Setting Roots

I am an active duty member of the U.S. Navy, which caused me to have some experiences in my home-buying adventure that are unique to military men and women, now as a homeowner I am about to have another one of those experiences. I will soon be deployed to the middle east in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. As a single (unmarried) homeowner, I am facing some unique challenges in how to prepare my home for a long time away.

My mother will be living in the home, so I do not need to worry about mail delivery. However, she is elderly and will not be able to do many of the chores. I have winterized my pool, basically by putting in a lot of Chlorine and Algaecide, and instructed my mother on how and how often to run the pump to keep the water somewhat filtered. Last winter I found I was able to get away with just having my pump run 1 day a week for about 10 hours, and the pool remained clean enough to keep it easy-to-open in the spring. I am not as worried about ease of re-opening this year, because when I return I want to re-paint the pool, which should be an interesting project to write about here at Setting Roots.

I have my bills set-up for auto-payment, and I will be paying my homeowners fees in advance. My homeowners association was kind enough to give me a deployment discount too! I have amazing neighbors who assist my mom with getting to the store, and one who will be caring for my lawn while I am gone.

Additionally, I have set-up an emergency fund to pay for anything else that might arise. If someone were not going to be living in the home, I would also turn off the breaker to my hot water heater and my kitchen appliances. I wish I did not have to go, I would love to be able to stay and finish projects around the house, and document them here, but alas, duty calls. I intend to continue documenting my experiences and offering advice to first-time home buyers when I return. Until then, please feel free to leave comments on existing posts, and please feel free to send suggestions for future posts.

Wish me luck.

Well, after a lot of searching, online and in person I believe I have found the home of my dreams. The house I have found is so much better than what I was expecting, that it is hard to believe… I will refrain from posting any photos or specific details at the moment, because the deal is not complete, and I don’t want to jinx anything, or risk violating some part of the contract in some way.

The home is about 1,750 square feet, which is huge for me, it is in a beautiful neighborhood and has a 2 car garage. In addition, the house also has an in-ground, heated swimming pool. What’s even better? It’s an enclosed pool. Wow! The house was built in 1995, which really isn’t old by anyone’s standards. Although I have not yet had the official inspection done, I have to say, after having been to the home twice, and thouroughly looking aroung, it certainly appears to be in stellar shape. I have read the seller’s inspections, and there does not seem to be any major problems. The only things noted are that it is still the original roof, and the inspectors seem to think there is only 2-3 years of life left in the roof, and there is a minor crack in the front steps. Neither of these are deal breakers.

The house itself has an interesting story… It was appraised at the end of last year for about $210,000. The original owners were selling it  because the husband got relocated by his job. Apparently a major realty company gave them a “relocation package”. The company put the house on the market at $203,000, but it did not sell. So they dropped the price to $200,000. Still no joy. The realty company then bought the home from the owners, and put it on the market at $199,900. But still it did not sell. They dropped the price to $189,900, and this is where I came in. I offered them $185,000. But I settled on $186,000 and they pay half my closing costs.

The negotiation process was nerve-racking to say the least. My agent called the seller and told them my initial offer, then she called me back with their counter offer, and I call them back with my counter-counter offer, and so on and so forth until and agreement was reached. The entire time, I am crunching numbers, and doing all this mathematical juggling to try to make the numbers work within my budget, and also to make an offer that the seller would accept. It was a very long, frustrating process that really had me worried for a bit. I found out the closing costs were going to be a little higher than I originally anticipated. I had done all my calculations and planning based on 3% closing costs. Well it turns out the closing costs will be 4%, which doesn’t sound huge, but it’s very nearly two thousand dollars, and I am already pretty strapped for cash as it is. It is scary to be so close to my dream, with my dream house, and to see it all almost slip away over a sum of money as small as $2000.

Luckily for me the seller accepted my final offer, I will not need any additional funding from my bank, and I was able to secure funds for my closing costs. So in the end it seems everything is once again back on track, but all-in-all, it was a pretty scary day for me, with a lot of ups and downs. I am looking forward to getting all of this done with, and finally being able to take possession of what I hope to be, my new home.