House Wars VI: The Return of John

Sticking with the Star Wars themed titles, this is my latest update.

I GOT THE HOUSE! w00t!

I found out early Wednesday morning that my offer was accepted. Things are moving quickly. Closing is set for March 10. EEK. It was kind of hard managing all the items from out in DC too. I'm sitting at Reagan Airport right now typing this. My flight leaves in an hour putting me back in Minneapolis around 11:30 am. Then I'll get a couple hours sleep and head over to the house to do the inspection. Then I have to start filling out paper work for the mortgage and call someone about setting up home owner's insurance.

I also need to start thinking about doing my taxes this year. I think I really need to speak to a professional rather than doing my own. I want to make sure I get the most refund I can. Everything I've found on the internet says that I can claim that new First Time Home Owner's tax credit that was included in the stimulus bill on my 2008 taxes even though I bought the house in 2009. Of course, that's the NET, and you can't trust EVERYTHING you read there. Anyone know of a good tax guy/gal they'd recommend?

So many things to do....got to start planning for furniture...I should make a list of the things I'll need. Luckily, there isn't much to do in the house itself. I don't think I'll need to paint or anything. No big projects that HAVE to be done. Mike will just have to deal with having to lower his head when walking through his door for now.

I'll post pictures after the inspection today.

House Wars - Episode V - The Curse Strikes Back

If you know my family, you know that we have had a long battle with what we jokingly call the "Engelman Family Curse" or EFC for short.
The EFC isn't a real curse like a haunted mansion or zombie pets but more of a container for all the random things that happen to my family. At least once a week something happens, where the only response from another family member is "Only an Engelman". This would be an instance of an occurrence of the EFC.

Here was where the EFC made it's appearance during my search for a new home:
I found a house I really liked in Richfield a couple weekends ago. I liked the house a lot and knew immediately that I can see myself purchasing it. But instead of putting an offer in then, I decided to give it a couple days to see how I felt about it. I looked at a couple more houses and decided that since my parents were coming down last weekend, that I would do a showing with them and see what they thought.

So, I set up a showing from last Friday afternoon. As the EFC (not luck, it's never luck) would have it, my flight out of Maryland (where I was for work) was delayed and my parents' car broke down in Fergus Falls.

So we rescheduled for Saturday. We looked around on Saturday and my parents really liked the place and again I was sure I wanted to put an offer. But AGAIN, I decided to wait a day to see how I felt.

I just so happened to drive by the property again on Sunday and noticed a lot of cars outside that looked familiar...oh yeah, they were the same cars that pulled up right after we left on Saturday. Great, someone else is having a second showing.

So I picked up the phone and told my Realtor that I wanted to put an offer in. She checked to see if I needed to do it that night, but the listing agent said no. So we met yesterday and put the offer together. We went aggressive to see how much movement we could get from the owners on the price.

A couple hours pass, and I haven't heard anything. Finally, around 7pm last night, my Realtor calls to tell me that the listing agent has said they aren't going to respond to my offer that night because they were expecting another offer the next day and that they would allow me to amend my offer if that happened.

So today rolled around and I get a call from my Realtor and of course....another offer is written so I have to decide what is going to be my best offer take-it-or-leave it. This is not how I wanted to buy my first home. So we decided on a price and now I'm just waiting to hear.

At this point, you may be asking yourself, why is this a big deal? How is the EFC involved in this? Isn't this sometimes normal when buying a house?
My answer...I guess so, maybe, you could think of it that way. But instead, I'm fixating on the fact that the house has been sitting on the market for 9 months with only 1 price drop, everyone agrees that it is still listed to high, and the day that I submit and offer, SOMEONE ELSE DECIDES TO OFFER TOO! NOT A WEEK AGO, NOT NEXT WEEK. THE SAME FREAKING DAY!

The EFC is a cruel bitch....

House Wars - Episode IV - A New Home

As you may or may not know, I'm currently in the process of trying to buy a house. This was all started when one of my roommates bought a town home and moved out and my landlord decided this was a good time for her to stop earning the mortgage payment from rent and asked us to move out....

Enough ranting there.

I finally found a house in Richfield that I really want. It's listed way too high, so I've decided to make my offer very aggressive. So I'll see how that turns out.

Now it's just a waiting game.

More news to follow.

P.S. - This post was written retrospectively. More has happened, but I want to order my stories in a certain way.