Archive for August 2012
More Inspired
The number of decisions that we are facing during this phase of the process we are in is dizzying! Remember that sage advice to always read a document before you sign, and to read the fine print. I wish! It feels like my name is all over the place, and I hardly remember most of what I have signed. And we aren’t even at the two closings yet.
We face more decisions in the coming days, after we identify and check pricing for the various accoutrements and power equipment that the sellers are offering for sale beyond the definition of the mortgaged property documents. One of the significant items of interest is a tractor with 12 forward gears and 4 reverse. Boy, have I got a lot of lessons from the school of hard knocks awaiting me in the months ahead. Unless Cyndie happens to have designs on that job …[grin]. I know better than to underestimate her.
Yesterday, we were able to take our daughter, Elysa, along with us to visit the property again and meet the sellers. My confidence in the successful completion of the pending transactions is growing. The sellers are a wonderful, friendly, and gracious family. I don’t know if it is possible to feel any more inspired about this property, but after meeting them, I’m detecting an even greater motivation to succeed in nurturing the absolute best out of the potential this spectacular property holds.
It was a treat to share the place with Elysa for the first time, and observe the reaction of breathlessness that it provokes.
Yes, this is one of those instances that defines the expression of a scene or experience being “breath-taking.”
Speed Bumps
We ran into a couple obstructions yesterday that are keeping our starry-eyed dreaming mired in reality. Cyndie got a copy of her credit report to find out what was up with the phantom $13K charge to Chase bank that the mortgage lender listed. The day before she had exhausted all options of asking people at every possible loan department what the line item might be. Then, with report in hand, she called a second time to see if the account numbers would help them identify it. After several denials, the person on the phone came to the realization that the account number referred to a loan that had been sold to someone else, and that it happened at the same time Cyndie paid it off, in full.
They had record that it was paid in full years ago, but somehow it didn’t get cleared off the reports. They said someone would look into it and that it would eventually get taken care of. Cyndie insisted that they provide a letter immediately to confirm it was paid in full and explain their error, and then look into it and get it taken care of after that.
Then we got the results from the Radon test. The reading from the short test was over double the legal limit of 4 pCi/L. The EPA recommends that when using the short test, a reading be taken of the average of two tests. When you are in a race to close on the sale of a house, apparently one test is good enough to immediately call a more than willing contractor to come swooping in for a wad of money to throw some PVC pipe and a fan to make everything all safe and sound. Color me cynical about the whole Radon threat.
There is a threat of death by automobile crash every day, but that doesn’t keep us from driving. I guess the PVC pipe and fan is like wearing a seat belt. Once I get used to it, I’ll hardly even notice it’s there. At least I don’t have sleazy contractors eager to sell me after-market seat belts that will make me even safer in my car from the ever-present threat of a crash. Blech. Knocks me out of my dazzled visions of our new paradise in Beldenville.
Luckily, we were able to join friends Barb and Mike for a luxurious evening on their boat in Lake Minnetonka last night. The sunset put on a nice show that helped to sooth our bumps from the day.
Seeking Approval
There is an awful lot of detail that requires attention after you sign an offer on a new house. More than I can process, but it has to be dealt with, so I don’t have much choice. It seems funny that there was such a long span of time in which I was waiting, and now there is a rush to get everything done. Where’d I put my 2011 W2?
I guess I wasn’t supposed to use my credit cards while waiting to be approved for a loan. I pay the entire balance every month, so it seems to me that it provides plenty of history for how we manage our finances. It’s not like I stopped living. I charged the groceries I bought online.
We are looking into getting out of the big banks and into a credit union based near our new property. I am hoping they will provide our mortgage. We are crunching through the approval process anew, after continued frustration dealing with the first option presented to us.
I think all this rigmarole is the reason we lived where we are now for 25 years. It was easier.
Here’s hoping it is the last time we have to do this. The master bedroom is on the main floor. If we move the washer and dryer up to the same level, we could have a place that will fit our needs long into our frail and feeble years.
Fast Progress
Progress yesterday included news that the contingency regarding the husband (of the couple buying our house) seeing and approving the property, has now been removed. I don’t know when he saw it, but his approval is given. They were also darn quick on getting the inspection done on our place. We accepted their offer on Friday, and they had an inspector inside on Sunday, while we were at the lake. When we got home on Sunday night, I was a bit surprised to discover a radon detector set up in our basement.
We learned of two things that the buyers have asked be addressed: there was a gas leak at the meter outside, and mold in the attic. Cyndie already had the gas company out yesterday to repair the leaking connection. We have an appointment this morning to get a quote on the mold situation. The inspector wrote, “Plywood, where visible appears intact. Heat deterioration and mold on the decking noted.” I’m guessing it was related to the huge air leaks we had, between the living space and the attic –leaks which we had sealed last year. There was a lot of warm, moist air getting into the attic to condense on the cold joists and plywood.
I sure wish that issue had been identified and addressed before the sealing and insulating work was completed. Now someone will need to be trouncing around up there, packing insulation and otherwise messing up the nicely blown material.
I like it so much better when projects are able to be completed in proper sequence.
A view down the driveway, away from the house. Shop and additional garage space visible in the distance.
With Cyndie presently between jobs, we are unable to use her on the new mortgage loan. For some reason, they said they won’t put her name on the title as a result. That doesn’t make any sense to us. We will be investigating further, and checking on an alternate source for financing, for comparison.
It’s a shame we don’t get to remain free of the nitty-gritty details of this process, and linger in the dream-world of how supremely spectacular this property is that we have found. I can tell you that visions of this new space are severely interfering with my ability to focus on the work of my day-job this week. My mind keeps reliving every precious moment that we spent there last Friday, exploring the property. I didn’t take as many pictures as I could have, because I was wandering around with my mouth hanging open, awestruck, and I forgot.
Negotiations are underway to determine a possible time to return there with our children, in order to get another look, and take some measurements for the purpose of determining what furniture we will want to bring, and what will become available for distribution to willing recipients. I expect there to be some serious de-cluttering happening here in the weeks to come.
Quotes have been requested from multiple moving companies. I bet this will help to inspire us to maximize the number of things we don’t need to take with us.
Details Pending
I don’t mean to tease this along on you, but there remain some details to be hashed out that are holding me back from any official announcements. I can report that things moved very fast for us over a period of a few days, and we have made great strides toward realizing our dreams. Offers are in play going both directions: for the sale of our house, and the purchase of our dream property. The details that remain to be signed off all appear manageable to Cyndie and me.
The unfolding events truly feel like a culmination of lessons we have been given over our lifetimes. Most recently, the odd “interruption” to our plans, when Cyndie accepted a job offer in Boston. It all paved the way for the place we are at now.
I will reveal one critical detail, to demonstrate how close we have come. On Saturday, we learned from our realtor, that the offer for the property we have wanted from the beginning, that we submitted to the sellers on Friday, was accepted.
Wild Ride
Twenty-two of the twenty-seven most-recent emails in my inbox are labeled with the name that Cyndie and I have chosen for the farm we are dreaming of acquiring. I have chosen to keep that name confidential, until we are able to close on the property, but I have been using it to categorize the email traffic related to the process that started back in February of this year.
There are 283 messages in that folder. The first one is from the person we chose as our realtor. Then there are messages with the drywall company and painter that fixed up our house while we were preparing to put it on the market.
In hind sight, it would be accurate to relabel email exchanges with our precious friend, Ian Rowcliffe, to be marked with that same identifier. Traveling to Portugal to meet Ian and his family, and spend time with their horses at the paradise that is their Forest Garden Estate, definitely deserves credit for inspiring this dream.
The current batch of 22 messages received in the last two days reveals a boost of activity that has come from our finally taking the step of visiting farms we have been marking as “favorites” on the list our realtor has been providing weekly. That step follows the milestone of having received an offer on our home.
The fact that our first offer was received only 3-days after Cyndie returned home brings a smile to my face.
Three days after that, we drove a lot of miles to visit 4 different properties. Yesterday, we finally had an opportunity to walk through the property that has been on the top of our favorites since we first received a list from our realtor.
There are a fair number of issues, all with contingencies, that are yet to be determined, but this flurry of messages coincides with our having signed our names on a lot of documents in an act of hope toward realizing a precious dream.
Will all the pending uncertainties resolve in our favor? Regular readers here should know how Cyndie is willing the universe to direct the outcome. I am doing everything I can to keep my feet and hands inside the cart at all times during this wild ride.
Finally Looking
Now that Cyndie is home, and because we have actually received an offer on our house, our realtor is finally allowing us to look at potential horse properties. We spent a lot of hours yesterday afternoon and evening, driving and exploring. We saw 4 very different possibilities. All of them had something good about them, but none of them are right for us.
At the property that was most enticing for me, we came around a corner of a building and found two bald eagles perched in the branches of a great big dead tree. It was very inspiring. This place had about 3-times more in the way of out-buildings than we could imagine being able to use. Cyndie says it will be nice if we can have some covered or indoor arena space to work with horses. This property had a HUGE indoor arena. Unfortunately, it had so many structures, they made the area near the house feel too closed in. I said, “We could knock some of it down.” But there was also a bit too many bodies of stagnant water bordering, or overlapping, the lot. The location was also too far from the airport. Access to the airport is still a priority, both for Cyndie traveling to
Today, I will be forced out of working at the day-job in order to drive to Wisconsin to finally get inside the buildings and walk on the property that remains our favorite out of all the listings that have been sent our way throughout the summer. I look forward to seeing how it compares to the places we toured yesterday.
Also, since we will already be in Wisconsin, our plan is to continue on after that, and head to the lake home paradise in Hayward for the weekend. Cyndie has already received an invitation to go riding with her niece up there this weekend.
Tough Decisions
Here is a view of Cyndie in her glory, enjoying the great outdoors in the company of horses. Now, imagine this poor girl stuck inside a public school office building, in a big city, dealing with bureaucratic foibles, facing impossible situations, operating among a crowd of people with mixed agendas (many of them hidden, and some of them hostile), for 18 hours a day, 7 days a week. That’s the way her work sounded to me from her descriptions. I’m wishing that she would never have to go back to that type of environment.
At the very least, I’m hoping she could do it as an outside consultant, with control over the hours, to allow her opportunities to spend quality time working with horses.
We are at a crossroads now, with her between employment, and us on the cusp of our dream. We are trying to move forward toward our vision, but are wrestling with how to do that prudently, in order to minimize risk of being under-prepared, or getting in over our heads. It doesn’t make sense to us, to throw caution to the wind and go for it, if we do so in a way that will have too high a risk of failure, leaving us unable to take care of the animals and property for which we become responsible.
Our happy-go-lucky styles are coming face to face with a need to make some tough decisions.
Suddenly, time seems to be moving pretty fast for us. Nonetheless, I think we are both finding pleasure being on this wild ride.
Not Sure
I wish I had some of the horse sense right now that this guy possesses, to help with the negotiation process in which we are engaged.
I like the mysteriousness of having the eyes out of view in this image. There is still a lot conveyed by the rest of the face and muzzle.
Is this view destined to be a daily experience in my future? It’s quite possible, yet how near a future remains uncertain.
I’ve waited this long, I can wait some more. I’ve said many times that we aren’t in a situation where we really need to sell our house and move. If we can’t get an offer that we are satisfied with, we are still more than happy to stay where we are and continue to enjoy the luxury of a house we are very lucky to have.
For the time being, Cyndie can take advantage of the open invitation to visit the horses she has worked with in the recent past. I’m okay where we are at. I’m still trying to get used to having a housemate again. It’s almost like living in a new place.
One thing that has potential to change our mind about how much we want to be paid for our house is, if the place we are most interested in became available for a similar discount to what we are being asked to give. It can’t hurt to inquire.
This is one of those times when my propensity for not easily making decisions becomes most evident. A right or wrong decision? I wish. It’s all in how you frame it. If I wait long enough, either an answer materializes, or the question goes away. That is my usual modus operandi.
It’s a good thing I am pretty proficient at waiting. Time will tell all.
Relative Something 