Time Is Moving At Lightening Speed

Hello and Good Evening.  I’m sorry I didn’t check in yesterday.  Our Saturday was jam-packed.  I’ll tell ya, this house buying/selling stuff is crazy and we are moving at rapid speed!

So, here is what has been going on.

Friday we met with our realtor to discuss putting our house on the market.  Saturday we met with CBH Homes to tour some homes and discuss pricing for some structure upgrades we want on the floor plan (extension on the garage, extension on the patio, tile walk-in shower vs. bathtub, etc).  The meeting with CBH Homes went really well and we decided to have her draw up a contract so we can turn in earnest money and hold our lot.  This means that for at least 45 days the lot can’t be sold out from under us but that construction won’t start until we sell our home.

There just so happened to be an open house across from the CBH Homes we were touring and they invited us in.  It was a cute house (crazy colored walls) but wasn’t what we were looking for.  We also had plans to stop into an open house in a community we had looked at but didn’t like the small size of the streets and visitor parking since I am big on entertaining.  I’ll admit I’ve been really excited to see inside these tri-level houses but it just doesn’t fit our needs.

We decided to drive out to the lot/neighborhood to make sure that if we enter into contract that it is the lot we want.  We found out that in order to get six extra feet on our garage we need to select a certain lot and it happens to be the last lot available.  The other existing lots would only allow us to get three feet of extra garage space.  While we were out at the property we bumped into the agent that is selling the lots in the community.  He offered us the change to tour one of the alley load homes that is under construction and we talked a bit more about the area, the lot we were looking at, and the extension on the garage.  He really had us nervous that we needed to get into contact soon or we could possible lose that lot.  As is, they price of the lot and the home have already increased in the last week and a half.

After a tiny freak-out and worry of missing out on our dream home, the representative from CBH Homes called with a question about the contract.  I discussed the information that had just been shared with us and she suggested signing the contract that evening and turning in the earnest money on Monday.  That way we won’t risk losing that lot to another buyer.  Kenyon was worried we were moving too fast but I knew this was to be our new home.  After talking with our realtor and reviewing the contract, we signed on the dotted line.  The builder has until Wednesday to approve our structure changes and an offer to pay $5,000 of closing costs and/or $5,000 in design studio upgrades (this was due to me brining up the price increase that occurred in just over a week and a half).   

Assuming the builder approves our contract we now have 45 DAYS TO SELL OUR HOME!!!

Gulp.

This isn’t quite what we had planned as we wanted three weeks to turn our house around and get it ready for sell.  Oh boy.

I am confident our current house will sell and I am also confident this is our new home.  We meet with the mortgage broker on Monday and hopefully she won’t crush my dreams of owning this new home by telling us the monthly payment is more than we want to pay.  We also meet with the staggers to help tell us what to take out of our house in getting ready to sell.  We still need to get a few professionals out to our house for a few fixes and then we need to work like mad to get our house on the market. 

We have an appointment on Friday with the CBH Design Studio to talk about what comes with the price of the house and what items are available for upgrade.  This is the scary part because if you are willing to spend money, they are willing to give you a pretty fancy interior home.  The meeting with the mortgage broker will help us know what we are willing to spend as a bottom line AND hopefully keep us level headed.  We want to make sure we don’t skimp on things we really want but we also don’t want to go bankrupt either.

I hope to keep my sanity over the next few weeks.  There is a lot going on and I’m also still working the graveyard shift at work.  Yikes.