The Home Owner Adventures - 1

On Jan 30 , 2015, We got the keys to our brand new home. It was a nail biter to the end, with two loans funding , one the day before and one the morning of closing. I must have check my email every 5-10 mins . I finally lost patience around 2 and called the title company. My call was not answered. I wondered if that was a good sign or not. But I still felt positive.

Then at 2:38 PM, Kim Garner from North American Title called me and gave me the news. We were home owners!!

I had already loaded up the car with some boxes with fragile stuff and important documents and set out to our new home. I got a nice welcome kit and used my new garage opener to park the car . But then I got a little surprise, none of the 4 keys I was given would open the garage door. I tried the front door as well, same problem. Somehow the keys had been mixed up. Lots of running about, and then, finally, someone helped me program a new code for our electronic dead bolt, and I was in. The washer dryer were still missing, but still I was very glad that we were able to close on time.

Norm and Shobita have been very kind and have invited us to sleep over on the days to help us with our move, because this is the state of our house. It is very surprising we have so many things.

Close or not to close.

It was a flurry of different things from the time we went into contract till now. Things have been far from smooth. Since I have to clear two loans from two lenders, things have progressed slowly. There was a lot of ambiguity around the closing dates, which finally got resolved to 30th of Jan. Today is the 27th and I am still not approved for my loan. TCF is holding out for some reason I cannot fathom. But I don't see the point in freaking out, as it is completely beyond my control. I have been riding my lender agent to keep pushing for this thing to get done. If it does not get approved today, I guess we won't be able to close as scheduled.

The other big issue was at the walkthrough. Our appliances and blinds were missing in the apartment. There was plenty of signs of a hurried job around the house. Deep gouges on some of the woodwork, nicks and spots of paint. But I didn't expect any different. They were pretty ok with fixing anything I pointed.

One other hiccup we encountered was that we ordered our furniture too early, and it got delivered to us. So we will need to cart everything to the new house. On the upside , the price quoted by the mover was well below my budget.

Been getting rid of all things in the house on craigslist at throw-away prices. Only three things remain - TV console, Dining Table, Area Rug.

Buying any house , I would have run the risk of discovering issues. Especially if it was not an old construction. So I should just be glad that I am at least covered by a 1 year warranty.

In any case, I have my fingers crossed, if all goes well, then in the next two days, we will become owners of our first home in the US.