Monroe Chat

Many of you know we are moving. For those of you in the neighborhood, the couple getting our house is a real nice young couple with two furry children. I think they'll really like it.

We are packed up and ready to go. The next five weeks while we wait are going to be the longest weeks I've ever experienced, I think. For three of them we'll be taking the kids to and from Lakota schools all the way from Monroe. That should be interesting.

It's sad to leave Monroe schools, but we've only heard good things about Lakota too. We really were very happy with Monroe schools. We were just getting used to being hornets. I liked the colors too, not that Lakota's are bad. The nice thing about the new house is that it will be really close to civilization! And it will be the same distance away from the outlet malls that we are now...without the traffic!

I wish you and your family the best and hope you remain in the circle of friends here.

Ellie,
Best of Luck on your move.
Of Course, you could be one of my new members in the West Chester Chat.

I believe I will keep my hat here, if ya'll don't mind. I do rather like it here. There probably is a West Chester message board but this suits my needs just fine, with the exception of school information.

Man. Moving isn't any fun these days. You're expected to pass along a perfect house. We've lived in this house for eight years! It's not perfect. Can anyone really be surprised? We got the inspection back and we have stupid piddly little things to fix. Apparently every one of our sinks leak underneath. We had no idea and we live there! I've never noticed any water under there and we'd notice something like that! But we have to have a plumber come fix it. The inspector was unsatisfied with the water pressure in the master bathroom. So fix it! It's a water saver thing. Our fire place fogged up the first time we used it eight years ago. It's cosmetic and expensive to fix. Why do we have to fix that? I shudder to think what the bill would be like if we'd lived here any longer than that. It didn't used to be this way! Gosh, what do folks do who sell older homes? My parents sold a 100+ year old house. It had lived through all kind of problems that the buyers simply took on themselves. I thought a part of moving was taking a bucket and broom with you to the new place and a tool box for minor repairs.

Don't get me wrong. I can see the seller needing to fix major things. But this is piddly stuff? And unfortunately, it's piddly stuff we don't know how to do.

I am so happy for you ! I know that you wanted this move and it certainly appears that it was meant to be !

Now for the moving/repairs, etc., that is awful!! I do have to say that the water thing does not surprise me AT ALL!! Sadly, I know this from personal experience, although we may not have had the same builder, we did both have a new Home with contractor grade fittings. I was actually able to 'smell' the leak under the Kitchen sink (never did see or feel water pooling) although, naturally by the time I smelt the 'damp' we had to replace the base of the cupboard and fix the leak - Grrrrrr! The upside of that, was that I went around to all of the sinks and low and behold..... yup! nearly all of them had leaks (around the pipe connections)

You might want to get with John Crist - he may have either the knowledge/knowhow or can at least refer you on to someone who does!

Good Luck !!

If you want to sell your house bad enough you'll do anything...I remember reading not too long ago about a couple that threw in a $40,000 car if you purchased their 400,000 house.

You said it was a younger couple and I think that is probably why. We also asked that all of the items that the inspector found be fixed before we would purchase the house. As a first time homebuyer, although they were small things, we didn't want to come into a house with stuff that needed fixed right away. (Of course we ended having to buy a whole new roof out of pocket the following year!) Just buying a house for the first time can be overwhelming. Although it isn't the greatest of circumstances on your end, it is actually probably much better that they ARE minor things because major things would have cost you a lot more.

Good luck with the move!

Now I'm feeling bad about the above rant. It has all worked itself out. I was just being a worry wort.

First of all, I didn't give Hubby enough credit. He fixed the fire place! I'm very impressed. The plumbing will be simple enough. And the folks at the house we are moving into fixed the few things that came back on their end. So all is right with the moving world once again!

I'll be happy when all is said and done and the fear of the buyers falling through is gone. In other words, the first night I sleep under a new roof.

Since we're still in our first house, I've always wondered...

do people list their houses first, then go look for a new house waiting to buy until theirs has sold? Or do you typically find a new house and then list your house hoping it will sell quickly? I've just always been curious, as the process seems really overwhelming when I start thinking about having to do it someday!

Moving from our first home to our second, we looked for a new one first and then hoped the old home would sell fast. It didn't and we had two house payments for 11 months. I do not recommend that to anyone!! Now in moving from our second home to our third, we sold first and then looked, knowing that meant we might need some temporary housing in the interim (either the folks or an apartment). We lucked out and found a FSBO from a couple at church who already had a house in TN and told us they could move anytime between now and March depending on what our house did.

I don't know what other people do. Even doing it as neatly as we have the timing is really hard to work out.

Yeah, it seems that planning on temporary housing if need be would be the best way to go. I wouldn't want to "settle" for a house because I didn't have time to find the right one, but I wouldn't want to get stuck with 2 house payments either! Thanks for the info

With all those inspector prices, do remember that you are competing with breadbox houses that sprout from dirt in months- the contractors WANT and NEED those lots cleared and are selling them cheaper than the dirt they're built on. Older homes may be sold at a higher price due to equity, so they have to completely trump those house-in-a-box constructions.

Sad, really, but true.

ADH - I don't know the perfect answer but when we moved from LA to Huntington Beach, we had a 2 week interim between escrow closings. That was HORRIBLE. When picking movers, we asked for those pod type things so all our furniture would be safe and sound until redelivery. Well, they didn't bring them and simply moved everything into the semi, transferred it to their warehouse, unloaded it and reloaded when it was time to deliver in HB. On top of that we stayed with my bff in her tiny STUDIO apt. There were 3 adults (sometimes 4), plus 4 cats between us. I thought we would all kill each other. When we finally were released from this hell, my bff had the nerve to say it wasn't so bad and she wished we weren't leaving!

Oh, we listed the condo in LA first and figured we had time to look for a house in HB. Not! We sold the condo in less than 48 hours and there wasn't much to choose from in HB.

When we moved here, we signed the contract on this one, then when back to HB to find an agent and list that house. The realtor here (a real jerk, btw) was petrified we wouldn't close in time but our HB house sold in 24 hours.

Now... when we moved my parents, we bought the new house and once settled, took a month fixing up the old house and then put it up for sale. It sold in 3 days. Yes, in Monroe!

I guess the whole point of this now too long post is there is no magic formula. A well-maintained home seems more likely to be the key. Moms inspector was good, our HB inspector was awesome. The one here at this house, not so much.

catnipandcarrots wrote:I guess the whole point of this now too long post is there is no magic formula. A well-maintained home seems more likely to be the key. Moms inspector was good, our HB inspector was awesome. The one here at this house, not so much.

I'm not sure there really is any real key. But our experience was that dropping the price low enough would eventually sell the house, and fast. That's a lesson learned after our first home. We should have dumped it rather than sitting on it for 11 months.