Moving to Not Moving to Moving again

Where do I begin? Everyone knows we are in the middle of the very slow process of buying a short sale. Why we are stuck on this particular house, I'll let you know why.  It is a one floor home, 2000 sq ft, 3 bedrooms, 2 full bathrooms, built in shelves in the kitchen, living room with wood burning fireplace, family room with gas burning fireplace, 2.5 car garage, with an inground pool. Our last trip through I should have taken some pictures for all to see, but I was far too busy trailing my friend Kenny through the house because he was sort of doing an "inspection", maybe he would see things we didn't.  He too said the house was solid as a rock, saw nothing major other than cosmetic work and also suggested a new furnace, which is what the bank holding the short sale suggested also.  It was a process just to get the loan, the bank demanded cash or a FHA 203K rehab loan.  These loans basically let you do your remodeling and tag the cost onto the top of the loan.  So there is no second loan/mortgage with a super high interest rate on the house, it is all bundled into one. The furnace alone is approx $5000, the outside needs to be scraped and painted, a few rooms painted, some windows resealed, and the pool opened and cleaned. We figure about $10,000 in work, but considering that this house is on the tax rolls for $160k and we are getting it for a little over half of that, the 10 grand in work won't matter.. it will make it all that much more better!



In the meantime of waiting for this house deal to go through, mind you the close date was once already set for July 27th, the house we are living in is also sold.  We do not own the house, but have rented since 1997.  The landlord has been a flighty and indecisive person since we've been here. At first he fixed everything that was wrong and then it went to you fix it and take it off the rent to I'm not paying to fix anything.  He was asking way too  much for this house with way too much wrong with it and not offering to fix anything.  As some have heard me tweet about there is a black soot that is coming through the heater vents.  This soot clings to anything plastic, whether it be in a closet or in the fridge, YES in the fridge the egg cartons are covered in this soot. We also have been dealing with a mold problem for a while too.  Landlord's answer to that, paint over it! HA is he serious? This house has too many issues... so moving on


This house being sold was at first part of a divorce settlement and then to well I don't want to own the house in that area anymore.  It was sold once before two winters ago, at the very last minute the people backed out once they found out it was going to cost $10,000 to replace the pipe that runs through the backyard.  Thanks to an under the table plumber snaking the pipe that runs from the main house to the little apt house in the back he put a hole in the sewer pipe and it is leaking making the backyard sink.  Yes, this house has issues... many more than I could get into just in this post.

This put us into a situation where we'd have to temporarily move until the close date on the house and then move again. So two moves over a what will probably be a very hot summer. I was NOT looking forward to that.  So we put a PODS on the front lawn and have loaded everything we don't normally use into it. Such as all the Christmas, Halloween, and other decorations, lawn chairs, boxes of old stuff from my Gram, my old college books, and even the outside dog houses. Doing all this believing we had to be out of here by June 1st because the house was being closed on.  Come to find out, not so much the case. Also to find out that my current landlord can not evict us unless he is moving into the house, that because this is a multi dwelling property the new owners have to treat it as a business and they must give us 30 days with notice to move, ONLY if they are moving in here, which they are. Now the lady buying this house has a lawyer that is about as shady as they come.  He hired the electrician to fix some outside wire.. now let me tell you about this guy.  He showed up in an unmarked van, my understanding is his license number needed to be on that van which it was not. He also was stumbling around drunk and let me just  mention when he got done working he sat in front of the house drinking not one but two bottles of liquor. My neighbors called the cops because the kids were all out playing in the street and they were afraid he might hit one.  He left before the cops got here. See I'm on a dead end street three houses from the end, so he had to turn around and go back through where the kids were playing to get out of here...

Other work that FHA demanded my landlord do prior to the close was scraping and painting all of the outside window frames (half done) replacing the electric line from main house to back house (he only taped the wire so the fray didn't show) scraping and repainting the tiles in the bathroom (yeah the landlord painted over tiles rather than put new ones up and the paint is falling off, not done) so now we get a call from the shady lawyer that they are closing on the 9th of June.  Which again never happened because the city inspector hasn't been here to inspect the electrical work.  The FHA inspector was back through here on the 7th and laughed his way through the whole house.  The lawyer right on his tail trying to con him into passing the whole ordeal, guess what house did not pass. NOTHING is up to code in this house we live in.. it's a health danger and electrical nightmare.  The new buyer, I felt bad at first thinking she is buying a money pit of a house, but then later learned she didn't negotiate anything extra! Guess what lady have fun with your money pit and I have no sympathy for you when the heater blows or pipes burst because it's coming.. it's coming really soon!

Have you ever tried to find a rental home that will allow 3 dogs and only rent month to month? It is IMPOSSIBLE. We found a few but they want a 9 month or 1 year lease agreement. If we break that lease they can sue us or we have to pay all kinds of fees, not to mention the rental rates in this area are at an all time high.. 3 bedroom duplex for $1000 a month and nothing is included? Are you serious I at least want free cable, lawn cut, and snow removal for that price.  We only pay a little under $600 right now for an entire house, even in his beat up state, but still.  My theory is this, why spend the extra money to move if we don't have to? Most of these places want first, last, security, and pet deposit, that is close to THREE GRAND! That three grand needs to be kept for the down payment on the house! So as you can see we are in a bit of a pinch! Now bringing up to today, today the lady buying this house well the insurance company was here taking pictures and he let us know what was going on.  There is NO close date for this house, FHA is demanding certain things be done and done right, the lawyer is arguing that no they don't need to be done, and the landlord just refuses to fix anything.  Hell let them all bicker, the longer they bicker the closer we get to our close date and the less likely we'd have to do a double move!

Thursday I started tweeting @citi mortgage asking why are they dragging their feet on this paperwork for a short sale, that our offer was for MORE than the asking price. Please move quickly, as I'm on my tweeting rampage a story pops onto the nightly news about mortgage companies delaying the sale of short sales, dragging their feet and how there is some law that went into effect a year ago they makes them "move faster" so to say to get a house out of pre-foreclosure and sold if there is a reasonable offer. That the government is going to start fining these mortgage companies for not moving the process along. Please FINE away! There is no reason why this hasn't been moved along faster.. this guy has not paid a payment in a year, the house has been vacant since November. Citi is still responsible for taxes, water, and upkeep of the house. They are losing more money by the day the longer they drag their feet. Well I got an answer, Citi send me a DM and asked for my number and I spoke to a lady from there and she is higher up the ladder of command and was going to find out what the problem was and how to make it move faster that she agreed there was no reason to drag feet on this short-sale, hell another few months it's in full foreclosure - did you know that apparently banks are getting a "bonus" from the government for selling short sales in a timely manner to cover the loss they are taking with the short sale? Yeah they are getting more of our tax money for selling a short sale, OK then MOVE your ass and get this process done! I want to be in my new house by August 1st.... which judging by how the sale of the house I am living in is going, that might be a possibility I will go from here to new house and eliminate the temp move all together!

I have been having boxes shipped all over the place... to my friend Mel's house, to my sister's house, to my cousin's house across the street all because I have no idea when and what day we will be out of this house to eliminate the possibility of missing a package I am having them sent elsewhere.  Now for the most part they have made it to the right place, but the ones going to my sister's house are MIA! which is really making me re-think shipping to her house and just well finding someone that will let me ship every thing there and whom I trust and won't be bothered by the fedex or ups guy being there once a day. This whole move thing is turning into a 3 ring circus if Citi would just move their ass on the paperwork I would feel better about it all!

So that's the story for everyone asking "have you moved yet" the big answer is NO - and honestly I really want the sale of this house I am in to delay and delay and delay because the longer it does the closer I get to my dream house and one single move instead of two!