About two weeks ago ratbastid and I signed a contract to buy this beautiful old house near downtown Greensboro, NC. It's 105 years old but it's been restored and very well taken care of. We haven't had it inspected yet, but it looks like it's in pretty good shape - new roof, all new HVAC system, updated wiring, etc. And it's GORGEOUS. 2 rooms downstairs we're going to use as home offices so we can work in our jammies
, a gorgeous landscaped back yard with a shaded hammock, a glassed in breakfast nook off the back, 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, a basement workshop, the original pinewood floors, all the charm of an old house. I can really see us living in it. So we made an offer, and it was accepted, on contingency that we sell our house here in Durham. We put it on the market on Thursday and today we got an offer (4 days!!!). We listed it at more than we thought we'd get but they're basically offering us $2K less, which is about the price we thought we'd get, and we think they'd go a little higher.
So here's the deal: I'm having nervous jitters about the whole thing. I suppose that's totally normal, but here are my concerns:
- The new house is more expensive than our old house. Our mortgage/tax/insurance will basically be only a few hundred dollars more than we're paying now, but heating costs will go up, and maybe our car insurance. Plus there's the cost of moving. We only have a few things to do to this house for the (prospective) new owners - replace a broken pane of glass in the bathroom window, clean and repaint the trim on the deck where it's needed. How hard is it to sand and repaint porch railings and house trim?
- We went with a realtor and now after the house sold so quickly I'm kind of kicking myself that we didn't offer it for sale by owner and save ourselves 6%. Then again, this whole mess is so complicated it might be worth it to have someone who knows the ins and outs of buying and selling houses and save ourselves the stress and legal exposure of trying to manage this all on our own...
- The new house is on a busy street, close to everything. It's 4 blocks from our best friends, 4 blocks from our favorite restaurants, and easy walking distance from downtown Greensboro, which is really seeing an upswing. We can see the downtown skyscrapers from our back yard
The back yard itself is pretty peaceful (the house is built up about 6' above the street level so the noise isn't too distracting). But it is a busy street, and we suspect that (and bad timing) is why this house was on the market for 6 months and dropped in price before we got to it. And the busy street will probably be a problem for us when it's our turn to sell it. But we kind of like the bustle
- It's just such a balancing act trying to buy a house and sell a house at the same time - gotta make sure everyone's okay with the closing date, make all these preparations, get all the money in order, bleh!!! Please tell me some of you out there have successfully negotiated this process and been happy after it was over!!!
- The neighborhood we're leaving is half of our closest friends. The other half are where we're going. But it's hard to leave a place where you're so close to the people around you. I really liked the people who are offering on the house (they saw the sign and just dropped in - I spent an hour giving them a tour and by the end they were measuring for their furniture and talking closing dates!). I could see us being friends with them, and I could see them fitting really well into the neighborhood. But we've got some emotional attachments to the place - it was our first house, we bought it when it was just a lot of dirt. We never planned to be here forever, in fact, we never planned to be here this long, but we've really made it our home. I think that's what these people liked - it's a newer house but it's got lots of personality, and that's because we made it that way.
Anyhow, mostly I just need reassurance that we're doing the right thing and that we won't um...die.