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Tag: house hunting

Friday, April 11, 2008

We’ve been approved at long last and are now just one flight away from being Legal Permanent Residents of the USA!

Our passports and the Mysterious Brown Envelope will be landing on our doorstep either tomorrow or Monday, and we can leave as soon as the house is sold.

J should also be signing off on the Vegas house any day now, after a couple of delays caused by the first loan company giving us the royal shaft and changing the conditions constantly. We wound up getting a much better deal elsewhere.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

We got the house! News came through this morning that our offer was accepted as is, with no amendments or extra conditions. Phew!!  (More photos are here).

Closing is March 25th, 3 weeks after our interviews, for which the flights, medical appointments and hotel are all booked.

After sitting around on our arses for so long, suddenly, everything’s a whirlwind.

Thursday, February 07, 2008

I’m house sitting for my parents as they left to visit my sister in Australia today. The farm needs a bit more attention and it’s easier to make one trip back to our place than four trips here a day. This time I’m hoping there will be no embarrassing toe-sucking stories for me to never live down like last time.

It also gives us a chance to do some of the stuff that’s needed to our place to get it on the market, something which needs to happen soon. I sent back our police check forms last week, along with the form to say we were ready for our interviews.  I’m hoping to hear by the end of the week our exact date.

We haven’t heard back about the house. For all our rushing to get the offer in, the seller’s agent didn’t present it until Monday, along with other offers that came in over the weekend. Of course, being bank owned, it has to go through more people than weekly underwear changes. The longer it takes, the more nervous and stressed I get. I’ve fallen in love with this place, and I know exactly what furniture is going to go where even though I haven’t actually seen it in person.

According to our agent, forget the crossed fingers ... she’s going straight for the rosary beads.

Friday, February 01, 2008

At least, that’s what we’re hoping for.

This place just fell in to our price range yesterday, and J emailed the agent as soon as I found it late last night. Full of high hopes (and a rather large dash of desperation) we actually arranged for a viewing first thing today and asked her to have the paperwork organized just in case. The photos and specs were just that good.

It has everything we want and kicks the proverbial arse out of everything else we’ve looked at so far. The master bedroom is well away from the others and has it’s own balcony with a pretty view of the mountains (for some reason mountain views in Vegas always surprise me - I think it has to do with that whole ‘middle of the desert’ thing). The section isn’t huge but it’s big enough for our needs and we can put our own stamp on it since it has no landscaping. The carpeting upstairs needs cleaned, there’s the odd spot in need of a paint touch up and it requires window treatments (which is a bonus in my book - I think ours will be the only place in Vegas with net curtains and drapes!), but other than that, it’s in great condition.

 

My only bug 2 bug bears are the colour of the carpets in the bedrooms (wine - ick!) and the bloody big cut out windows - one between the living room and family room and another in the loft wall overlooking the living room, though the latter is a bug bear in general. Seriously, how can they be advertised as ‘separate’ when there’s bloody big holes in the walls or the wall doesn’t go all the way to the ceiling? Even with those complaints, the cutouts are infinitely workable with this particular layout and my husband and kids are pigs, so the wine carpets may go a long way toward hiding their drips and slips.

As of 10am this morning (Vegas time) there were no other offers and ours was in by lunch. We’ve gone in fractionally over asking with no conditions, so fingers crossed! If this doesn’t work, I think even the agent will be handing us a couple of cardboard boxes and pointing us in the direction of the nearest bridge.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

So, we lost the house. The real estate agent took 2 full days to get our offer in, by which time, it was too late.

Technically we can’t fire her, as she was a stand-in, recommended by the regular agent who was on vacation. Fire the regular agent for a terrible recommendation? Absolutely! I would kiss her ass goodbye in a heartbeat. But I have no say in the matter and J doesn’t agree with my hard line approach (although he’s flicked agents for less in the past). He’s keeping her on and as a result he’s going back out looking at properties tomorrow ... with the stand-in.

Frankly, I’m lost for words.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

So we chose the most expensive house. Because I’m good like that.

We probably would’ve decided yesterday, but we were having one of our patented squabbles. Marital bliss, I tell ya ...

The name of the street is awesome. Catalina Harbor. Yes, Harbor. In the middle of the desert. Perhaps the city planners are going on Jae’s theory that California will fall into the ocean and it’ll become beach front property.

Trying hard not to get our hopes up, but tentatively optimistic. Though one of the other places we (as in the Royal We) looked at yesterday and were considering went inactive today. Knowledgeable real estate agents, ftw!

I’m still a little mad at J, so J’s Mom, if you’re reading this, here’s something for you.

Continue Reading "Deciding Factor" »

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

So we’re about to put another offer in on yet another place. We’re just not sure which of the 3 that weren’t filled with filth and cockroaches we’re going to do it on. Either way, this takes our total to 5.  That cardboard box - or if we want to get fancy, a double-wide in the trailer park opposite J’s work - are starting to look tempting.

J also got a response from the Consulate. They have our electronic file, but not the hard copy. They’re currently scheduling interviews for mid March.

To quote my husband, “Meh”.

Saturday, January 19, 2008

I have been terribly slack.

We didn’t get the house. BPO came in higher than we were willing to pay. We haven’t had any luck since. J and I are getting rather sick of house hunting (yes, me too, even though I’m doing it from a distance), sick of dealing with banks and are considering looking in to the possibility of a cardboard box.

We sent in our DS-230 Part 1’s prior to Christmas. We’d hoped the NVC would’ve reviewed them by now and forwarded our files to the Consulate here in Auckland, but to no avail. We check weekly and the message remains the same. We’ve gone past the 13 month mark now and there is still no end in sight.

I’ve gone from feeling quite upbeat in the New Year to feeling all blah.

Friday, December 07, 2007

Our DS-230’s arrived at J’s. I don’t understand why they don’t send it straight to the beneficiary, given that they’re the ones that have to fill it out to return to the NVC. Either way, this is the last of the paperwork that we need to send back to the US before they forward our file to the Consulate here in New Zealand. If only our passports would arrive so we could do it.

J’s stepped up the house-hunting in order to have a place before the boys and I get there. Our biggest hurdle is that although there are a lot of foreclosures and the like in Vegas, the investors are snapping them up fairly quickly. You can’t afford to dawdle, and it appears you can’t afford to play hard ball or enter in to any sort of negotiations. We’ve lost out on a couple of great places already as a result.

Anyway, we’ve put an offer in on a really decent place that has everything we want - separate living area, more than a postage stamp for a back yard and in a good neighbourhood. The good news is that it wasn’t selling, and has been reduced a few times, so we’ll be getting it for about $90,000 less than the original sale price if the deal goes through. The bad news is that it’s a short sale, so it means that it has to go through all sorts of funky red tape for the sellers bank to approve it. There’s one other offer in play, but ours is higher and means the owners will have enough from the sale to cover both the balance of their loan and their closing costs. They’re keen to see it approved before they go in to full foreclosure, and hopefully the bank will feel the same way.

After this place, we are looking at some seriously slim pickings. We will most likely have to sacrifice some of our requirements. We don’t want to do that, but we are running out of time.

We’re told we’ll hear by Monday, so fingers crossed for tomorrow and for a yes!

Just A Little Gnome ...

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