Well, we made it. It’s been the longest five months of my life, but we finally have the closing scheduled for Monday the 2nd of November. We had a real scare a few weeks ago because the appraisal came back low, and the builder wanted a few weeks to dispute it. We weren’t sure if we would be living in our cars for a few weeks, or what. Luckily we were able to arrange with our current Landlord to stay a few extra weeks beyond our original vacate date. The builder lost the appeal on the appraisal. As a result, we are getting the house for cheaper, and the rest of our deal remained largely unchanged. They took back some of the money they had been paying to buy-down the mortgage rate, so 4.75% turned to 5.00%, but who can complain about five per-cent?
Here is the current state of the house. We still have to do a final cleaning before the closing on Monday as the last part of out sweat-equity, but everything else is done. I am taking off next week to repaint some of the rooms in living color, and to move over some of our smaller, more fragile stuff (crystal wineglasses and stereo components, I’m talking about you!). Moving day is next Saturday. If you’re not busy we could use another strong back and a good pair of hands. But be aware that the beer is not being opened until the last box and stick of furniture is off the truck. Sorry, but them’s the rules. I let my friends start drinking on a move once when we were still loading the truck. Mistake. Big mistake. I never did patch all the holes in that drywall.
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—Michael
