it is tucked into drawer organizers already. I did have quite a lot of books but packed those in smaller boxes so they can actually be lifted without breaking any backs. I’ll likely just poke around and get to what little is left this week. I do have some clothes to bag for donation too. All of this is stuff I could wait until closer to the move to do. I didn’t realize I would get most of it done so quickly.

Taking the cats to get spayed Wednesday morning. So I’ll at least make it a little easier for them to rest and get around while they heal. 

About two weeks away from the big move. I know it will be some serious hard labor and draining car trips, but I’m keeping my eye on the goal. I’ve got my camera bag accessible for some photo sessions along the way. I know I’ll need, oh, fifty million breaks, but I’ve been doing all of this in short bursts. Still have to be careful with my joints, especially ankles and wrists. Reminding myself to leave my braces out to use in any case. Those were a godsend on truck days in retail service. This will be a LOT more to haul too.

It’s a Warzone!

 I underestimated just how long it would take to sort the piles from my clothes closet, but then, I’m being extremely thoughtful. Can’t just set it aside because I don’t want it; I also have to make a separate pile with certain people in mind. Messaged those people to see if they want it and, if not, I’ll just leave it for my nephew to pick through.

Have a few random things that I can’t decide whether I should actually box up or just carry as is. But I’d like to make all those decisions before I start dismantling that closet and adding to those piles. So provided I get all that knocked out today, I’ll *probably* get to storage tomorrow.

Sleeping has been erratic. I sleep for a few hours and wake up energized enough to tackle some aspect of packing, grab some food, wear myself out and sleep again. Sometimes I sleep a lot to recuperate a bit more, but this is a lot of labor and I’m very careful not to hurt my back or make myself too sore, much like when I started vigorous workouts. Admittedly, I’ve been a lot lazier since the pandemic started, so I do have to be careful not to overdo it. Even once I finish my own accumulative mess, I still have to help my nephews with their haul.

Lots of doing this in short bursts. It’s actually quite a demanding process; lot of bending, lifting, dismantling, wrapping and sorting so it pushes me physically. Mentally, it’s not that taxing, which is kind of a surprise. I haven’t been hoarding stuff away for purely sentimental reasons and have quite a bit I’m not taking and happy to throw away or give away. Over time, I’ve just become more focused on what material things are actually important to me. A lot of what I’m finding along the way is stuff I shoved away unwanted, either to save for someone or it just wasn’t absolute trash. It’s a small amount compared to what I have given away over time, but a bit more than I thought was taking up space. 

And again, my cats are in constant curiosity mode with everything changing. Suspicious and not at all trusting the systematic mess. Lol I constantly hear them scratching the carpet in an area once inaccessible, which I’m guessing is the cat version of a luxury activity.

There’s still some paperwork trickling in from the loan officers. They tend to want to know what’s current in the accounts we’re paying from to make sure we can actually pay with both what we have and our flow of income, but that’s to be expected. Just crossing Ts and dotting Is. Lowercase ones, in case my choice of syntax confused that! (Also not literal; just as the saying goes, but I’m over explaining for the hell of it...)

So onwards and upwards and back to the task!

Back on Cleaning Duty

 Managed to clean out my clothes closet last night, so just spent today sorting them into donation, give away and keep piles to box and bag up. Also, knocked out the little craft corner, so all that’s left is the storage closet and a chest of drawers in the clothes closet. This is going quicker than expected so I should be done by the end of the week, easily, and get to start helping my nephews pack. I’ll probably do the chest tonight, saving the storage for the rest of the week.

I really don’t think I have that much in there though, at least not that I’m keeping. Some kitchen stuff, seasonal clothes, old magazines and a couple of suitcases full of crap. I’ll keep the suitcases, some clothes and the useful things, but I’m fairly sure the two bins in there are just full of things I have gotten around to donating yet. 

I know that just getting everything out will go quickly, but the deciding and sorting is the part I’m not sure how long it will take. It’s not hard for me to get rid of things, but I do have a tendency to be thoughtful, think of who might want things rather than just donating or trashing.

Just that and playing video games between the packing, pretty much all I do, but I’m content. It will be so worth it to settle in the new home and start planning out life there.