One Hell of a weekend!

Okay, so let's recap shall we? 

Ben and I sold our Condo, and were now in the process of trying to find a home for us to move into.  On Wednesday we met up with our Realtor, Steve, and went to see 5 houses:

House #1 - Decent looking - Tiny Kitchen (I'm talking one person stands in the middle, and has countertops all around them - I think they would have to back out of the kitchen to open the oven door), Tiny Closets, Large Yard, nice Solarium.  It was a nice looking house, but not what we're looking for. 

House #2 - Very nice, Hardwood floors, brand new kitchen, large bedrooms with large closets, basement needs a little work, yard is decent but on the smaller side, garage is small, and the price for this one is a little on the high side.  All in all though, the best one we saw that day. 

House #3 - I dont even want to talk about it...   It was a decent size, on a gigantic pie shaped yard, furnished by the 50-60's and reminded me of my Baba and Gideo's farm house.  Not a thing was done to the inside of the house since the day it was built, which was evident by the large cracks in the walls and across the ceiling.  Within seconds I was done looking, and wanted to leave.  It was also WAY too expensive for what they were showing.... and it was an estate house, which means there was a very good chance the previous owner passed away there.  .... yeah, no thanks, I'm good.

House #4 - Seemed promising at first - you walk in to a large living room, with engineered hardwood with a large fireplace on one end.  and a decent sized kitchen on the other.  Unfortunately, there was no dining room nook - and the light hanging from the ceiling suggesting where to put the table put it directly in front of your front door.  The basement was decent, but we weren't feeling it - especially because the house had clearly shifted, and there were large cracks running along the floor of the basement, and the sidewalk was so broken up in the backyard there was a good six inches height difference between chunks of cement sticking up. 

House #5 - Not great.  This house seemed to be put together by a contestant on Canada's Worst Handyman.  Now I don't want to toot my own horn, but I worked in flooring for years, and taught tile and laminate seminars - the guy who put down the flooring probably could have stood to attend one or two.  The tile running through-out the main floor was put down badly - it was clear they laid it directly over vinyl rather than putting down a plywood sub floor.  And since the mortar can't cure properly on vinyl, the tiles didn't have a firm foundation - causing rocking back and forth, and cracking.  As well on the stairs, they did not finish the edges with any sort of stair nosing, so on each stair there was a thin piece of vinyl, a blob of mortar sticking out, and then the jagged edge of the tile.  In the basement it wasn't much better as the laminate was laid without using proper spacing and was being pulled apart in several parts.  The owners were throwing in $1000 for a flooring allowance, but that was a $20,000 flooring job.  No thank you. 

At the end of the day, Ben and I were a little down, and since seeing all that crap, we couldn't stop thinking about House #2, and requested a second showing for Thursday. 

But after waking up to a huge snow storm Thursday morning, which resulted in car accidents everywhere you look, we canceled the viewing, and resolved to take a look on Sunday when we did another 5 viewings.

With canceling all our plans on Thursday, Ben and I had time to think, and decided that we needed to be more agressive about viewing these properties - Each time we make a list, by the time we see the houses two days later, half of our list is either sold or pending.  So we talked to Steve (our realtor) and came up with a better system of going right at the time houses were listed so we could be some of the first people to see the property, the thus get some better options.

Which brings us to Friday.  We were enjoying a Beer Friday (now and then on Friday's our boss gets a six pack and a bottle of wine, and we get together in a board room, and de-stress from the week), I left the room to set up one of my call center employee's.  Before returning to the board room, I checked my email, and noticed we were sent a new listing from MLS.  It was nice, a large lot, relatively open concept, finished basement, large bedrooms, deck, garage - the whole bit.  So I went to the board room, and got Ben.  Who agreed that we needed to see this house, and called Steve right away to see if we could go tonight. 

There was only one problem, the possession date was July 15th 2011.  JULY?!?  Why would you list your place now, if you don't want to move for 3 months?  We talked to Steve about it, and asked if there was anyway that was negotiable.  He called up the Realtor representing the property, who then talked to the owners, and went back to Steve saying "If you bring me an offer for the asking price, we can give you a possession of 30 days"  Awesome!  So we drove right over and saw it - unfortunately pulling Steve away from a dinner party he and his girl friend were hosting (luckily most of their friends are Realtors, so they understood).  

The House was beautiful!  When you first walk it, there is laminate running through out, and big new windows everywhere.  The living room is large, and connects with the kitchen with a sort of open peek-a-boo window.  In the kitchen they have more large windows, and a large cooking area.  Heading down the hallway from the living room there was 3 bedrooms - the two smaller bedrooms they knocked down the wall between, and made it a huge master bedroom, and the original master bedroom was now converted into a large office.  There was also a large bathroom off the main hallway. 

Heading downstairs from the kitchen there is the back door that leads to a deck.  Continuing down the stairs you are in a completely finished basement with a large TV area on one side, and a bar set up on the other, as well there are two more bedrooms - one very large room with a walk in closet, and the other room -smaller - but still a decent size. 

Across from the TV area there is a large bathroom with a shower stall, a bright laundry "room" (it's more of a walk in closet, but with plenty of space to move around and empty and fill the washer and dryer), and a storage room with furnace and hot water tank. 

In the back yard you step out the back door onto a very large deck complete with a hot tub.  The yard itself is large and rectangular with a brick path to the double garage, and landscaped flower beds lined with brick work.  The garage is even a little bigger than a standard double garage. 

All in all it was perfect.  Ben and I both agreed that this was the one, so we wrote an offer.  One of the best parts of this place, was the fact that they priced it to sell - which means it was under valued.  So even though they wanted the asking price to give us 30 days notice, the asking price was still a good $20,000 lower than we would have valued the place, so we had no issues with giving them what they wanted.  (plus the house was about $50,000 less than what we were aiming at spending anyway!)

As we drove home, we excitedly called both sets of parents and told them the good news!  Then we heard back from Steve who said he talked to their realtor, and they both agreed that they wanted to just get this done tonight, and that he would give us a call when he heard the final word. 

We then headed off to Ashton and Graham's place for some sweets and board games with Erik and Ashton.  We were pretty distracted for the first little bit as we waited for Steve to call us, when finally we couldn't wait any longer and gave him a call.  There was a problem. 

It turns out, when Steve called their Realtor to ask about the possession date, and the realtor called the owners, he talked to the wife, who gave him the go-ahead, but apparently she didn't check with her husband, who was lamenting over where they were going to live (they were in the process of building a new home, which is why they originally had the July possession date).  Then they mentioned that if we were so willing to pay the asking price within a couple hours of it being listed, maybe we would pay more...   Steve told the realtor straight up "that's Bull Shit!  I asked you what it would take, you told me, we gave it to you, and now you are wanting more money?  Bull Shit".  By the end of the conversation Steve had told us that the owners were in contact with a friend of theirs who had rental properties, and they were going to see if they could get a rental property for 3 months, but wouldn't know until the next morning. 

Luckily Ben and I were with friends, because before long our mood was lifted, and we were laughing and playing games with them - and had completely forgot about the house.  Until we left, that is. 

Neither of us slept that well that night, we both kept thinking about the house, and woke up with knots in our stomachs.  Ben actually woke up at twenty to seven (as usual), and told me that he was going to go have coffee with his parents and get some things of his mind, and would be back at 9am.  I struggled to go back to sleep, and tossed and turned some more. 

By 10 Ben called Steve to tell him that if that was the deciding factor, to let the other realtor know that we would agree to the July possesion date.  We would just be living with Ben's parents for a couple months.  It wasn't an ideal situation - but if it was the difference between getting the house, and not - than that was what we had to do.  At 10:30 Steve called us, and said the Realtor was meeting with the owners at 2pm, and said "it looks good".  So we waited. 

In the meantime we decided to head over to Ben's parents place early for Easter Dinner, just so we weren't just sitting at home waiting for the phone to ring.  Just before 2, as we were pulling into Ben's parents driveway, Steve called "Congratulations guys!  They accepted!"  FINALLY!!! 

Steve told us that even the owners were getting to their own Realtor, and had mentioned to Steve "if this woman doesn't sign this offer I'm going to punch her"  we said that if they came back and asked for more money we were going to request that Steve fax in a picture of his middle finger, he had a pretty good laugh about that.  Oh - and they threw in the hot tub.  Ben and I noticed it wasn't on the original offer, and we were fine with it, we didn't want the hot tub.  We figured they were leaving it out as a bargaining chip, but when we didn't ask for it, they just threw it in because they didn't want it either! 


When we got off the phone I squealed, which brought Mom out of the house, so we shared the good news with Mom and Dad.  And after Hugs came Tequila shots (I love his parents), and then a day filled with lots of family and love.  By the time 7:30 rolled around, I was dead tired, and ready for bed.  We ended up falling asleep by 10:30pm and slept like babies!  Talk about an emotional roller coaster!


The new owner of our Condo takes possession on May 25th, and we take possession of our house on May 27th - it couldn't work out more awesome than that! We pack our condo into the spare office at work, move in with mom and dad for a couple days, and then move into our new home.  Enjoy a summer of BBQ's and Hot Tub nights, and then in the fall haul the hot tub out and sell it (we don't want the maintenance), and then build in a covered sitting area on our deck :)