You may have noticed I've been a bit quiet on the home front bit. That's because things were super stressful and not going as hoped and I mostly wanted to hit things. But now BOTH closings have happened so TAKE THAT!
So here's what's been going on with this whole fiasco.
Back in February we accepted an offer on our place in Long Island (yaaaaaaay!) with the plan that we would be closing on this place at the end of April. Once we got the contract with mortgage commitment (just meaning that not only are we accepting an offer cos we like they money they're saying they'll give us, but there's a bank to back up that offer) we started, in earnest, to look for a new place to live. And we found a place we loooooooove. After some (not so much) fun with negotiations, we came to a number that probably pissed off people on both sides, and we had a deal to close at the end of May.
You may notice, this is not the end of May.
Our current LI place (or actually our OLD LI place as it's not currently ours anymore) is a co-op. With either a condo or a co-op, the bank first takes a look at the buyers and makes sure they don't seem like the type that are going to jump ship on the loan. THEN they have to make sure that the management company that runs the co-op or condo is also a good investment. With a condo, that's it. With a co-op you are soooo far from the end. See, then the co-op board gets to decide if they like the new people who are buying.
For reasons I will never, ever understand, the management company at our LI place moved extraordinarily slowly. Like a process (sending over a questionnaire) that I feel like should take at most an hour, took 2 weeks. That's what the entire process was like with
eeeeeverrrryttthhiiiiing. Now, it was mostly the buyers having to deal with that, but everything was taking so long that we blew right by that April close date. Which at first wasn't such a bad thing, because Tom and I were trying to figure out where exactly we'd live and put our stuff in that month between closing on LI and closing on NJ. But then we passed right by that May date.
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| Me, from May onward |
Now the NJ sellers were getting pissed at us. Because you see, we bought the place on a contingency, meaning the closing date is contingent on us closing on our current place. (And them closing on their new place was contingent on us closing on this place, and so on and so forth down the row until lots of people are screwed in this transaction.) Unfortunately, there really isn't anything we can do other than ask the buyers "Hey, so, anything we can do to move this along?" and the answer was always "I wish but we're waiting on the management company." and calls to them about anything we could do to move things along were met with...less than friendly responses. Given it took them 2+ months to put our name on the gate so we could actually let people in, I guess I wasn't too surprised.
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| Me, when not screaming |
Another month passed and tensions continue to rise until
finally the management company gets everything they need, the new buyers fill out their application and interview with the board (none of which can happen until all the other stuff happens) and are approved and THANK GOD. I have to say, I've heard horror stories about co-op boards and ours is actually very chill. So now closing dates could be set.
But here's the thing. We figured we'd be moved LONG before this. So we had a wedding to go to July 3rd. In North Carolina. And since my dad is in South Carolina, and we weren't too far from Charleston, we made plans to spend a couple days down there to visit. Closings were happening right around this trip because of course. So we closed on our LI place, left for NC, went to SC, came back from SC, closed on NJ the next day. I'm
exhausted.
Because things took so long and the people buying our place are just starting to sell their old place now, they said we could stay until time to move. I mean, we have to pay them for it, but they aren't kicking us out, which is within their right, so I thank them for that. Because what we are paying to stay here is significantly less than if we had movers store stuff for a couple days (because it's 1 month minimum!). So we'll be actually moving on Friday.
Unfortunately, this is also a very busy time at work, so by the time this posts, I'll actually be working on Thursday while Tom finishes the last of the packing.
So yeah. Buying and selling sucks. Co-ops just add several extra layers of pain to deal with. In the end it's worth it but you sort of have to get past all this so you forget about the stress and pain. I figure it's probably something like child birth.
That's why I've been MIA this week. Heads up, I'll probably be fairly MIA next week as well while we get unpacked and get internet set up.
So that's what I've been up to. How's everyone else doing?
