We will actually own our new house! 5 years ago

We now have a date and time!

I’ve been having these really weird, dense dreams since we set a date, always about moving or the house in one way or another… I have a list of to-dos [moving, renovating… the usual] that I can’t do much about until we close, and I think a lot of my dreams are me dealing with that at night since I can’t do much about it during the day. 5 years ago

I just called the mortgage people to double check that they had everything and they asked me, “So, when are you closing?” ... I’ve since called my boyfriend, broker and lawyer and they’re scheduling it with the other side right now! I really like my house, but I can’t wait to move into the new place… 5 years ago

It’s all about waiting with this right now. We have piles of paperwork that we’ve sent to people, but I can’t tell you if we’ve given everyone everything they need, and the woman we’re supposed to be talking with is mostly out of pocket. I got all het up about this on Tuesday and poked my boyfriend to call her and really get in touch, but it’s taken all week for her to get back to us with her email address, and that was more our fault than hers. My boyfriend apparently guessed her email address and she replied “yes! I’m the right person!” a few days later.

I want to close, move in, paint, get going… Meh.

In other news, the contractor is coming over again tonight for a second look and bringing one of his partners. That’s something, I guess… I really want to make progress on this set of goals, but… 5 years ago

I meet our lawyer, sign our contract and hand over a big fat check for our down payment! 5 years ago

I really like to spread things out, do baby steps, accomplish a little at a time and then work up to big changes. I don’t get to do that with this move, and I think that’s what makes it so frustrating to me. I’m dependent on other people for decisions and paperwork, but I can kinda handle that. The more annoying thing is that I have to wait patiently and don’t really get to do any advance prep until BOOM, the storm hits and too much happens at once. I feel like I’m waiting for a hurricane, one that might happen this weekend or might happen two months from now, but no one really knows.

I’ve decluttered, I’ve read the contract of sale, we’re having a giveaway party this Saturday and then boxing things up on Sunday, but I have very little to do other than wait things out and let them take their course. I keep looking at these goals wondering what my next step is, trying to plan it out, but I can’t. The timeline is deliberately vague. Something could happen next week or maybe in three months… I don’t like waiting for the storm. 5 years ago

We may be homeowners really, really soon! Which still means like, two months of waiting…

I did help my boyfriend pack yesterday and today. He has boxes and boxes of books, even though he’s giving away half! It’s pretty astounding. We’ve come pretty close to the end of things on the books front, but there’s still everything else to do. He has to get out of his place by April 1, so he has a lot of planning and organizing to do. 5 years ago

cross your fingers! 5 years ago

I’m crossing my fingers that I like the place my boyfriend liked… It doesn’t require board approval, so I already like that! 5 years ago

Today we went to more open houses, although we really only saw two that were okay and one that was worth thinking more about. We saw a lot of apartments in those big mid-century buildings, but I’m just not convinced that they are a good value. I don’t want a doorman, they’re always pretty expensive for the money and they have these low ceilings and boxy rooms. One of the agents was listing out the things that the building offered: doorman, porters, concierges, a bike room, storage space… I don’t want any of that. What are people going to port for me?

On the other hand, there just aren’t many apartments on the market that are buildings like mine. It’s not that they aren’t out there, but those other buildings have 200 units so there’s always something on the market… 5 years ago

This weekend we met up with the broker who worked with my sister and discussed what we’re looking for. We want a pretty basic house: a walkup is fine, we’re willing to renovate and overall we just want a good amount of space in a well managed building. It looks like we will find things in our price range, but not many. My boyfriend’s budget will be pretty tight, and it looks like the fact that I’ll have to leverage one house to buy the next might be a problem with the co-op board.

Boyfriend is going to look at things starting Thursday, and then we’ll go to more open houses and look at the best of the things that he saw with our broker. Right now we need to get our loans in order so we know exactly what our budget is and can act if we see something we like. 5 years ago

Today we got our act together and actually went to open houses. We walked north of my house and never quite looped back to my neighborhood, but as a fact-finding mission, that was actually a good strategy. I saw a bunch of interesting places, but I think we should look south of 23rd street. We saw one decent place, but the neighborhoods north of 23rd were just… industrial. I thought it might be good because we’d both be within a mile or so from work, but I don’t want to end up with Starbucks as my cute local coffee shop or have to order in every night because there just aren’t enough restaurant choices. We saw a nice building near the Empire State, but it wasn’t nice enough for me to put up with the tourists and crowds. It’s one thing to pay crazy midtown prices and fight crowds when you’re on vacation, and another to push through people when you’re just trying to get to the grocery store or the vet.

_{Plus, I don’t want to live near anything that could be under threat.}5 years ago

Step one: go to the bank and ask about mortgages.

I have a big enormous list of things we have to do, and today’s to-do is visiting the bank for loan advice. We don’t quite know what we can afford, loan wise. I don’t know what they will need to see, or what I will need to think about. I figure we have a few months before we actually start in on the really hectic bits, and this is some basic information that I need to have before I know how much I’ll need to save or at least have on hand… 5 years ago