WOOHOO!

Well, today has been a good day folks...!

That couple who came thru our house in the private showing this past Thursday night called our realtor and asked for a second private showing Saturday (today) morning prior to our scheduled open house Sunday afternoon.

They came thru for their 10am to 11am private showing and were gone by 10:45... Robin and I found it a bit... hopeful... that they'd want two private showings two days apart just before a scheduled open house.

Our realtor called us a bit later. She said by 12:15 she had a signed offer in her hands from today's couple!

She brought the offer over here at 3:00. We went thru it all with her and decided to counter offer for $2000 more than the couple's initial offer. She drove back to her office and prepared the counter offer and emailed to the couple and the realtor working with them.

As soon as our realtor (Lori) left our house, I called our builder Dennis to tell him that we had an offer, and subsequent counter-offer, in the works so we could be very close to giving him the go-ahead on the new house.

During the conversation between Dennis and I some very interesting news came to light:  Dennis doesn't have a home to build for the fall Parade of Homes so far this year.

(he'd been waiting on another couple to sell their current home so he could put their new home in the fall Parade, but they've had no luck selling their current home yet as it was quite a bit bigger than a "typical" home that's been selling quickly in the area). 

It would be Dennis' first year in 11 years without a home to show in the Parade... (Parade showings are huge advertising opportunities for home builders as they get to showcase their entire range of abilities to a large number of possible customers)

Just an FYI here if you didn't know... Robin and I had originally been considering the idea of having our home be in the Parade in fall 2012 for many reasons (some decent upgrades and discounts are to be had by us from subcontractors for the chance for them to showcase their product and services in a Parade home, and this would be a chance for us to get a few features we wouldn't otherwise be able to afford to put into the design), but ultimately it came down to being able to come up with the cash needed to pay for the "extras" that Dennis requires in a home that he has in a Parade. Things like a driveway (which we would have waited until 2013 to put in), built-in sound (which we wouldn't have done at all) in 4 rooms, and an interior designer/stager who charges several thousand dollars to both stage the home for the Parade and decorate it (we'd get to select the decor/window treatments and then keep them after the parade) for the Parade.

So, back to that "interesting news" from Dennis....

Because he is in a position he does not want to be in (not having his biggest public advertising opportunity) he offered us several deals on the above items listed.

He's going to split the cost of the interior designer 50/50 with us, and only require her services on the lower floor of our new home instead of both floors (her cost is per square foot...so not having to pay her to decorate the upstairs cuts her fee by about 1/3). He's also only going to ask us to put in built-in sound in 3 rooms instead of 4 (several hundred dollars per room), and he's only going to require the front lawn be seeded (instead of the entire lawn). Plus a couple other much smaller things he'd throw in.

All this and the effect of it being a Parade home on the subcontractors means we can now go back to them, quote in hand, and look for all kinds of discounts on large ticket allowance items like appliances, flooring, cabinets (countertops), lighting, etc., since all the subs will want their products shown in the Parade as well.

So I hung up with Dennis and Robin and I discussed the stuff Dennis had just told me, and we decided to go with putting our new home in the Parade in fall (two weekends in mid to late August). So I called Dennis back and told him that news (he was very happy to hear that!). He was going to then get the building permit going and I called the septic (mound system and well , no city water and sewer at the new place) guy (Dion) and got him going on the permits for his systems as well.

About 5:30 tonight Lori texted Robin and told us that the couple accepted our counter-offer!!!

So after a somewhat hectic 4 weeks of having our house on the market it's sold!

The buyers will schedule an inspector to go thru our house and when it passes inspection the deal is done.

The closing date is May 17th, so we have to be out by May 18th. This means we now have to focus the immediate future on finding a place to live for the last three months of our new home construction. We'll be looking at duplexes (there are a ton of them in the area) first, then if we don't find any of those we'll be looking at apartments next.

Dennis didn't give us an exact date he'd start digging the hole in the lot today, but he had said way back in the beginning that a fall Parade home would usually start around the 10th of April or so.

This also means that sometime before late April Robin and I will need to begin having meetings with subcontractors to go over their specific bids and products and make our selections for a great many items. (the first of which, believe it or not, is to be the siding / roofing subcontractor)

We have an exciting and very busy next few months ahead of us!

Paul

A month has passed...

...since we got our house on the market.

We're having our 4th open house this Sunday and having our 5th private showing tonight. So far we've had several people say they're interested in our house but they all have homes they have to sell first, before they could buy ours.

So, the waiting game continues.

The banks can't give us a loan for our new place until we sell this one (we don't want to carry two mortgages anyway). The builder is itching to get going with all this warm weather we've had recently... but the worst part of that is this:  It's March and I have to mow the lawn this weekend! lol! Ack!

Hopefully the people coming through our house tonight will be interested... :)

We're just waiting for an offer to come in.. once it does we give the "go" word to our builder! :)

Paul

Open House #2 is in the books

We had our second open house today... last Sunday was our first one. We also had a private showing this past Monday and another one this past Saturday.

We're told there were quite a few people in the open house today, and the couple who had the private showing yesterday (Saturday) came again today and stayed for the entire open house (1 hour).

They also walked around the *outside* of the house (despite 4-6" of snow on the ground)....

Hopefully that means they're interested!

We don't have an open house schedule for this coming weekend, but there will probably be one for the following weekend.

Paul

D-Day is here

Well, today was the big day!

Our first open house was earlier this afternoon. The realtor tells us there were three couples that came thru, one of them gave her their information for future contact about the house.

It's been a long couple of months of packing up and decluttering things in the house but we finally got it all done.

Also today, Dad came out to our lot with a wood chipper and we spent the day getting rid of the massive piles of brush that were all sitting out there.

So now, basically, we can sit back and relax (a little) and wait for the house to sell.

Next month I'll start talking to lenders about getting the loan side of things going. Once the house sells we can have Dennis begin with the construction on our next place.

Paul

edit:  We had a call at about 2:30 Monday afternoon.. someone wanted a private showing at 5:30 that night!
So Robin and I left work a bit early and rushed home to get the place "open house" ready.
The couple apparently liked the house, but had another one they liked a bit better... so we're still waiting.

The next open house is scheduled for this coming Sunday and we've also been told that there's a woman who wants to set up a private showing as well.

Set in motion....

Well, we went and did it! We signed the contract with Dennis last Saturday!

At the meeting, along with alot of other paperwork, we got a list of subcontractors from Dennis and approximate dates we should have met with them by.

Most of them are local to the Fox Valley area, one is up in Green Bay (the cabinet place).

Now we have to finish getting our current home ready to put up for sale and then we can focus on meeting with the subs.

My dad has been up at our lot a few times this week and now all the trees are cut down that need to be cut down. There's still alot of brush out there, a large pile of cut wood, and 4 or 5 large logs that I'm hoping a local lumber company will buy from us.

Things keep rolling on!

Paul

Some progress!

Hi everyone!

Well, this Saturday is the big day! (well, okay, a big day for this far into the process)... we're meeting with Dennis to sign the contract for him to build our home!

Once that is signed, he'll put together a list of all the subcontractors and when we'll need to have met with them and made decisions pertaining to the construction of our new home.

On the lot, more trees have continued to come down. Although, now that it's around zero degrees and there's snow on the ground the tree cutting has stopped for now. There's probably around a half-dozen larger trees (8" diameter up to about 24" diameter) to come down yet, as well as around a dozen little trees (2"-3" in diameter) that have to come down.

Of course, we still have a huge pile of wood to get rid of yet and an even bigger pile of brush sitting there too! lol

Paul

TimBERRRRRrrrrrrrrr!!!

...and the trees come crashing down!

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and has a safe New Year's Eve!

Dad came out yesterday and the day before and we hit the task of knocking down trees in a big way (I got a chainsaw for Christmas -- thanks Mom and Dad! -- and so we had two saws going both days).

We knocked down somewhere around a dozen trees in those two days, varying in size from smallish ones near 4" in diameter all the way up to the biggest one so far at around 30" in diameter.

The trees would come down and we'd use Dad's truck to pull them out to the front of the woods (near the wood pile)

The growing wood pile and Dad taking a break

for cutting and easier piling, while all the brush and limbs from the trees were put on the brush pile to the left of the above pic (both pics above were taken early in the day yesterday.. both piles are much larger now!).

...and an already large brush pile...

There's still a ton of trees that need cutting, including three very large trees that are about 24" in diameter each.... probably the tallest of which is "Robin's Tree";  it's simply the nicest tree on the lot, it's pretty much exactly in the middle of our proposed house plan, and Robin is very sad to see it have to go (we would have to move the house soooooo far back on the lot to save this tree that it would cause other issues to do so).

That's Robin's Tree at the very center of this pic!

 We measured the length of smaller diameter (about 12") and somewhat shorter tree that we knocked down yesterday in an attempt to figure out how tall Robin's Tree is;  The tree we measured is right around 75' tall... and our best guesses based on standing height is that Robin's Tree is around 90' tall! (that thing is going to make a huge crash when it comes down!)

Dad is thinking about maybe visiting the lot again today and possibly knocking down Robin's Tree, so since Robin had to work yesterday the girls said goodbye to the tree for her:

Lyndsey, Rachel, and Robin's Tree

 The girls have been out on the lot both days with us and have had an absolute blast roaming around the woods and playing the entire time! (and getting absolutely filthy both days! lol)

Also, in other big news not involving cutting trees down... the builder (Dennis) and I sat down on the 23rd and went over the bids that came in for the revised/downsized floor plan. I have yet to sit down and go through the bids line by line (that's my project for tomorrow), but the overall price means that it looks like we have our plan set! We haven't signed a contract with Dennis yet, but more than likely will in the very near future.

Then the single biggest thing we have to do for the next month and a half is get our current home decluttered and cleaned up so that we can put it up for sale in late February.

We already have a decent amount of boxes and items in the storage garage, but that's only a small part of what will be in there by the time we put the house up on the market.

Paul