Sunday, April 27, 2008

OK, I think our buyers are being unreasonable!

I think I hit some sort of a wall with this whole "moving to Omaha" thing. It has been nice to have the house off the market and not being shown every other minute, but it just seems like we can't put an end to the deal.

Just to re-cap, the relocation company did their own home inspection on our house in EGV and found three things that we would have to fix, even if it came to taking the buy-out offer: the front step, the sagging deck and some suspicious mold in the basement (yikes!). Our buyers had their own inspection done and wanted a whole list of things fixed (but they made no mention of the whole mold thing, so that's a big relief!) Maybe their inspector decided that it really wasn't a "bad mold" thing or maybe even not a mold thing at all. But, they did want us to fix the deck, the front porch, and lots of other little things. We pretty much agreed to all but two or three of their requests -- one thing they wanted us to do was have the heating and AC "certified" to be in good working condition. For some reason, this seems ridiculous to me. They have purchased a home warranty and we have all of our receipts for cleaning and maintenance on the systems -- we told them they work fine (I know, why should they believe us) and we also said that they are more than welcome anytime to come and have it looked at by whoever they want - we're just not doing it... I mean, come on! I think their realtor is even getting annoyed with them. (Not as much as us, but...)

Not much else to report on the Omaha front - looks like we're still going...
Here's to another long week!

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Inspection on 1776

Not much to report, lately. Our buyers had the inspection done on this place a week ago yesterday. they finally came back today with a list of stuff for us to fix. (funny thing is, a lot of the things on their list are the same things that we asked to have fixed when we bought this place 3 years ago.) The list was actually not as ridiculous as it could have been coming from these people. I'm not saying that we'll fix everything on the list, but I don't think we should lose the deal because they're unreasonable...

Frank has been home this week (he flies out tomorrow morning) -- I feel like I've been on vacation! Sleeping in until 5:15 and only having to get one kid dressed in the morning and one kid ready for bed at night, not doing the drop-offs or pick-ups - what a nice break! It's times like these that I look forward to being in Omaha -- well, OK, not really being in Omaha, but at least all being in the same town!

More news later, I'm sure...

Friday, April 11, 2008

Deal or No Deal

Melissa has relinquished the computer so that I could add my first "post" to this blog thing. She says it's what all the cool kids are doing.

This week has seen its ups and downs. It seems that forces are conspiring against us to make sure this move is as annoying as possible. This week our buyers decided they no longer liked the closing date and wanted $1,000 to see the deal through on the original date. A rational person would have recognized that this was not significant and found a way to work it out. I told our realtor that the buyers could go to hell. I think the lack of sleep might be getting to me because I added a few other choice words as well. Fortunately, that's where an agent comes in handy. She cleaned it up and told the "buyers" that the date could not be moved up or bought. Theoretically, the signed papers are on their way over tonight. We'll see if this ever gets done.

In the meantime, the relocation company has discovered a problem with the title. Something about unpaid taxes from the previous owner. You would think that type of thing would have been settled before we moved in.

Lastly, our new house is infected with radon, whatever that is. One website describes our house's radon level as being the equivalent risk of dying in a fall. Well Nathan survived flopping down the stairs, so we'll roll the dice! Actually, the owners agreed to remediation and it seems like a relatively inexpensive fix. Don't worry, you can visit us without wearing radioactive masks.

Omaha is not all bad though! If you are missing any of your favorite restaurant chains from years past there is an abundance of Arby's and Little Caesar's as well as a Sizzler or two. Come visit us and relive your past.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

SOLD!

Well, we did it -- we sold (out) -- We ended up striking a deal with the "come back to see the house for the third time with the list of improvements" people. We were in the middle of a stand-off with them (over a lousy $5,000) when Frank gets a call from our realtor - there was another offer... I was all "great - let's pit them against each other and we'll get into some kind of big bidding war and drive the price way up." Uh, no such luck. The second offer that came in was a cooky single guy engineer that had calculated (by some formula of his own) what our house was worth (very close to the buy-out, incidentally) -- and he wanted to close on May 13th, which would obviously not work. I mean, I could use some help around here, but I don't want another roommate at this point. :) We didn't tell him about the other offer - we just said, "no, you have to close on OUR date and you have to pay at least X and we need your answer by tomorrow morning." He countered with - "OK, I'll agree to your date, but I won't raise my price." Offer rejected, and we were right back to where we started - only one offer (not the best, not the worst) on the table.

So, enough is enough - we settled at a price lower than we thought we would (isn't that always the way?) It's the ol' "the market will tell you what your home is worth" -- we had three offers and they all stopped going up at the same number - I guess that's it - done! Our realtor said that we could probably hold out for another buyer and we might get $5000 more dollars. Uh, not worth it - we are so done with it all - I can't believe it's been only a month! Let me know when I can stop making the beds and let the hampers fill up and abandon the "No Towel Left Behind" Law in the bathroom and kitchen. I mean, we don't ever really live like slobs, but the super neat-ness is starting to wear on me.

Frank went to the home inspection on our house in Omaha - like any house, there was a list of things that were "wrong" with the house, but (I haven't seen the list yet) Frank says that none of them are "deal-breakers" so that's good. Frank took about 40 more pictures of the inside of the house. It's amazing how much I DON'T remember about it - I could have sworn that the family room had hardwood - nope, carpet. Lots of stuff like that. I will be anxious to see it again in person :)

It's getting late and I better "gear up" for the morning and another day -
More later -

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Can we just sell this dump already??

The high of last week's Omaha home purchase is but a distant memory... we had another failed offer on our house last week (on Thursday). We decided that we have become a bit more "motivated" to sell since the last offer and we played the negotiations totally differently this time - making our "big moves" first. Long story short, these buyers are using zillow.com to gauge how much they are willing to offer -- I don't know about you all, but I haven't found zillow to be the most accurate website around - We also found out the buy-out amount this weekend -- can you say low, low, low, low, . . . hmmm.... it's like we're playing Deal or No Deal here. We know the banker's offer - do we wait for another case to be presented, or do we take the sure offer that we have now (which is not far above the buy-out). Where's Howie Mandel when you need him?

I guess these last buyers are not gone forever, but they came through for a third time today to see what they wanted to counter offer and the word we got was that they were going to have to think "long and hard" about whether or not they thought our house was worth any more than their last offer... their original logic was, "you paid X for it 3 years ago and now you're listing it for X?" They had no idea that we had put on an addition... they reconsidered their offer then, but they wanted a list of all of the improvements that we had made to the house. Frank sent it over to them - that's why they wanted to come over today - so they could compare the list that Frank sent to the actual house - weird!

So, I guess we wait for them and everyone else who has been looking at this place! I'm ready to be done with all of this...

More when I have something positive to say. :)

Thursday, April 3, 2008

One more picture from the trip...


Here is a picture of the "Education Station" (the pre-school building of the Imagination Station) -- we were able to squeeze in a quick tour before we drove to the airport on Tuesday morning. It is pretty cute in there. Ellie is excited, but she is really a mini-us...she is already worried about what she is going to bring when it's our turn to do snacks... :) Can we worry about that one in September, Ellie?

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Omaha - Spring Break Trip

So much to report -- here are the highlights by category... :)


TRAVELING: Well, I was feeling a little bit guilty about having Frank fly home from Omaha on Friday night, only to turn around and fly back with all of us on Saturday morning - then home with us today, only to turn around and fly back to omaha tomorrow morning. But, let me tell you - it was a struggle with BOTH of us -- I don't think I could have physically done it by myself! Between the stroller and the car seats and all the bags... it would have been impossible for me, I think. The kids were both troopers, though - Ellie wheeled her princess suitcase through the whole airport (and we took off from the "C" concourse)! She was practically running at times to keep up - but she was so excited, she didn't seem to mind. She loved the "walking sidewalks" but she insisted on standing still on them - after all, what was the magic in being on a moving walkway, if you had to move, too? Once on the plane, both kids did great. Nathan had gone to two-year old heaven - apple juice, goldfish crackers and Elmo playing on the DVD player -- and take off and landing did not faze him in the least. Ellie was interested in looking out the window and putting her tray table up and down and putting her seat back and up. It is a short flight, but no problems either way. And once we got to Omaha, one of the first people we see in the terminal has on a cowboy hat, so Ellie starts shrieking, "Is that a REAL cowboy, mom? He has a hat and a whole cowboy suit! COOL!" I didn't know how to respond, really, so I just said, "yes, it's a real cowboy...don't point..."

FOOD: OK, so not much to report here - we did the typical vacation, lots of fast food thing. Ellie and Nathan were glad to see that there was McDonalds and Panera and Subway in Omaha. I was also able to introduce them to one of my favorites... Arby's. I know we have them in Chicago, but we really don't have any near our house. In Omaha, it's like Starbucks is here -- one on just about every corner. Nathan loves roast beef, apparently -- he just about out-ate me on the Arby's sandwiches -- a kid after my own heart! We also ventured to an Omaha attraction for dinner on Monday night -- the Amazing Pizza Machine. The kids liked it, and it was OK for a Monday night because it was empty. basically, it's a glorified Show-biz Pizza or a chuck-e-cheese. It was a big buffet (food not bad, actually) and then lots of kid gaming -- arcade, little kiddie rides, play-land stuff, and for bigger kids - bumper cars, bowling, go carts, mini-golf - the whole nine yards. Vegas for kids - they loved it and it was fine for us... we were glad to do something fun for them after dragging them house hunting for the third day in a row...



HOUSE HUNTING: Frank had done a LOT of good pre-work here - he and the realtor had gone to see 20-30 houses in the last 2 weeks. And Frank had narrowed to field to the top 5. On Saturday, we went to see them all (yes, after traveling and after no naps for anyone...it went alright, actually). We deliberated on Saturday night, went back to the internet and found 4 more to see the next day (new ones that none of us had seen before). We deliberated on Sunday night and decided to visit our top three again one more time on Monday (all of which were from Frank's original picks, by the way...) Here they are:



This one is in "The Grove" (everybody refers to where they live by the name of the subdivision...and it's ALL subdivisions in Omaha). This is the house we wanted to love so much -- it is by far the "prettiest" house that we saw -- it was the most like "new construction" that we saw. It was decorated most like us of the three and it was definitely the "oooooh... ahhhhh" house that we saw. The cons -- a small kitchen, a small master bedroom and a small finished basement space with no bathroom (funny to talk about this house being small -- since it is nearly twice the size of what we have now, but it's all relative, I guess, once you get to Omaha. Also, it's in a neighborhood that I can only liken to Plainfield -- plenty of people live there, but it just seems like it's at the edge of the world somehow. Seems like a newer subdivision than it is (built in '01) because there are still lots of houses being built and lots of empty lots. We probably won't buy this one, no matter how badly we wanted it to work. (And this, coincidentally, was Ellie's favorite, because there was a pink bedroom... by the end of the weekend, she had a better handle on the fact that we could paint any of the bedrooms pink in any of the houses...) Anyways, on to choice #2:








This one is in "Dickinson's Landing" (next time you see Ellie, you have to ask her to say the name of the subdivision... it's hilarious!) As Frank puts it, this house has been "lived in and loved" -- it was built in 1998 (antique by Omaha standards...). This house had a good floorplan, a nice kitchen - granite countertops and all that jazz, a big walk-out basement (never knew how much we would want a walk-out basement until we saw some...), one of the biggest master bedrooms / bathrooms / closets I've ever seen (like, borderline weird, but...). It was just a great house in a good neighborhood -- our only hesitation was that we had sort of set our sights on a subdivision called "Cinnamon Creek..." On to option #3 --

This one is in "Cinnamon Creek" -- a neighborhood that we decided that we liked (just from driving around) and it was a good house -- maybe not as great of a house as Dickinson's Landing, but would be more than adequate for us -- second floor laundry, a huge kitchen (but with laminate countertops...oooh....). The basement had lots of storage space, but it wasn't a walkout. It was the biggest house we looked at overall (and the most expensive), and it was brick and vinyl (vinyl is very rare in Omaha). Our question to answer now, is: Do we want a great house in a good neighborhood or a good enough house in a great neighborhood? And is Cinnamon Creek really a better neighborhood than D.L. or is that just something that Frank and I have cooked up in our minds? The realtor assured us that both neighborhoods were fine, so back to the deliberations again... we'll keep you posted on this one for sure!

THE FUN STUFF: And of course, house-hunting was no fun for the kids, especially by day three. So, we had to filter in just enough stuff for them to enjoy, too. When we arrived at Frank's apartment, the living room had two air mattresses for them to sleep on - one with an Ariel blanket and one with a Thomas blanket -- they thought that was cool. That Frank, he was so excited that we were all coming -- he had the place stocked with popcorn, apple juice, goldfish crackers -- all the favorites! Ellie and Nathan both go a big kick out of the "slumber party" set-up. It was cute. We stayed at a hotel on Sunday night, just to have a pool - something fun to make it seem more like a "vacation" -- it was a typical holiday-inn express indoor pool - nothing special, really, but very fun for them! On Monday morning, we woke up to POURING rain - thunderstorms, really. This was the day we had planned to go to the "famous" omaha zoo -- we were second guessing our plan. We took our time getting started, we went by Frank's office to meet and greet people there (he wanted to show off the kids, I think!). After we left there (still in the pouring rain), we were maybe thinking about switching it up to do the children's museum instead. As our luck would have it, the Children's Museum was not open on Mondays, so... off to the zoo we went. When we got to the zoo, the rain magically stopped and we literally had the place to ourselves! (Like, I think there were 7 other cars in the parking lot). We only stayed for a couple of hours at the most - we saw the big things - their aquarium, their "desert dome" and the rainforest / jungle. It was a very nice zoo -- even worth traveling from Chicago to visit... :)

NATHAN: This kid is clumsy, but luckily fairly indestructable to this point. His weekend included a fall in the zoo parking lot to the tune of a fat lip and a bloody nose (and something in his mouth was bleeding, too... he seems fine now), countless head injuries on the glass tables in Frank's apartment and (to no fault of his own) a croup attack on Monday night that kept us all up longer than we wanted to be. Step one when we get to Omaha - find that kid a pediatirician and the closest E.R. !

It was a great weekend - I can say that I am more excited about the whole thing, now that I've seen some houses, toured the Imagination Station and can just generally more imagine our day to day lives there -- I'll think of more later, I'm sure - but those are the highlights!