Done Deal

The house is officially ours; more accurately, neither party can now legally back out of the deal. We signed the "Inspection Notice" and "Resolution of Unacceptable Conditions Amendment" yesterday, which basically confirm that yes, we had the house inspected, and yes, we have a couple things that could stand fixing if you would be willing to take care of it Mr. Seller (he was).

All we need is to get CapFed up to speed and get our loan cleared, and we close on June 25.

We're really excited. The discussions of our pending cargo van adventure to IKEA have already commenced. There's obviously a long list of stuff we have to do, from getting utilities set up to getting an insurance policy, but those are probably small potatoes compared to the biggie:

Selling our current house.

My optimism regarding what we can get for the house waxes and wanes on a near-hourly basis. We have a couple family members who might be interested, which would save us agent commission but they probably wouldn't pay us full price. Of course, what the hell is full price?

It's going to be tough to tell since there are few good comps for our house. The quirks: Our house is at least 20 years newer than any 2BR/1BA house in the area. It's next to an interstate (yay access, boo noise). It's got a very large yard. It's has better landscaping than a lot of homes. It's better decorated than almost anything I've seen in the area. It's in a convenient location. It's not in a great location.

We can just list it with an agent and not worry much about it until we get an offer, but I always fret about how much my best interests would be taken into account by an agent (I thought I was the only one who felt that way until I read Freakonomics).

Now, add the fact that the real estate market in KCK has taken a nosedive much worse than most surrounding areas. Too many foreclosures and derelict properties have made my "blue collar" (read: poor) hometown a sporadic jungle of overgrown yards and broken windows.

Should be interesting.