<p>:eek:</p>
<p>Wired 10% of the purchase price of the new house to the seller’s attorney yesterday.</p>
<p>Haven’t yet received any funds for the sale of our current house yet.</p>
<p>Feeling rather poor.</p>
<p>Not to mention tired and stressed. Not sleeping well.</p>
<p>Gosh – I wonder why.</p>
<p>Feels just like paying a full fee tuition, eh?</p>
<p>VH will you have help unpacking ALL your boxes? When we moved to our current house I arranged for my cleaning lady to come 3X/week for a couple of weeks. Knowing I had pre-arranged help after the moving day eased my anxiety.</p>
<p>Not quite understand the real estate transaction process in CT, do you use seller’s attorney as an Escrow? What is the fee for that?</p>
<p>artloversplus, I’m not sure I understand the real estate transaction process in CT either!! :rolleyes: I’m supposed to have experts guiding me. </p>
<p>Yes, the seller’s attorney has a trust account to which the $$$ was wired. I don’t believe there is any fee charged to us, the purchaser. I also assume that the fee, if any, is included in the attorney’s charges. </p>
<p>We’ll find out about that when we get the proceeds from our house sale.</p>
<p>I know your closing is right around now, VH, so I just wanted to drop in and bump the thread to wish you good luck and congratulations! 
Our closing is tomorrow afternoon and we’ll be moving in on Saturday, so I am online for the last time now for a few days as we’re about to pack up the computers. With how closely our timelines seemed to have aligned, I have been thinking about you and hoping everything is going smoothly!</p>
<p>With two closing I’d thought I’d throw some new ones out there…</p>
<p>We’ve found three options, quite different, and I’d love other’s opinions on these.</p>
<p>House number 1: 4bd, 7bath, 5000sq ft, 3 car garage on 1.1. flat acres in the middle of my price range.</p>
<p>Pros: Location is good, centrally located near all activities in a beautiful residential neighborhood. Kitchen to die for (walk in refrigerator…), impressive rooms, pool, and potential to build master suite of my dreams as well as other projects. Neighborhood would support us putting massive amounts of money into upgrades if we wish. </p>
<p>Cons: Seller is flaky. It may take forever for them to clear title, as they are trying to iron out a short to a lender that is not on public record, if that is even possible. House does need work, but can be moved into as soon as it closes. Master is on second floor, but there are three staircases, so turning one into an elevator isn’t out of the question.</p>
<p>House 2: 4bd, 5bath 4000sq ft two car garage on sloped .7 acres at the low end of my price range.</p>
<p>Pros: Nice view of creek running along back. Great sun room. Lovely kitchen. Master on main. </p>
<p>Cons: Master is smaller. Would probably turn study into walk in closet. Needs new roof. Can’t add on to garage, so one car would be out in the cold. Might be able to upgrade finishes I don’t like, but I’d need to bring in a decorator to be sure. Only one stair case, not sure how I’d get elderly folks to the guest area.</p>
<p>House 3: 5bd, 6bath, 6000sq ft, three car garage on sloped .7 lot at high end of my range</p>
<p>Pros: Most elegantly finished house I’ve seen. View I don’t think I could ever get tired of. Gorgeous kitchen. Awesome master suite. Country club neighborhood and lifestyle. (My husband envisions taking his golf cart down the path to the clubhouse to play a round…)</p>
<p>Cons: Three levels, with the garage on the basement level, though that is mitigated by a dumb waiter, and room to add an elevator. One guest suite is also on that walkout basement floor. Need to restore main floor laundry, as master is on the main, but laundry is on the second floor. Two of the bedrooms share a jack and jill bath rather than having their own. </p>
<p>Any thoughts on what I should choose?</p>
<p>I can’t even imagine what it would cost to add an elevator to a house.</p>
<p>I’d say house 1, unless you really like the extra space and view of house 3. Sounds like it is at the lower end of the neighborhood which is always a good place to be, so you can improve to the neighborhood instead of winding up over-improving.</p>
<p>How would you take advantage of the views for house 3? That might tip the scale. And it has the advantage of needing less work.</p>
<p>I don’t know how much an elevator cost, but a wheelchair lift to get you up five feet is only a few thousand. The cost is probably a drop in the bucket compared to whatever it costs to pay for 6000 sq ft of house. I have to admit I can’t fathom wanting/needing that much space! That said, sounds to me like the third house is the best bet - paying for an established neighborhood, you already like it. Great view. I’d distrust the design of a house which wasted space with three :eek: staircases. If you hate the Jack and Jill bath, I’m sure the area could be remodeled.</p>
<p>Quick Update:</p>
<p>Emaheevul, thanks for your good wishes. Good luck to you, too. </p>
<p>Things are not going smoothly, not at all, and I’d like to kill my attorney.</p>
<p>I will update this in a few days when this is all behind us. I’m too much in the middle of it all right now to be coherent. Only logged on to distract myself.</p>
<p>Grrr. What happened to my post?</p>
<p>At UCDAlum:</p>
<p>I haven’t ever put in an elevator, but I don’t think it’s much more than a wheel chair lift to go up half a story. I had one installed in a house I worked on for only a few thousand. That I imagine is a drop in the bucket compared to the cost of a 6000 sq ft. house.
(As an aside, I can’t imagine wanting or needed that much space!)</p>
<p>That said from your description, I’d lean toward the last house, even though it’s the biggest. I think a house with three staircases must have been designed by someone with a lot of other really wasteful bad design ideas. Do you really want to walk into a fridge? Brrr. And surely energy wasteful.</p>
<p>Second house doesn’t sound like it meets your need to have an accessible guest room (can you move the master suite upstairs?) and it sounds like you’d rather garage all your cars.</p>
<p>Third house seems like the best bet. If you don’t like the Jack and Jill bathroom that should be easy enough to fix especially if that house has six bathrooms.</p>
<p>
The forums are having timestamp/ordering problems again. I think your previous post is at #367.</p>
<p>VH…when all is said and done, let’s get a voodoo doll of your lawyer…and
burn it. Keeping my fingers crossed that this is getting sorted out.</p>
<p>I know some good lawyer jokes, if that would help.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies. We made an offer on Sunday for number 1, which was accepted with the cavate they needed sign off from a lawyer or bank or something (which wasn’t even shared with their lawyer…) and it would take one business day. By Wednesday we went back looking, figuring they would never get the sign off. </p>
<p>After seeing 2 and 3 again, and mulling it over (with your help), we made an offer on 3 yesterday which was accepted. So yeah! We are under contract! We did notify seller 1 that we were dropping out, as they were way over their 24 hour window. </p>
<p>Now inspections, and, oh yeah, we are thinking we might need more furniture…</p>
<p>^^^^UCD, house 3 sounds lovely. I like the idea of the master suite being on the first floor.
***For some unknown reason this posting time and placement is incorrect. It should be AFTER UCD’s post not before.</p>
<p>We are moved in! Our closing went smoothly and moving went well, too. We did a lot of it ourselves last night after closing and movers came to get most everything else this morning. Our anniversary is today so we are taking a break to go out for dinner, and tomorrow BF will go back to get the rest of our things and clean the apartment.</p>
<p>I am shocked to see how many things I notice now that I did not notice at either of the two showings, or that I did notice but didn’t seem bothered by until now. I thought the living room carpet would be okay for a while, I’d talked about putting in hardwood but wasn’t really committed to making a change immediately, but now I see the carpet is so filthy it makes our socks sticky and it looks horrible with the lights on at night-- it is SHOCKING the difference in appearance between day and night. I’m going to shampoo it but I don’t think there’s any salvaging it, there’s also what looks like a large red wine stain that was hidden under a cleverly placed ottoman during showings. So that carpet will be going pronto. I am also noticing the carpet in the hallway and spare bedrooms is in poorer shape than I remember and appears to be paper thin and laid right over hardwood without any legitimate padding or anything, so that will have to go. We also need some windows replaced which I had no idea was an issue, and there are a few other miscellaneous unexpected projects, so between the floors, the windows, the lighting work we need done, paint, and buying furniture, we are in for some fun… but, the house is in great shape otherwise and all of the most expensive updates we could ever want are already done, so we’re fine. We are really looking forward to what’s ahead.</p>
<p>I did solve the kitchen floor mystery by asking the sellers at closing. Apparently it’s engineered hardwood, so not real hardwood but not really completely laminate either… I guess that’s why we were confused. The wood they used for the veneer is a cherry with a really glossy finish, and I actually purposefully tried to gouge it with a key to see how soft it was and I couldn’t scratch it if I tried, so that was impressive. I did decide I hate high gloss after all, though, because my floor is so covered in footprints right now it makes me dizzy to think of how many times a day I’ll be wiping it down to keep it looking clean. At the moment I don’t even know HOW to clean it so it’s just staying that way. </p>
<p>So, all in all, things are good here but we are BUSY!!! But, it’s a happy busy. We found our dream house. I am loving the quiet neighborhood and feeling safe again home alone.</p>
<p>OH, and P.S. (because it’s too late to edit): The bank decided to take my earnest money deposit after all. No idea why, other than that they shouldn’t have said no to begin with.</p>
<p>^ Congratulations!!</p>
<p>Emaheevu, glad to see your closing went smoothly including taking your saved money. When we moved into our current house we just pulled up all the carpets - they were disgusting. I’m not a fan of wall to wall, and really not a fan of other people’s wall to wall!</p>