Closing In On the Close

We're coming to the end of this process and we have a date for signing the closing documents. We'll be signing either late Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning. I guess that means keys in hand that day and the house is ours. We'll have a month to move, minus a week of climbing in Red Rocks.

Loan Approval

We got the approval for the loan yesterday. I guess that means they'll give us the money. All we need now is the "drive-by" appraisal and I believe we're good to go. I wonder if that means we can close early.

Waiting Game

Now that the process is started, I'm ready to move. But alas, these things take time. I didn't know thirty days could be so long. The initial rush of doing inspections has morphed into the occasional document signing and just waiting for loan stuff to be done. We lifted our inspection contingency on Thursday but we are still waiting for a second appraisal done by the bank. Normally, only one appraisal is necessary but since we're getting an FHA loan and everyone's a little jumpy about lending money, we have to get a second one. That's delayed things a little but I think we may still close before the end of the month.

Inspections at Both Ends

Today we had the proctologist and ear/nose/throat doctor of house inspections come by. The chimney inspector cleaned the chimney and gave a surprisingly good report considering the age of the house. The Rhino Rooter guy snaked the sewer lateral with his little camera and made it all the way to the city sewer, which is apparently rare. Most sewer pipes have tree roots that have gotten inside looking for the tasty waste but this one was replaced in the mid-nineties. It was nice to have some good news after the excessive home inspection report. Plus we got our estimate for what we need to close and it was quite a bit higher than expected so we're wrapping our heads around that.

I think all that's left now is the appraisal, which hopefully won't cause any problems. After that we lift contingincies and should close before the end of the month.

In Escrow

Vero and I just went into escrow on a house. We had made an offer on this house a couple weeks ago but they accepted the only other offer on the table. The other buyers did their inspections and requested credits based on them, but the sellers either didn't want to concede any credits or not enough. So they failed to come to agreement and we re-submitted our offer. I reviewed the home inspection report and decided that it was still worth taking on without requesting credits. The inspection report was pretty extensive and there is a lot of work to be done but it is in move-in condition and I believe that from my experience I can prioritize between what needs to be done right away, what can wait, what I can do, and what will require a professional. It'll be an on-going project, but that's kind of what we were looking for in a house.

We're supposed to lift contingencies on the 12th and close escrow on April 2. I'll try to keep my blog updated as things proceed. Since most of the inspections were done by the other buyer and we have copies, we're going to do just two other inspections: sewer later and chimney. Those are tomorrow morning. I'll try to take some pictures of the house to show.