The Next Big Thing

So we signed the Purchase & Sales on Tuesday night. What a relief. As long as all of the financing goes through with the banks and mortgage companies, we're closing on April 22nd, halfway through my school vacation. We're both so excited. It's rather scary thinking that very soon we could be paying a mortgage and being "grown up". I hope we're ready!

One of the first things we've been talking about buying is a new bed. The bed we have is only a full, and Matt's feet hang off the end. Besides that, our bed is old; it was given to me by a friend a few years ago. Friday night we went out looking for a bed, as well as searching for the end tables that match our coffee table. We started at Bob's Discount Furniture, where we bought our coffee table. Apparently, they no longer carry our coffee table so we searched for something else that would match and found nothing else. We found some kitchen sets to keep our eye on for when the time comes but that was about it.

We tried Bernie and Phyl's, too. I hated the store. I lost Matt in there for a good 20 minutes. It reminded me of Ikea. There's probably a method to going through that store but I couldn't figure it out.

Our last stop before dinner was Mattress Giant. I would have given up by then but we were with my parents and they wanted to check out a new mattress so we stopped. We spent, I think, over an hour and a half in Mattress Giant. We were the only people in there, besides the salesman, John, and he knew his stuff. He talked about mattresses as if they were the only thing in the world. He was missing quite a few teeth and had an odor to him, but he was the only salesman and he quite obviously knew what he was talking about. In the end, Matt and I decided to finance a king sized bed. We set it up to be delivered on April 23rd, right after we move in. Now of course, the anxiety comes in trying to find a comforter. I've searched online at Kohl's, Macy's, JC Penney, Sears, Domestications, Bed,Bath, and Beyond, Target, Walmart, and Overstock.com and still, I haven't found anything especially fantastic. Of course, not only does it have to be fantastic but Matt and I have to agree on it as well. Next big thing: kitchen set? end tables? television? paint? hardwood flooring? We'll see.

An Accepted Offer

When an offer is accepted by the sellers, the buyers have ten days to schedule a home inspection. This basically our only loophole out of our agreement with the sellers. If the inspector should find something majorly wrong, we can try to renegotiate or we can back out. Matt’s boss has a guy that he recommends so Matt tries to set something up. Long story short, the seller’s agent is only available on the weekends so we need to schedule the inspection for this weekend or next weekend. The inspector is going away this weekend with leaves us with next weekend.
Keep in mind, if you haven’t bought a house, there’s this long chain of events that goes along with buying a house that no one tells you about. It’s not all fun and games like everyone makes it out to be. I love the comments. “Oh, how you’re looking for a house? How fun!” “Oh I’m jealous!” “Lucky!” No. The houses out there right now SUCK. When you find a house you like in your price range or something that you think is your price range, you make an offer. You hope it gets accepted. It doesn’t. They make a counter-offer. You make a counter-offer. Your realtor and their realtor play phone tag and fax each other constantly until, eventually, someone walks away or someone caves. Then you find a home inspector within ten days. After the home inspection, you can sign the Purchase & Sales. It isn’t until you sign the P&S that you can then lock in an interest rate for your future mortgage. With the way the rates are, it’s important to be able to lock in when the rates land where we need them to, so signing a P&S and is something we’re anxious to do. This is where we want to be at right now. Instead, we’re booking an inspector for a week from now.
At about 8:30 on Friday night, Matt and I are talking about how impatient we are and how we really and truly don’t want to wait until next Saturday to do the inspection because we want to either A) keep looking or B) sign the P&S. After much discussion, we decide to call another inspection company, one recommended by Josh, and ask if they could possibly do an inspection Saturday morning. We figure with less than twelve hours notice, it’s a ridiculous thought but we figure, what have we got to lose. The nice young lady at Tiger Home Inspections gives us the go-ahead to try and set it up between our realtor and the seller’s realtor for Saturday morning. She, in fact, has three possibly appointments for us: 8:30, 12:30, or 3:30. Matt calls Janet, our realtor, and, well, long story short(er), she had gotten the date of the inspection wrong and had everything set up for this very Saturday morning! The sellers planned to be out of the house, the seller’s agent planned to be there, and Janet had planned on coming down.
In the end, I feel awful that we had to cancel with Joel’s guy, but I am glad that we’re getting the inspection done in less than twelve hours. It’s scary and exciting. I don’t want to tell anyone. It’s like when you’re going on job interviews and you’re psyched about a particular one. You want to go tell everyone about how wonderful it’s going to be. Then again, you’re also afraid that you might go and tell everyone and then have to go back and call them and say, “Never mind, I didn’t get it.” I’m hoping the inspection goes well and just so glad that everything, so far, seemed to work out okay.