Guitar Gear Forum

FINALLY SOLD OUR HOUSE!!!

As some of you may know, my wife lost her job about 3 years ago and couldn't find any work where we lived in Montgomery so she started looking up here in birmingham where she's from and her family lives and she found a good job with a small start up company.

The deal was that if she either started making more money than me or her career path showed more promise and potential than mine then we would move up here. Govt spending cuts not only has my salary frozen indefinitely but always the chance that the cuts may eliminate positions on our contract so I'm taking that into consideration.

On top of that, the wife's job has blown up in a good way. TONS of work, they made her director of technology and she's essentially defined how part of their business model works now and she's been interviewing people for the last 6 months to get more employees to help with tasks so things are looking great for her.

The choice to put the house on the market was easy and we're going to make a few bucks on the sale so our goal of at least breaking even on the sale was met. I think the moving company and contractor work to fix random odds and ends on the house that turned up on the home inspection may leave us at breaking even

But anyways, for the last 2 and a half years, my wife has been living up here with her grandmother rent-free working, driving back down to montgomery on friday afternoon and driving back up for work on monday mornings. needless to say, that lifestyle has run it's course and we're ready to be under the same roof again.

the buyers unfortunately only gave us like 3 weeks to get out So we were going CRAZY trying to get all of our stuff packed and moved. We've spent the last few days driving back and fourth from down where our house was in Montgomery up here to where we're trying to find a house in birmingham. We've been moving boxes, furniture, you name it on top of paying 2 men and a truck nearly 2 grand to move everything we couldn't carry

So at this point, we've been searching for houses up here. We aren't in a hurry since we are staying with the wife's grandmother but living out of a box is going to get old FAST.

the best news in all of this is that in our search, one of my main requirements is a nice man cave that I can setup from the get go as a studio. Basements or split level homes are pretty common up here in birmingham so the choices are nice and we've seen some MASSIVE basements (entire band practice big) and some others that have really nice offices with big closets that look like they could easily hold a 4x12 and mics and if all else fails, my other requirement is a big 2 car garage and building an isolation box that I can park one of my cabs in and have that in the garage is yet another option.

I'm excited as hell. I'm going to make sure this is all done right from the beginning and will have a little cash to get something like this

http://www.readyacoustics.com/products/ ... l?cPath=25

and a better desk that has some rack mount spaces.


So yeah! Busy time for us right now. Fingers crossed that things go smoothly with the house hunt. I'll keep you guys updated.

This was...much less depressing than the thread title led me to expect.

Congrats, man. Change is good.

so much for knowing where to score sweet gear if times get tough

I know the feeling. My wife, son, and I are moving from a tiny apartment to a bigger duplex. Still renting unfortunately, but I get the basement all to myself basically so I'm setting up shop there.

I want to buy I house but we won't really be in a position to until I finish school. But this'll do for now.

Moving sucks major balls though. Mojo sent.

Congrats man! Hope you find a great house in the Ham.

Congrats - move well!

Congratulations man!

Im glad everything is working out for you and the wife, i remember when you posted about this situation a few yrs ago.

That's awesome news man! Glad everything has been working out. Good luck with the house hunt.

Good on you FRPC!

*BUMP*

We went and looked at a few more houses this weekend including 2 that we liked from our first time out. We took the wife's parents (her dad is in real estate so he would know stuff to check for or warning signs of a bad deal or issues with the house and what not) and they both loved the house that we both really liked.

The next day (sunday) our realtor told us that another couple had made an offer on that house and that we had until the end of the day to throw in our own offer. We met up with them (our realtor) and basically came to the conclusion that since we were not allowed to know how much this other couple offered, we would have to throw in an offer higher than what we were originally going to put in and negotiate up with. We didn't want to throw out our absolute maximum amount that we felt the house was worth either so we went just a bit lower than our max and crossed our fingers hoping that our offer would be the more attractive of the two.

We tried to make it as convinient as possible for the sellers by leaving the closing date up to them so there was no pressure to get out in a hurry like WE had to do.

Anyways, about 2 hours later, we got a call from our realator saying that the sellers had outright accepted our offer and agreed to pay all closing costs and will be closing in about 30 days.

so we're excited that we not only came in a little under what we were expecting to pay but that they're covering all the closing costs too. They had apparently had it on the market for quite a while and have had it listed way too high and we assume are simply tired of having to maintain a spotless house. They did a lot of renovations like new wood floors and re-did the kitchen and put up a really badass split level deck out back so it looks like besides some painting, all our work is cut out for us (assuming home inspection doesn't turn up any surprises).

Exciting stuff.


Some low quality pics from the MLS listing.





Deck




HOT TUB BITCHES!



Tool shed



Big ass parking pad (estimate you could fit 7~8 cars in it/driveway)



Also, no pics of it but standing at the front door or looking out the dining room windows over the houses on the other side of the culdesac you can see the side of whatever the mountain is in this area.

Man cave on the lower level (it's bigger than this pic shows) and has another room they had setup as an office that will become my studio just off to the side.



Wife has also agreed to budget in something like this to get the studio done right.

http://www.readyacoustics.com/products/ ... es/c6.html

I'm considering building a sound proof box that will be out in the garage (just outside the office) and run mic/speaker cables out to that so the cab is isolated away from the workstation. The garage has a nice big work/storage area with a big work bench setup so there's plenty of room for stuff like that.


I'll probably post an update once the moving in happens.

awesome, congrats. living the american dream!!!!

hit me up if you want some help setting up that toolshed for huge gains, hehehehehe

the market in birmingham is good yah? all our stuff is going over list price in that area.

wait are you in bham too?

nope. haslett, mi. i sell bank owned real estate nationwide and write loans too. i love one of our agents down there: paul garris; he is the man in birmingham. one of our houses had this hideous poster of this beat up chick, he took it upon himself to mail it to me lol.

your new house looks really nice man, congrats!

Welcome to the 1 %. LOL!

Kidding! Very very nice place, classy

Congrats Drew. New place looks great! Love the deck and lower walkout. That will be nice to have!

Wow. HNHD, that's a nice house. You gonna have lots of yard work to do bro, but shoud be worth it.

Cool. I bet you are fkn exhausted though. I went through all that shite a few years ago.

At the moment we are living off my salary, and we are putting my wifes paycheck in a credit union. The house will be paid off in 2 years. Aw yiss. We looked at all of the shenanigans re bailouts and fed QE and decided we didn't want to give bank of america a shit load of money in interest payments over the next 30 years.

I'm jelly. Thanks for reminding me I live in an 800 square foot shit shack.

Well, you need to change the title of the thread. You are now homeful. I don't like being misled.

That's awesome Drew! Glad it worked out good for you guys!

Dayum dude. That is very very nice man. Congrats on the new home. It looks like you will have a very very nice are to setup in

I'd ask how much, but I'll just be jelly. My 875 sq ft. condo was $379K

Update: House appraised for $15K less than what the tentative contract selling price is at so I'm not sure exactly what is going to happen now. My wife is supposed to be talking with our mortgage guy today.

dude that is happening a lot right now. appraisers are fucking morons and the market is too difficult to really tell.

the definition of a market value is what someone is willing to pay and what the seller is willing to sell it for.

make sure the appraiser is someone who works and lives in your area, lots of times banks use people who really dont know the area. this is why i am very happy we dont require appraisals or surveys.