Sold, Bought, Almost There...

From an email I sent to a friend:

"It's been a rather remarkable week. Our house sold the first day on the market (Thursday March 31st). We were en route to Denver to do house hunting and job hunting, we got the call from our realtor saying he had papers for us to sign, so he faxed them to a Kinkos in UT where we were near driving. We signed 'em, got mutual acceptance--at our asking price! The market is hot and inflated right now in Seattle.

Conversely, it's not as hot in Denver. Homes are taking at least two months to sell, so that worked to our benefit.

We went with our realtor here on Saturday looked at five "used" homes, didn't like a single one (road noise was a major issue on several along with really poor upkeep considering they were young homes), and he had a plan B...a brand new home, in a model I'd fallen in love with on our last trip in Feb.

Long story short, we got the house for a lot less than the builder's asking price! Our realtor was even amazed.

Here's a link to our new home--I think you may have to copy and paste since I couldn't get the link to go live.

When you get to the page, click the big photo, then select elevation C.
This is our exact home in the inverse.
www.newhomesource.com/search/home_detail.aspx?
plnid=253185&fp=hr&mid=48&cid=19014


Our buyers wanted a quick close, so we'd agreed to the 27th of April. If that hadn't been the case, we couldn't have gotten this home, because the 'deal' was made by the builder only if we could close by the 28th of April here!

We were (and still kind of are) in shock; this house is the design I'd loved the most, and of the four exterior options it is my absolute favorite. I love the colors they'd picked out for this one (warmer instead of cooler neutrals.) I can see Pike's Peak just a few steps from our driveway. This house is located in a golf course community and is on a culdesac, and has lots of nice upgrades: corian counter tops, tile all over the master bathroom, cherrywood kitchen cabinetry, nice light fixtures, nice carpet. It's amazing, and I feel SO unworthy. This is the kind of house I thought I'd be LUCKY to get by the time my kids were teenagers. I have no kids, so I can tell you this, I'll be ready a lot sooner now! This house HAS to have kids in it, it's such a family-size house.

So we're moving by the end of April. To ensure that all financing is in place for our Parker house closing on the 28th, we've gotten our buyers in Seattle to agree to an April 25th closing date."

I've been submitting a few resumes this week, looking for some part-time massage work.
Here's our moving schedule as it now stands:

Friday April 22          Rent UHaul in Seattle, sign closing papers
Saturday April 23        Load Downstairs furniture & things
Sunday April 24          Load Upstairs furniture & things
Monday April 25          Depart Seattle for Boise, ID, Seattle closing finalized
Tuesday April 26         Travel as far as possible, stay in WY
Wednesday April 27       Arrive in Denver
Thursday April 28        Close on Parker house, unload truck
Friday April 29          Finish unloading if nec., refridgerator arrives

The timing of everything (sale of our house, getting the contract on our house here in Denver) has been a bit mind-boggling, and we are still feeling blessed beyond belief. Todd's prayer is that God's favor will extend to his job search, too.

We're Listed

Here's the link:
www.johnlscott.com/24185

Our realtors are a husband and wife team, Rachel and Richard Whaley.
We actually aren't officially on the market until 12 noon tomorrow, the 30th. But we already had a couple drive up and ask us about the house; we could tell they really wanted to come in! But we just weren't ready for that--we didn't even have the sign in the yard yet!

Richard and Rachael told us to expect a lot of lookers and even a sale within the first few days wouldn't be unusual in this market. It would be so great to sell while we're in Denver and be able to bid on whatever we want!

A couple of the pictures the realtors used in our listing are from when we bought the house two and 1/2 years ago--they thought the furniture showed the "openness" better in the main living area. I think they liked the yard furiture on the deck better too--ours is pretty stark.

Everything else is our current interior and exterior, though.

Progress on Home Fix-ups

Here's a copy of an email I just sent to my mom:

Todd and Dad have been focused and going at it with house fix ups, I've been trailing behind packing books, clothes, taping walls to prepare the "library" for painting, and cleaning up their cooking messes.

Thus far, the front porch has been painted (looks gorgeous,) the back deck extended into the hottub (very nice,) bricks laid out where dirt was by the hot tub, and the crown mouldling finished in the stairwell.

Today they plan to paint the library and maybe make steps for the back deck on both ends.

My task is to continue packing and clean out spots on the carpet, organize cupboards to look spacious, and nitpick on the house overall.

Maybe tomorrow we'll do hardwood polishing and I am hoping to talk Todd into doing something with the dirtpile on the other end of the back yard.

Monday, mow the lawn, have the realtor out here, and we'll also fine tune anything she thinks needs doing. We will stay past Tuesday if need be; I really wanted to get the carpets steam cleaned. Sometime midweek beteween Tuesday and Thursday we'll leave for Denver and hopefully list the house.

See you soon!
Jodi

On another less exciting note, our neighbors have soured on us since we reset the price of the house. They have made it clear they think we're asking too much and they are peeved that their friends no longer qualify to buy the house. I'm glad the fence between us is tall!

Focusing on the Houses

My dad (a.k.a. "Davey") arrives tomorrow for a week of intensive house fix-ups. Todd and he will hopefully accomplish a lot on the back yard, deck, front deck, etc. Nothing impossible but still a lot of work, and we're thankful my dad is making the drive to do it.

Then, next week, we'll head back to Denver with my dad via convoy (we'll take a car back so there will be two cars enroute), and Todd will job hunt--I'll probably search out massage therapy employment opportunities as well--and also, excitingly, we're going to look for our next home! Hopefully we'll be able to bid on something. I have seen several listings our realtor has sent that I'm in love with.

Also, our appraisal came in at 80K more than we'd asked from the first buyers. Good thing we didn't get a contract going with them.

Ixnay on the Alesay by Erownsay

That's "Nix the For Sale by Owner"

Todd and I have a connection to a realtor that will list and advertise our home for a flat low fee in exchange for some work that Todd is doing for her group. This means that we'll probably wind up "losing" some of the sale price to a buyer's realtor, but Todd has said that he'd rather do that than add the stress of selling the home ourselves. As his wife/teammate, I am going to have to go with that choice. Give and take, ya know?

We're also going to have a more thorough on-site appraisal done tomorrow. The one we had done yesterday was mainly a comparision of other comparable properties that had sold within the past 3 months. This will be an actual on-site appraisal, so it'll be even more accurate.

Sickened but Elated

We had the house appraised and it came in at much higher than we'd been asking, more than than the 10K we thought it might. So the bad news is that we have to tell our potential buyers that it is probably out of their price range. We really liked them and so it's disappointing for us, too, not to mention our neighbors who referred them to us.

But we are happy in that we stand to make a good profit for our next down payment, God willing. The appraiser seemed to know what he was talking about.

So it's back to polishing up this place to ready it for market. My dad is coming up from Denver to help finish the back yard project we began last summer; I have a little carpet replacement project to do, and the hard wood floor should probably be polished.

We hope to put our For Sale By Owner sign out within a month.

We Have Ignition

The Good News: They liked the house, they want to buy!

The Bummer: They were disappointed that we had to raise the price (I'm sure our neighbors, their friends who referred them to us, must think we're schmucks)

The Good News: They're still interested, as long as we stay within a certain range, which we are fairly certain we will.

We must now proceed with an official appraisal, and hopefully the appraiser won't be biased in any way. We won't want the appraiser to know that we've quoted a price to anyone yet; we do want to use an appraiser that our potential buyers' mortgage broker will be able to accept, so there might be a little crossover there. We are hoping for a fair shake at this for all parties involved.

For Sale By Owner!

Here's the little gem we hope to sell ourselves:

For Sale By Owner

Mounting Stress

We finally got on the ball and called Todd's Aunt Shirley, a realtor in Boise, ID. She knows the business and is helping us get all the documentation for selling this place ourselves.

One thing we must do is get as unbiased an assessment as possible. Tomorrow, if Andy and his wife are still interested in the place, we're going to have to let them know that the price we gave them may be as much as $10K too little, but we want to get an appraisal (one that can be accepted by the broker they're using) to be sure we're in the right ballpark. If we lose them as buyers, so be it. But I won't feel good knowing we sold for considerably lower than we could have, especially with the homes being built down the street. I found out tonight that the median price for those lovlies is $500,000!

Shirley is being immensely helpful, offering up free contracts and guidance. Maybe we should toss her a commission!

Fingers crossed for tomorrow's midday viewing to go well...that they'll love it enough to pay just a little more...

Prospective Buyers

Our neighbor behind us is a mortgage broker. He's been sending us a couple of people who may be interested in buying our house! We had already been considering trying to sell by owner, and so this is perfect.

Two weeks ago a nice couple our age came by to see our house. We didn't hear from them the following week so I thought perhaps they'd decided they would be looking elsewhere. But yesterday the husband (Andy) emailed and said he, his wife, and his mother-in-law would like to come by for a second look. That's encouraging! But a little nerve-racking since his mother-in-law is a real estate agent! She won't be acting as an agent in the sense of working for a commission, but she will be a stickler on their behalf, I bet.

I know that the price we quoted them won't be negotiable, and in fact if we go forward with some of the fix-ups we intended to do to make the house market-ready, we would probably raise the price a little bit. There is very nice new construction happening just five houses down, a whole new neighborhood of very nice homes. That will increase our home's value for certain, and we don't want to sell for too little.

It's a tricky game.

So at any rate, they will be stopping over on Saturday, March 12th at 1PM, and we will be taking a little family trip to Starbucks for 1/2 hour to give them full run of looking and assessing.

Wish us luck!

the Man of Horner Manner

Todd Michael Horner

First Scouting Trip in Denver

The time: February 2005
The setting: Denver, Colorado

We met with a realtor, her name is Andi. Nice gal, a bit younger than me! I guess I'm finally at that age when people have specialties and fledging careers and they're younger than me! Anyway, we saw five homes and some new construction on an outing Saturday, February 12th. My parents followed Todd, Andi, and me to all the locations.

Most of the homes were 5-10 years old. All but one looked really "tired," not updated or really well maintained. It was disappointing. There was new construction that looked very nice (of course), but it's hard to say how those things will settle in the end, both physically (concrete, framing) and cost. It's always more headache than one anticipates when building from the ground up, even when building to spec.

We looked at homes our stated price range and found that in Parker we could get more house for the money than in our home city of Kenmore. That was a nice feeling, but also overwhelming. Here we were shopping for family-size homes and it's still just the two of us + dog! I felt a little choked, like I was committing to the whole shma-roo all at once! (The whole "shma-roo" being kids and the family life in suburbia).

Baby steps. First: find a home we love, regardless of the future "plan." Something perhaps a step up from what we're in now, but maybe not at the peak of our price range. Something digestible. On the one hand, I want the best we can get; I want to love my "nest." But on the other hand, I can't live feeling choked both by expectations I place upon myself (a big house is only justifiable if we're going to fill it with family, right?) or choked by a high mortgage.

We've been "bathing" this in prayer and continue to do so. I know that if I just breathe and take each day at a time, trusting God that His best for me may not look like my dreamy ideals, it will all come together. I have to work on not getting worked up over one certain home or house plan. There are going to be many homes out there I could be happy in. I must continue to remember that and not feel that time is fleeting, stealing away my only opportunity to be happy in just one particular house.

We don't know when our next trip will be, but when it happens it will probably be the "bidding" trip.

Denver Area Map

Click on image to enlarge.

We have been looking at homes in the south and southeastern portion of the Denver metro area. Namely, an up-and-coming city called Parker. There is a lot of new construction in Parker and for what we're looking at our future to be (family), it would be an ideal area. My parents currently reside in Highlands Ranch, which is mid-south on the map, about 20 minutes northwest of Parker. They are (as of March 2005) looking at the areas of Elizabeth and Frankton for retirement. These are smaller towns located southeast of Parker, about 20-30 minutes away.
Denver Area Map

Nick Vienneau in Training for Skeleton

My brother-in-law, Nick, has always been a natural athlete. In 1995 he actually trained in Lake Placid for the Olympic bobsled team. His mother's untimely illness in 1997 put his Olympic aspirations on hold, but this past winter Nick took to the hills again in Park City to train for the National Skeleton competetion. From what I hear, he did pretty well!

It has been a tough season, Jami was in Denver the whole time working on the radio and Nick remained in Salt Lake, training in Park City almost everyday.

As you can see, his body responded well to all the regimented work outs! Nick is in fine form! The beard growth adds that Western-man granola touch, don't you think?
Nickey Vienneau in full Skeleton Gear