WE’RE HOMEOWNERS!!

photo from the seller's listing

Surfacing for air

“I wish John Cleese were the attorney, then my life’s resemblance to an episode of Fawlty Towers would be much more palatable.”

Finally we had a closing date. November 25. We’d do the walk-through to make sure the house was clean and empty and in good condition, then we’d sign all the papers they wanted us to sign, then we’d dash off to upstate New York for Thanksgiving with Grandma. Upon our return we’d throw ourselves at box-moving and would start setting up our new house.

Unfortunately, November 25 came and went and no closing. The selling bank, Bank of America, swore they’d get us a final piece of the paperwork puzzle in time to close and didn’t. I decided it was best for us to not leave town anyway, because of course as soon as we were gone they’d send the paper in and then not closing on the house on time would be our fault. So we didn’t actually get to leave for Thanksgiving until Thanksgiving, and we had Thanksgiving dinner on Black Friday instead. It was still delicious.

When the bank opened for business again on November 30, they swore up and down they’d get the paper and we could close by the end of the day. The paperwork did indeed come by the end of the day, but so late that we couldn’t close til the first of December. If we didn’t close until December 1, the seller would need to get more money in order to cover the additional costs that fell under her responsibility, so we planned to sign on December 2.

The morning of December 2 we went to the local Bank of America branch, got the bank check for the closing, and went to meet our real estate agent at the house for the final walk-through. We were leisurely about it since we had some extra time to kill, and our lawyer called and said not to head over to the lawyer’s office for the closing until we heard from him again, because they were experiencing a slight delay. Well, okay. There was another closing scheduled right ahead of ours so maybe it’s running late… We took advantage of the delay to comb over the house and check everything, from basement to attic, to open every door and drawer in the kitchen, to poke through each closet and look out each window. And for the first time I found myself really looking, and seeing things I hadn’t seen before. Like how deep the closet in the upstairs hall is, or the deep deep deep closet in the laundry room that I honestly hadn’t noticed. We started to actually fall in love with the house since it would soon be ours…

When we got tired of chatting about inconsequential things, we decided to go over to the lawyer’s office anyway and stare at them to make them go faster. Our real estate agent called before we arrived (well, we were just getting in to the elevator) and said to not even bother coming up, we wouldn’t be closing on the house today. I decided to go up anyway so I could see the bank’s attorney for myself and see and hear what was going on.

At, as my dad said, the fourteenth hour (not the eleventh), Bank of America called their own attorney and threw an I swear, completely made-up roadblock in front of the closing. This attorney has been closing sales for the bank for a year now and she had never heard of a “closing coordinator” until two hours before our closing, when they called her and said we couldn’t go forward until one was assigned to our case, and oh by the way there’s no one AT ALL in the office for you to talk to, and definitely no so-called closing coordinators. Lots of people suddenly weren’t answering their phones, and the bank’s attorney, our attorney, and our real estate agent were all dialing so furiously I think I saw smoke wafting from their keypads. The bank’s attorney looked like she was about to have a heart attack, seriously, so I prescribed an avoidance of licorice and grapefruit until after the closing. We must have been in her office about 45 minutes or so watching her argue with person after person at Bank of America, watching her face turn an increasingly alarming shade of red. She was so apologetic and unless it was very carefully staged for our benefit, it was clear to me that this poor woman is not the villain here.

Now it’s December 3 and we haven’t heard that any progress has been made. I’ve only called and made a pest of myself once today, because I figure that the less of a pest I am, the more of a pest the people working on my behalf can be (they won’t be on the phone dealing with me, they’ll be on the phone dealing with Bank of America).

Of course, in the time since we were supposed to close the toilet has developed a leak from the first floor through to the basement whenever you flush, so that immediately becomes item #1 on our move-in to-do list. Let’s just hope it doesn’t exacerbate anymore before we can get access to it and do something silly, like crash through the floor and in to the basement altogether. Fingers crossed!

No washer and dryer but we expected that, but we do have the stainless steel fridge. And all of the window hangings, which A) fit well with the style of the house and B) are just beautiful. The amount of sunlight in this house is astounding and I can’t wait until we’re living there!

In the meantime, please send good karma our way and hope the bank’s attorney’s health lasts. Pictures will be posted as soon as we close!

More Things I Won’t Miss About Renting

1. The “outgoing mail” slot that isn’t wide enough to accommodate a greeting card. Usually I just send it to work with Jim and have him drop it off in one of the blue postal boxes at the hospital, but this morning I just wasn’t so on top of stuff. I ended up having to (carefully) jam the envelope in to a gap in the door of the outgoing mail box, and I’m hoping it stays in place long enough for the postman to come. If it’s any consolation (and it is…) my next greeting card will probably be sent from a *real* mailbox at the new house…

2. People in the hallway, and the idea of a common hallway in general. I jump everytime I hear keys jingling in the hallway outside the door. I’m not a fan of living so close to people that I can overhear their conversations and smell what they’re making for dinner or what scent of candle they’re burning. I like fish, sure, but I like it when I cook it, not when the person at the end of the hallway cooks it. And you might think your cinnamon apple pie-scented candle is just the best thing since sliced bread, but when it’s all I can smell from the moment I open my own door, and the scent is so intense it burns the smell receptors in my nose, then you might need to take it down a notch. I can never smell my own food beyond my own door, even the time I slow-cooked a side of corned beef.

They’re Back!

The phone rang at 7:30 AM…I thought maybe it was someone at the hospital telling Jim he really did have today off for the holiday. But it wasn’t…It was the Quincy Police Department calling to tell us that the motorcycle’s license plates have been recovered!! Hoorah! They were recovered sometime in the last couple of days by the Weymouth Police Department, and the QPD didn’t know what kind of condition they were in. I want to know the story behind their disappearance and reappearance. We’ve got a number of theories. I guess we’ll be picking up the plates and finding out sometime today or tomorrow!

Oh! My! Gosh!

This is the most beautiful beginning-of-November I think I have ever seen. It is warm, there is perfect humidity, and an occasional breeze stirs up the scents of autumn. Sunday was so beautiful, in fact, that we considered taking a late-season motorcycle ride through the nearby Blue Hills (mmm, curves). Imagine our surprise, yea, even indignity, when we got out to the motorcycle and THE LICENSE PLATE WAS MISSING. Someone had stolen the license plate off the motorcycle! Jim hasn’t been riding much because of inclement, bad weather, but we park our cars next to the motorcycle every day and one or the other of us would have noticed right away, I think, if the plate had gone missing earlier. Friday night we went to UMass with Meghan to see a play; granted it was dark out when we left and came back, but I remember the plate flashing in the headlights. Saturday we went to Whole Foods and the grocery store, and didn’t park next to the bike when we got back. Therefore we didn’t see the bike Sunday morning either, when we went to run some errands. It was when we got back from errands and parked next to the bike again that I saw the plate was missing. So it happened either Friday night or Saturday night. Of course, Jim called the QPD to report it, and they sent out an officer to take the report. While Jim was outside doing that, I was inside checking the police department’s web page and the weekly “hot spots” blotter. No reports of other license plates being stolen, but a week ago down the hill an entire motorcycle was stolen.

We literally just got the paperwork from the RMV to reregister the bike for 2010, but hadn’t sent it back yet (we’re waiting til we move and can change our address and reregister the bike simultaneously, instead of reregistering and then changing the address on the registration a week later). So the plate still has the “09″ sticker that expires 12/31, the same date all motorcycle registrations in the state expire. So if whoever stole the plate is using it, they’ve got to replace it again in less than 2 months.

There’s one other motorcycle in the building’s lot, and it still has its plate. We figure that because it doesn’t have a state inspection sticker, it was spared; whoever did the stealing was smart enough to look for a plate with an inspection sticker, instead of just taking the nearest bike.

I don’t feel victimized, which I guess is a good thing; instead, I feel like I am surrounded by morons. Why didn’t they take a plate that had already been reregistered? They’d have a year of scot-free riding, instead of only two months! It makes no sense and even the officer was stumped.

::sigh::

Hafta call the RMV now…

Forward Progress!

We signed the sales contract last week! It took a couple of days but the seller also signed it, so we have jumped that hurdle and are getting our eyes set on the next ones: getting bank financing, getting home insurance, and closing.

1. Getting financing. We got a call from our bank Friday morning to lock in an interest rate — that was actually how we knew that they had gotten the sales contract paperwork. We were approved providing we are able to furnish all the right papers, so we are waiting for the bank’s FedEx package of paperwork and instructions.

2. Getting home insurance. My wonderful, fabulous, gorgeous bank, which caters to military members and their families and has always impressed me so much with their excellent customer service, won’t insure our beautiful bayside home. Not because of proximity to the water, per se, but because of potential wind damage off the water. I knew they had a reputation for skittishness in this department and have been listening for a year now to people’s complaints across the country: this bank will not insure where wind is a threat. When storms come in off the Atlantic, the winds can get pretty high, even though we are set deep in a bay and the house is on the second street back from the coast (there is a line of houses between us and the unfettered wind). But I got four or five quotes from local companies, so all is not lost.

3. Closing. Right now, our tentative date is November 25! I would give almost anything to close just one day earlier so we can still go to Grandma A’s for Thanksgiving like we’ve been planning.

Packing has already begun and the apartment feels slightly jumbled around, but with a purpose. Most of the books are packed, except for a few I want to have handy without being anxious to unpack all my book boxes in the new house. I also have a list of library titles to lean on if unpacking takes longer.

Things I Will Not Miss About Renting

Things I Will Not Miss About Renting

1. Not having anything to show for the amount of money we’re pouring in to an apartment lease. Can you believe that it will actually be cheaper to buy the house? Including taxes and insurance, the monthly mortgage payment is less than our monthly rent. It boggles the mind. And we’ll have something of our own to show for it, something our money is going toward.

2. Not having neighbors. I know we’ll have neighbors in the new neighborhood, but at least their house won’t be attached to mine. I want to keep them as far away as possible. Right now I feel like I’m living in a sophisticated rat cage, and I really don’t like sharing walls with aspiring candlepin bowlers (it’s the only explanation I’ve come up with for the sounds that come from the apartment above us) or death metal DJs (which is the only explanation I’ve come up with for the blasting music that was emitting from further down the hallway at 8:30 AM last Thanksgiving).

3. The rental office. The people there are incredibly kind and well-meaning, I’m sure, but it’s so difficult to deal with them because behind them is a huge, nation-wide rental company that really doesn’t give two pence for the individual residents in their communities. All they care about is the money and the rules. We give them our money and we follow their rules. And they forbear from throwing us out in the street. At least in our own house, we might be giving our money to the bank, but inside the house the rules are completely ours. A dog? A cat? 2 dogs? Painting the bedroom green? None of that matters to the bank. And no more surprise maintenance inspections!

4. I will be very happy when the closest grocery store is the larger one with the better selection and slightly lower prices, instead of the one with the okay prices and the less-than-stellar selection. Right now I have to drive all the way across town to get to the larger, nicer store, and the okay store is right at the bottom of the hill I live on. So it is convenient for random gallons of milk, loaves of bread, and emergency shopping trips, but I prefer to do my weekly shopping at the larger store. I also save $.05 for every reusable bag I bring to the larger store, and being environmentally friendly at the now-nearer store brings me no additional benefit.

5. I will miss the local Chinese and pizza places I’ve learned backward and forward since moving to this area of town. I’m not sure what mom-and-pop pizza/sub/roast beef places or really good Chinese take-aways are out there in the new ‘hood. Will need to cruise around a little or see what flyers pop up shortly after move-in.

6. I can have a puppy, and it won’t cost us an extra $75 a month on top of normal puppycare expenses.

7. I won’t miss having to fight a floor full of strangers for the single washer and dryer on our floor. If those machines are taken, we are of course welcome to journey to other floors and use their machines, but that just makes the people on that floor venture to yet another floor to do their laundry. And I don’t know whose clothes I’m sharing the washer with — eeeewww. Can’t wait for a machine all my own that’s always available when I want or need it.

Assateague Island

Favorite pic from anniversary trip to Maryland and Delaware.
photo by Rachel

Home Inspection

Well we did the home inspection on *hopefully our* *hopefully new* house today. I am loathe to say it’s “ours” because right now, no one at the third-party bank has said “In nomine patris et filii et spiritu sanctu go forth and prosper the house is yours.” They said, “Why don’t you go ahead and do the inspection and the purchase and sale contract? It might make us make our decision faster.” How hard is it to say “yes,” people??!?

Anyway, the inspection took a loooong time but was sooooooooo worth it. The house is older, but in good condition, just two things that need to be addressed posthaste. And one of them, surprise surprise, is the furnace. If we can get it tuned before each winter, we might get a couple more years out of it. It has already outlived itself at this point so all we can do is be nice to it and cross our fingers.

We didn’t get to sign the P&S yet because the bank has a form they require and they didn’t feel like faxing it in a timely fashion, which pretty much characterizes their attitude over the last 4 months. But we gave our 2 months’ notice to the rental office today, so we’ll be out of the apartment on December 23 regardless of this house! Happy Christmas to us! Geez!

On a positive note, the house was bigger than I remembered it. That made us both feel a little better. There isn’t more storage space than we remembered, but the attic is in excellent condition and there is plenty of room up there for Christmas decorations and bins of off-season clothing, and the basement is watertight.

The next two months are going to be very busy for us but we’ll be able to start the New Year, even celebrate Christmas (*hopefully*) in *our* *new* home.

We’re Alive!!

Ok, so I haven’t blogged here in a bajillion years. And by “bajillion years” I mean since the wedding last October. Honestly, I didn’t think our lives were all that exciting post-nuptial: We bummed around for a couple weeks, had Grand Central Station in our apartment, went on our honeymoon, and sank in to the mindless stupor that is 9-to-5 work.

Then I got laid off. Suddenly, I had time on my hands! I shinyed up the food blog, plumtomato.wordpress.com, picked my crafts back up, read up to my ears in books, and got to work building my at-home empire: freelance editorial, cooking, baking, crafting, and books. The touchstones of my world. I’m happier than ever.

In July, we started the process of buying a house. We got pre-approved, we looked around, we attended an open house, we made an appointment with a real estate agent, and put an offer on said house. That was July. It is now October, and we’re finally getting to the “home” (haha, I crack myself up) stretch. Purchase & sale. Loan. Packing. Moving. All that great stuff. It took half the year, but we might finally get our first home. I’m hoping to shake the dust of the rental apartment off my feet by New Year’s Eve, so we can start 2010 free of these people.

I got to the point where I wanted to start blogging again, and I missed being able to write regularly and share my thoughts with people. I’ve been sharing my thoughts on food, restaurants, and cooking, certainly, but there’s more in my life than that. So let’s dust this puppy off and see where it takes us, shall we?