We're here! We made it to the NCR and have set up most of our house.
We arrived in mid-July and have been super busy ever since!
The roof has been replaced, the septic needed replacing and is nearly done. We have just one inspection to go on that. Did anyone else realize that it takes WEEKS to have your septic fields and tanks replaced? It does. If you ever need to know that, just be aware. It also makes a great mess. Piles of sand, clear stone and topsoil all over the yard.
The mouldy basement bathroom has been torn out. We haven't started replacing anything in there yet. It was horrible. Black mould, wood and drywall that were soaked in water. Black 2x4's.
We also tore out all the carpet in the basement family room. It was filthy, and the underlay installed wrong. The rubber bottom layer was touching the carpet instead of being face-down. Which meant that it did nothing to help with the moisture problem down there. There was also no kind of sub floor. Which again, moisture problems.
We have repainted the entire main floor of the house. All 4 bedrooms, kitchen, living room, family room and en suite bathroom. The only room left is the main bathroom. It was many, many weekends of work, trying to fit it around other things going on, but it's done now. The house is much brighter. Who ever thought that a dark, army green colour and a tan/green/grey colour would be a good idea in an already darkish house? We are surrounded by a lot of trees. Light colours are a must!
We're now replacing light switches and outlet covers. Not only are they all an ivory colour, but every single outlet in the house is installed upside down. No idea why. It is so strange. So, Corey has had to shut off power in various rooms- marking the fuse box as he goes- nothing has been labelled! And he's slowly making his way around the house, flipping the wiring over and installing new, white covers.
Next up- sun room needs painting. It's currently dark wood panels and is absorbing most of the natural light. I'm either going to white wash it, or paint it a white colour with a yellow undertone. It will brighten up that room and hopefully inside the house.
After that- the kitchen! The cabinet are all oak, and I'm going to paint them white. We are going to make the island larger and install a flat top cooktop. We have a broken GenAir weird cook top now that I greatly dislike. It only has 2 elements that are cast iron and a grill. Only 1 element actually works and the grill gets warm, but not hot enough to actually cook anything. It's an overall bad set up.
I'd also like to replace the counter tops at some point. They are white, installed poorly and have some burn marks from previous owners. Functional, but ugly.
I'm also back to work with Rodan & Fields! I can't believe I actually got paid this summer and didn't really do any work at all. Hurray for passive income!
I'm currently loving the Unblemish line. It seems to have dried up the exzema I had. Their Soothe line was working ok, but I ran out of wash when I forgot to reorder in all the moving madesss. So, I used the Unblemish wash that Corey uses for shaving. I think it's the sulfur in it that works. So much for thinking it would be too harsh on my skin. It works amazing!
If you are interested in learning more or getting a sample of a few goodies, please send me an email. No one is ever under any pressure to buy anything. Lora (dot) Prentis (at) gmail (dot) com
More posts soon about my new business with Rodan & Fields and our new house. I have got to get some photos on here! The property we bought is very pretty and I want to share before the snow flies!
Showing posts with label moving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label moving. Show all posts
08 September 2016
16 June 2016
Moving Military Style- Part 3 Offer, Counter offers & home inspection
Read Parts One and Two
Once the agent and buyer leave, I frantically text our agent telling him all that just happened. He is furious. It's so unprofessional for an agent to just show up and ring doorbells like that.
He asks if I knew her name. I didn't. I also didn't think to ask for a business card until the car they were in was pulling away. I call Corey at work to tell him what happened. We both search for agents in an area of Winnipeg I knew she had an office in (that much I did know) come up empty handed and shrug it off. Can't do much about it now.
Meanwhile, our agent is phoning around town to see who had viewings booked. No one that he asked had, which were all the bigger players with multiple listings. Very strange. We wonder if they had booked any viewings here at all?
Later that same evening, I get a text from our agent. It's 9PM and I'm in pj's, reading in bed. The boys are all in bed.
Text reads: "Can I come over in about 15 min? We have an offer"
I reply: "Sure, I'm in pajamas and in bed, but this is worth getting dressed for!"
Our agent comes over with the strangest offer we had ever seen. They offered us a fairly low price, and they wanted a lot of things. Fridge and stove (very common, so we weren't surprised on those) Washer, dryer (less common, but ok, fair enough for asking) our stand up freezer, bar stools, (sometimes people as for furnishings, so not too out of the ordinary, but I found it bold, given the price)
Then...... it got interesting. They asked for the deck, gas fireplace and garden shed to be included. Well, we aren't about to rip out the fireplace that's built into the wall of the living room before we go. The deck is built off the back door and attached to the house, so, those are staying. As for the garden shed? We don't even own one! Neither do any of the neighbours.
We set about amending the documents, deciding on what we are willing to part with and what will become a part of the deal. Then came setting the price for the counter offer. This is always stressful. We didn't want to go back with our asking price, since we were willing to negotiate a bit. Not dropping the price even a little bit can signal the buyers that we didn't really need to sell and are probably going to be difficult to negotiate with. This is a good way to lose a potential buyer. We drop the price about 4K. Enough to tell them we'll play, but not so much we lose the money we sunk into renovating.
They gave us a deadline of midnight to get back to them. By this time it's 10:30 PM and Corey realizes that he better call his boss. To add to the drama selling a house brings, something had come up at work and we weren't actually sure anymore if this posting was going to happen. It involved a lot of the higher-ups and was a bit intense for about 5 days. Of course, this is when we get an offer on the house, so instead of waiting for things to blow over, we have to force a decision.
What we had been told a few days previously (the Friday) was that we should keep the house on the market and IF we got an offer, call work ASAP so they could figure it out. More stress. It wasn't a fun weekend.
So, back to Monday, we're sitting with an offer and realize that if they accept our counter-offer, we just effectively sold the house and now we didn't even know if we were for sure posted. With a deadline looming in 1.5 hrs, we didn't have a lot of time. Our agent calls the buyers agent and asks for an extension of 10 AM for the deadline. She is suspicious and thinks we have another offer. I get worried that they are worried and think the whole thing is going to fall apart by morning.
Morning comes and we hear something at 10 to 10 (nothing like leaving it to the last minute!) We had a counter offer. It's not what we want, so we counter back. At this point the tennis match really begins. Counters go back and forth via text for a while.
I think about how it used to be, about 10 years ago. Counter offers came printed on official documents, presented by your agent. They did a lot of driving around between your house, work, hotel or wherever while the negotiating was taking place. Now a lot gets done via text and email. It's pretty great. A lot faster. Once it becomes more of a solid deal, the agents do bring official printed papers to sign, but in the meantime a lot of it is texted.
Now it's Tuesday evening and our agent has requested to come over, as he heard back from the buyers agent again and he needs to go over things with us.
We ended up being about 4k apart in the end. We wanted 2K more, they wanted to spend 2K less. They wanted our appliances, we didn't want to give them up. So, our agent proposes that we go up the 2K and give them the appliances. We agree reluctantly. He then leaves to talk to the buyers agent so she can talk them into the same deal. He's getting us to play nice. Neither side is getting what we want, but the deal could be done. We wait. Deadline is 10AM Wed.
Wednesday, 10 AM. Nothing. No text, no email. I check to make sure my phone isn't on silent or something. Bake to pass the time. Feels like time is going backwards. Remember the last day of school when the bell seems like it will never ring signalling the end of the year? It feels like that.
10:40 I get a phone call. Offer accepted! I'm in disbelief. I thought because we hadn't heard anything, we had lost them. The buyers agent is just lousy at communicating.
Major hurdle over with. House inspection is scheduled for Thursday afternoon and of course, their financing has to come though. Both standard conditions.
Thursday I need to be out of the house from at least 2-5PM, possibly as late as six. Over nap time and the older kids come home from during those hours. Not ideal, but this has to get done.
I decide to nap Max early and then pick the older boys up from school by 2:20. Head into Winnipeg and meet up with Corey. We take the boys out for haircuts and dinner.
We let everyone know ahead of time that we had to come home by five at the latest. It's the final night of cadets and the boys have Annual Inspection. This involves uniforms that must be ironed, boots polished to gleaming. They got it all ready the night before, but it had to stay hung up to avoid wrinkles; so we weren't able to bring them along and have the boys change before their night started.
It's a long, busy day and evening, but everyone ends up picked up, dropped off, and where they need to be on time.
Part Four
Once the agent and buyer leave, I frantically text our agent telling him all that just happened. He is furious. It's so unprofessional for an agent to just show up and ring doorbells like that.
He asks if I knew her name. I didn't. I also didn't think to ask for a business card until the car they were in was pulling away. I call Corey at work to tell him what happened. We both search for agents in an area of Winnipeg I knew she had an office in (that much I did know) come up empty handed and shrug it off. Can't do much about it now.
Meanwhile, our agent is phoning around town to see who had viewings booked. No one that he asked had, which were all the bigger players with multiple listings. Very strange. We wonder if they had booked any viewings here at all?
Later that same evening, I get a text from our agent. It's 9PM and I'm in pj's, reading in bed. The boys are all in bed.
Text reads: "Can I come over in about 15 min? We have an offer"
I reply: "Sure, I'm in pajamas and in bed, but this is worth getting dressed for!"
Our agent comes over with the strangest offer we had ever seen. They offered us a fairly low price, and they wanted a lot of things. Fridge and stove (very common, so we weren't surprised on those) Washer, dryer (less common, but ok, fair enough for asking) our stand up freezer, bar stools, (sometimes people as for furnishings, so not too out of the ordinary, but I found it bold, given the price)
Then...... it got interesting. They asked for the deck, gas fireplace and garden shed to be included. Well, we aren't about to rip out the fireplace that's built into the wall of the living room before we go. The deck is built off the back door and attached to the house, so, those are staying. As for the garden shed? We don't even own one! Neither do any of the neighbours.
We set about amending the documents, deciding on what we are willing to part with and what will become a part of the deal. Then came setting the price for the counter offer. This is always stressful. We didn't want to go back with our asking price, since we were willing to negotiate a bit. Not dropping the price even a little bit can signal the buyers that we didn't really need to sell and are probably going to be difficult to negotiate with. This is a good way to lose a potential buyer. We drop the price about 4K. Enough to tell them we'll play, but not so much we lose the money we sunk into renovating.
They gave us a deadline of midnight to get back to them. By this time it's 10:30 PM and Corey realizes that he better call his boss. To add to the drama selling a house brings, something had come up at work and we weren't actually sure anymore if this posting was going to happen. It involved a lot of the higher-ups and was a bit intense for about 5 days. Of course, this is when we get an offer on the house, so instead of waiting for things to blow over, we have to force a decision.
What we had been told a few days previously (the Friday) was that we should keep the house on the market and IF we got an offer, call work ASAP so they could figure it out. More stress. It wasn't a fun weekend.
So, back to Monday, we're sitting with an offer and realize that if they accept our counter-offer, we just effectively sold the house and now we didn't even know if we were for sure posted. With a deadline looming in 1.5 hrs, we didn't have a lot of time. Our agent calls the buyers agent and asks for an extension of 10 AM for the deadline. She is suspicious and thinks we have another offer. I get worried that they are worried and think the whole thing is going to fall apart by morning.
Morning comes and we hear something at 10 to 10 (nothing like leaving it to the last minute!) We had a counter offer. It's not what we want, so we counter back. At this point the tennis match really begins. Counters go back and forth via text for a while.
I think about how it used to be, about 10 years ago. Counter offers came printed on official documents, presented by your agent. They did a lot of driving around between your house, work, hotel or wherever while the negotiating was taking place. Now a lot gets done via text and email. It's pretty great. A lot faster. Once it becomes more of a solid deal, the agents do bring official printed papers to sign, but in the meantime a lot of it is texted.
Now it's Tuesday evening and our agent has requested to come over, as he heard back from the buyers agent again and he needs to go over things with us.
We ended up being about 4k apart in the end. We wanted 2K more, they wanted to spend 2K less. They wanted our appliances, we didn't want to give them up. So, our agent proposes that we go up the 2K and give them the appliances. We agree reluctantly. He then leaves to talk to the buyers agent so she can talk them into the same deal. He's getting us to play nice. Neither side is getting what we want, but the deal could be done. We wait. Deadline is 10AM Wed.
Wednesday, 10 AM. Nothing. No text, no email. I check to make sure my phone isn't on silent or something. Bake to pass the time. Feels like time is going backwards. Remember the last day of school when the bell seems like it will never ring signalling the end of the year? It feels like that.
10:40 I get a phone call. Offer accepted! I'm in disbelief. I thought because we hadn't heard anything, we had lost them. The buyers agent is just lousy at communicating.
Major hurdle over with. House inspection is scheduled for Thursday afternoon and of course, their financing has to come though. Both standard conditions.
Thursday I need to be out of the house from at least 2-5PM, possibly as late as six. Over nap time and the older kids come home from during those hours. Not ideal, but this has to get done.
I decide to nap Max early and then pick the older boys up from school by 2:20. Head into Winnipeg and meet up with Corey. We take the boys out for haircuts and dinner.
We let everyone know ahead of time that we had to come home by five at the latest. It's the final night of cadets and the boys have Annual Inspection. This involves uniforms that must be ironed, boots polished to gleaming. They got it all ready the night before, but it had to stay hung up to avoid wrinkles; so we weren't able to bring them along and have the boys change before their night started.
It's a long, busy day and evening, but everyone ends up picked up, dropped off, and where they need to be on time.
Part Four
15 June 2016
Moving- Military Style- Part 2 - That's one way to sell a house!
Read Part one of the story
So, Monday morning, the 30th of May, the doorbell rings.....
A lady is peeking in my windows! She sees Max and I looking out at her, so I feel like I should probably answer the door.
I open it, and she tells me she is an agent and was driving past with her client. She knows we are military, posted out and we need to sell. Her client is military, here on her HHT (house hunting trip) and needs to buy. Can they come in and take a look around?
Ummm. She caught me totally off-guard. What would you do?
How did she even KNOW that information about us?!
I ended up letting her in. Even though my real estate agent told me not to do that. I was to have people call the number on the for sale sign in the yard. But, I know what it's like to be on HHT and in a rush. I could see just one person sitting in the car on the street. I knew my neighbours were home, (a few of which are police officers) so I quickly decided that I didn't want to risk losing a sale and told the agent I would let them in. (I KNOW!!)
The agent runs down to her car to get her client. Meanwhile I frantically throw some dishes in the dishwasher, we had just finished lunch and I hadn't completely cleaned up yet. Plus, toaster still out from breakfast. You know, normal stuff when people live in a house.
Now, in retrospect, what I *should" have done, was told them to call my agent so he would at least known someone was here. That extra 5-10 minutes would have bought me enough time to tidy the living room of toys and open some of the bedroom curtains. Buyers want to see a bright, well-lit home!
But, I didn't do that. So, a light tap on the door signaled that the buyer had no qualms about coming into someone's home without an appointment.
I made it out the the foyer after they were already inside, but not before hearing a delighted gasp, and "it's so pretty" and "these are ALL my colours". So, yay! She liked it the second she walked in.
If you've ever shopped for a house, you know how important that first impression is. If I don't like it the second I walk in, it rarely gets any better. That first impression SELLS a house. It has to scream home, or close enough to it, in order for me to want to buy it. I'm positive I'm not alone thinking this.
So, I meet the buyer and she's super nice. I take them on a tour of the house, and she's really positive about everything. By the time we got to the last room in the basement, she was feeling quite lost. It's a lot of house to take in in under 5 minutes!
I showed her the secret room we built, as well as the cubby playhouse area under the stairs we built for the boys. It has a built in bookcase and it's own light and light switch, right down at toddler level. She loved it and knew her children would as well. She could tell we had put a lot of thought into renovating the basement and made the comment that we must have been planning to stay here for a while (we were).
She asked about schools, which I gushed over. They are amazing here. Some of the best the boys have ever attended. I told her about the walking/biking paths all through town, and how there are never any line ups at the grocery store. Really, just all the things I love about living here.
They thanked me for letting them in, and I apologized for the messy, not show-ready appearance of the house. Having just been through it herself, the buyer understood. Lucky for us, we had only had a viewing the previous evening, so most of the rooms were still untouched and therefore clean and tidy!
The story continues in Part 3
So, Monday morning, the 30th of May, the doorbell rings.....
A lady is peeking in my windows! She sees Max and I looking out at her, so I feel like I should probably answer the door.
I open it, and she tells me she is an agent and was driving past with her client. She knows we are military, posted out and we need to sell. Her client is military, here on her HHT (house hunting trip) and needs to buy. Can they come in and take a look around?
Ummm. She caught me totally off-guard. What would you do?
How did she even KNOW that information about us?!
I ended up letting her in. Even though my real estate agent told me not to do that. I was to have people call the number on the for sale sign in the yard. But, I know what it's like to be on HHT and in a rush. I could see just one person sitting in the car on the street. I knew my neighbours were home, (a few of which are police officers) so I quickly decided that I didn't want to risk losing a sale and told the agent I would let them in. (I KNOW!!)
The agent runs down to her car to get her client. Meanwhile I frantically throw some dishes in the dishwasher, we had just finished lunch and I hadn't completely cleaned up yet. Plus, toaster still out from breakfast. You know, normal stuff when people live in a house.
Now, in retrospect, what I *should" have done, was told them to call my agent so he would at least known someone was here. That extra 5-10 minutes would have bought me enough time to tidy the living room of toys and open some of the bedroom curtains. Buyers want to see a bright, well-lit home!
But, I didn't do that. So, a light tap on the door signaled that the buyer had no qualms about coming into someone's home without an appointment.
I made it out the the foyer after they were already inside, but not before hearing a delighted gasp, and "it's so pretty" and "these are ALL my colours". So, yay! She liked it the second she walked in.
If you've ever shopped for a house, you know how important that first impression is. If I don't like it the second I walk in, it rarely gets any better. That first impression SELLS a house. It has to scream home, or close enough to it, in order for me to want to buy it. I'm positive I'm not alone thinking this.
So, I meet the buyer and she's super nice. I take them on a tour of the house, and she's really positive about everything. By the time we got to the last room in the basement, she was feeling quite lost. It's a lot of house to take in in under 5 minutes!
I showed her the secret room we built, as well as the cubby playhouse area under the stairs we built for the boys. It has a built in bookcase and it's own light and light switch, right down at toddler level. She loved it and knew her children would as well. She could tell we had put a lot of thought into renovating the basement and made the comment that we must have been planning to stay here for a while (we were).
She asked about schools, which I gushed over. They are amazing here. Some of the best the boys have ever attended. I told her about the walking/biking paths all through town, and how there are never any line ups at the grocery store. Really, just all the things I love about living here.
They thanked me for letting them in, and I apologized for the messy, not show-ready appearance of the house. Having just been through it herself, the buyer understood. Lucky for us, we had only had a viewing the previous evening, so most of the rooms were still untouched and therefore clean and tidy!
The story continues in Part 3
Moving- Military Style- Part 1 Listing the House
As we prepare to move again, I thought now would be a good time to write about all that is involved. Having the military move you is different than if you were to do it yourself. We've done both, and each have definite advantages and disadvantages!
Since this time is a military move, I'm just going to be focusing on that.
So, the first thing we need is a posting message. This is the magical message that comes from the military, usually in the form of an email. This document tells us that we are, in fact, moving and where to. Once we have that, we can proceed with selling our house.
This year, we received a late posting message. Normally we would know that we will be moving by about December, and patiently wait until sometime in March or April for a message. We got ours in May, the same week a position came up for Corey. It was fast. A position came up, we agreed and we had the official message within the same week.
The next step was to contact our real estate agent here and let him know we would need to sell the house. Lots of paperwork followed this, along with an appraisal of the house, and of course, photos for the MLS listing. I wanted the house show-ready for the photos that would be going online to accompany our MLS listing, as well as for the appraisal, and it took a bit of work to get it there.
We put our house up for sale on 26 May 2016. It was listed on the MLS early that Thursday morning. We had spend the previous weekend (May long weekend) cleaning, doing minor repairs and paint touch-ups, knowing we would be listing it that week. It took a bit of time to research & compare similar houses and agree on a selling price. Our agent also had to take interior and exterior photos of the house, edit them, and write up a blurb about the house. He also needed information from us, such as the previous years tax info.
We had a viewing scheduled before our house was even an active listing. Our agent had potential buyers, so he showed the house on Wed. evening. They liked it, but not the size of the kitchen (I agree, it's a bit too small for the size of the house), and they didn't like that we hadn't watered our lawn. Oh well. Grass is greener just up the street for 50K more! Literally. Our neighbours all take amazing care of their lawns and it shows.
We had a viewing set for the Sunday. I didn't feel like they would buy, and that turned out to be right.
Monday an interesting thing happened. I was just getting Max ready for a nap, when the doorbell rang. An agent was on my doorstep, with a potential buyer in tow. The story continues in Moving- Military Style- Part 2
Since this time is a military move, I'm just going to be focusing on that.
So, the first thing we need is a posting message. This is the magical message that comes from the military, usually in the form of an email. This document tells us that we are, in fact, moving and where to. Once we have that, we can proceed with selling our house.
This year, we received a late posting message. Normally we would know that we will be moving by about December, and patiently wait until sometime in March or April for a message. We got ours in May, the same week a position came up for Corey. It was fast. A position came up, we agreed and we had the official message within the same week.
The next step was to contact our real estate agent here and let him know we would need to sell the house. Lots of paperwork followed this, along with an appraisal of the house, and of course, photos for the MLS listing. I wanted the house show-ready for the photos that would be going online to accompany our MLS listing, as well as for the appraisal, and it took a bit of work to get it there.
We put our house up for sale on 26 May 2016. It was listed on the MLS early that Thursday morning. We had spend the previous weekend (May long weekend) cleaning, doing minor repairs and paint touch-ups, knowing we would be listing it that week. It took a bit of time to research & compare similar houses and agree on a selling price. Our agent also had to take interior and exterior photos of the house, edit them, and write up a blurb about the house. He also needed information from us, such as the previous years tax info.
We had a viewing scheduled before our house was even an active listing. Our agent had potential buyers, so he showed the house on Wed. evening. They liked it, but not the size of the kitchen (I agree, it's a bit too small for the size of the house), and they didn't like that we hadn't watered our lawn. Oh well. Grass is greener just up the street for 50K more! Literally. Our neighbours all take amazing care of their lawns and it shows.
We had a viewing set for the Sunday. I didn't feel like they would buy, and that turned out to be right.
Monday an interesting thing happened. I was just getting Max ready for a nap, when the doorbell rang. An agent was on my doorstep, with a potential buyer in tow. The story continues in Moving- Military Style- Part 2
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