Hamilton Life

Well life has certainly moved on and we are now all living under one roof in the house in Hamilton.
Therefore I will not be posting to this blog anymore.
If you want to know what we are now up to in our new life in Hamilton then skip on over here and catch up with us anytime.
Thanks for sharing with us during our moving time.

Steve Moves In

This weekend we took Steve to Hamilton so he could start his new job.
Poor boy has to rough it in the house for 3 weeks until I move down with the boys and the furniture!
So all our camping equipment has come in handy, sleeping on a blow up mattress and using plastic plates and cups!

As the pictures show, it looks like a student rental where people have just placed a mish mash of furniture into the house.

This is the dining area with the kitchen. The lounge and master bedroom is through the far door at the end.

The boys 2 rooms and bathroom is through the door from the kitchen. This is also where the laundry is.

This little part of deck is at the back of the house and is enclosed a little, although Steve informs me when the wind is blowing it is like a wind trap there! It is clean and tidy and suitable for us until we find somewhere to buy for ourselves, although we are not in any hurry as we want to get the feel for the place, good and bad areas, schools etc


So next year we will buy.

Renting

We met with the lady that looks after the house we are renting in Hamilton this weekend.
We have officially signed all the papers, so the house is now ours, well apart from meeting to get the keys from her in 2 weeks time.

We don't actually want the place until Sept 29, so we really couldn't get the keys 2 weeks early and not pay rent for the place, but hey it suits us as we don't need the place before then.

So all is going good.

Moving

We have the daunting task ahead of us of packing up our home and moving it over 100 kms south.
The thought of doing this, with 2 boys, is very daunting and I know it will take a very long time just doing it at night! Only time when they won't bug me and I can get it done in peace.

So we got some quotes from different companies about their services and what they could offer us.
You had the plain simple movers, who would come and take everything you had packed, load it into a van, drive it to Hamilton and then empty out into your house the other end, all in one day and no nice stuff along the way. Pretty basic for $1200.
This is how we thought we might do it, cheap and simple.

Then just for a laugh we got someone to come and give us a quote from a very nice company who would give you the pleasure of packing up your house for you, yes that is right, they would come in and spend the whole day individually wrapping your glasses and ornaments, and would even wrap your larger furniture items so they don't get damaged!
They would then load the truck and deliver it to Hamilton and then empty the boxes and put it all away and remove all rubbish.
So that means how the unit in the dinning room looked in Auckland is how it will look in Hamilton when they have finished.
WOW, we thought, but yea how much would that all cost??
I was thinking maybe $5000+?
$3000 all up...can you believe that, no I couldn't either, so I called and checked and discussed what this cost meant and yep that is all correct.
So guess which company we are going with?
You got it, the relaxing do nothing service, I am very happy to let them come in and do it all.
That means that I have all those nights in October when I thought I would be packing to just concentrate on the boys and making sure things are tidy ready for the packers.

The sign says it all

Unconditional

The Lawyer called today to say that we have had verbal announcement from the vendor's Lawyer to say everything is fine with the LIM Report and the Builder's Report so we have gone UNCONDITIONAL.

Yea, everything is flowing nicely.

Some where to live

By 6.30 we still hadn't heard anything from the people about renting their house, so we called them.
She said that there were some students who were quite persistent, but her husband and other tenant (who had showed us the house to begin with) both liked us and so WE GOT IT!

So we have somewhere to live in Hamilton.
It is in Hamilton East, which is just across the river from the hospital, close to the Hamilton Gardens, a place I know we will spend a lot of time.
About 5 minutes from Pak n Save and 10 mins down the road from the Events Centre.

So overall we are very happy, still not sure where the chest freezer is going to fit, neither my sewing table?? But we will face all that when we move in, at least we have somewhere to live that is the most important part.

Renting a House

So we spent Thursday evening checking out Trade Me website for all the rental porperties in Hamilton.
We called the people about the ones we liked and we were successful in setting up about 3 viewings for saturday morning.
On Friday evening we double checked the web for any late postings, got a few calls from people we had left messages with and by Saturday morning we had 5 places to view.

So we travelled to Hamilton first thing Saturday morning and it was a good journey, apart from the part where Alex got all antsy in his seat and then threw up 10 minutes outside of Hamilton.
Yes I had taken a complete change of clothes for them both, but didn't think we would be using them within the first 2 hours!

Anyway, we successfully arrived at the first property and found a very nice old villa.
Lovely big bedrooms, new bathroom and kitchen and a huge barn like garage with so much storage.
Little things that bugged us was that there was no power sockets in one of the bedrooms! not sure on that one and also the lounge had some fixed benches in it with red cushions, this would make it very difficult to fit our furniture in.
So we left to view another, and told them we would call if interested further.
On driving to the next house we were able to drive past one of the other ones to view and called the guy and cancelled as it was not suitable.

The next house was ok, nice 4 bedrooms, but old and would have bugged me because it felt like the whole place just needed a good paint, and I don't think it was going to happen soon, so that one was off.

Someone from my Antenatal Coffee group has also just moved to Hamilton so we went and visited her after we had had a picnic lunch in the park.
Great to catch up with someone you know and I think she loved having someone just drop by, as she said, there is no one to just drop by at the moment.

Then we zoomed back down to view the last 2 houses, which were in the same street actually.
The first one was nice. 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, lounge and a seperate dining come sitting area. Nice fenced garden and generally clean with carpet throughout.
We both liked this one and actually spent 10 minutes trying to work out where we would put things.
The other one in the same street was no good, dark and small with only really 2 bedrooms and a small study, although they said it was 3 bedrooms! Yea right as long as it was only a small person sleeping in there.

So we went back up to the other house and called the owners to say we wanted it.
The guy came out, let us have another look through and got us to fill out the papers, happily accepted a cheque for 6 weeks rent and then said he would have to give us a definite answer on Sunday when his wife was back because she was the one who dealt with this side of things, they have 5 rental properties.
So we drove away knowing that probably about 80% chance of it being ours.
So fingers and toes crossed they got in touch and let us have the place.

LIM Report

When ever you see things about stress, there always seems to be a list of the "10 most stressful things"
Sometimes I have looked at these and thought, yea right, it might be slightly annoying but can you really call that stressful....?
One of the top 10 things is......Selling / Buying a house!

And after this last 2 or 3 days I have to admit I will agree with everyone in the whole world now.
Even though we have had no worries, we know there is nothing wrong with the house and we were not bothered by the 7 working day wait to go unconditional, there have been moments when it all just got too much, ok some of this does have to do with my impatientness (not sure on the spelling but you get my drift!) where I would just like things to happen now and can't understand why others don't feel the same way?

So our Lawyer calls today to inform us that they still haven't heard anything from the vendor about the LIM Report, and that as a condition of sale they may come back to us and ask us to sort out the council?!
So with my impatience streak, I decide why wait till they ask, let's get it done now.
So I did...

Not sure if the nice lady at the council will ever be the same again, although I did keep saying that I know it wasn't her directly but the company she worked for.
Anyway, I called and explained that our vendor's had applied for a LIM report and that it was blank.
She asked for the details and then explained that that was correct.
I explained that it was not correct.
She got confused and so I had to explain about the numbering, so she looked up the other house and low and behold there was our history.
Now unfortunately it took rather a lot to get this poor woman to understand what I was talking about when I kept telling her that that was our history, it was our house that had been there for over 70 years and that that was our history that should be connected to our house for our LIM Report.
Unfortunately I got very frustrated and very upset and scared the poor woman half to death by crying over the phone!
Funny thing is though....it worked!

She past our details on to another person in the correct department and 1 1/2 hours later our vendor's Lawyer had the new LIM Report with all the correct consents and reports etc that should have been there in the first place and it was all done correctly so in future years this will never happen again and it was all done free of charge, no extra charge for reissuing the LIM Report.

205a does exist and will continue to exist for a while longer.

Building Inspection and More

The buyers of the house would like a builder inspection and a LIM report from the local Council.
No problem with any of that, nothing to hide.
So on Sunday they came and did the builder inspection, or more to the point his father came and did a builder's inspection!
So that put us at ease as there was no serious testing done on the place and a visual inspection will pass with flying colours.
Unfortunately I wish the LIM was so easy??
Today they enquired about the consent for when the house was moved back in 2000. Turns out it is not on the LIM, in fact it turns out there is nothing at all on the LIM?
After a little investigating myself I realised the problem.......when we brought the property back in 2002 the house was numbered 205, when we actually moved in 4 months later it was now numbered 205a, this is because we were waiting on the titles to come through where the people had sub divided the plot of land. So that means the LIM we viewed when we bought the house was for 205 not 205a!!
Confused yet?? You will be...
So I have advised them that they need to get back in touch with the local council and ask for a LIM report on 205 but only up until Aug 02, because after that 205 referres to the house in front of us?!

It is the local council's fault, they are the ones that renumbered the houses and caused all the confusion, that has, I can't believe, now lasted for 5 years.

So hopefully by getting info for 205 and sifting through the right parts of it, they will get all the relevant information that they require. We are still not worried and have no fears that anything will show that will make them withdraw, it will just get confusing along the way to get there!

Signed and Sealed

We have signed the countersign and it has gone to the lawyers.
So unless there is a problem with the LIM report from the council or the building inspection then everything should go through.

Settlement day is Oct 26, ensures I have somewhere to live until I have moved everything to Hamilton, so all is working out nicely.

Now all we have to do is secure a rental place in Hamilton next weekend and we will be sailing!

2nd Party

So we raced home last night and made the house look reasonable for this other party that wanted to view it.
They were good this time and actually showed!
They had a really good look around, asked me several questions and mubbled a few other things a long the way.
I made sure Adam (Real Estate Man) had informed them that there was an offer on the table and that if they were not serious then we would be responding to it asap.

So what do they do....they suddenly say that they are interested, BUT they have someone else they would like to have view the property. No problem, we can probably hold out till Friday we say, but no they can't get this person to view until MONDAY!
So we either have to tell them NO, and go with the offer we have, or we hold on the offer and let these others view on Monday or we ask them to place an offer, we hold the other offer and still let them view on Monday?? Confused? So was I at one point last night.

So they went away to think and then Jane called us to say they had given a verbal indication as to what they would be offering after the 2nd viewing on Monday, well it was below what we currently had on the table.
So we said that we would not be interested in another offer unless it was the same or more than currently there. They still couldn't get there person to view before Monday and so we told Jane we were not interested, we could not make the other party wait for 4 days, now I know we could have if we wanted to, but I don't work like that.

So the final decision we came to at 7.30 last night was that.......

1. We accepted the countersign from the people we are currently dealing with.
2. We let them know verbally immediately and then we would sort papers out this morning.
3. We inform the other party that they are still welcome to view on Monday if they require.
4. They are available to put in a back up offer if they are still interested.
5. We will still hold the Open Home this Saturday, just in case, always good to have some back up.

So there you have it, WE HAVE SOLD OUR HOUSE !

Yea for us

Negotiations

I hate this part, the tooing and frowing.
We countersigned with an number that was going to make them sit up and yell, and from what our Real Estate Lady (Jane) said, it did!

So Jane met us at my office yesterday and we signed the figure we wanted to take to them, she took it to them in the late afternoon and then she called us in the evening and told us what they had come back with.
This then lead to 3 different phone calls to her, Steve and I having several different conversations, at one stage even sitting in front of the computer and crunching numbers!
It all ended with me calling Jane again and her giving us some very good advice on where to go from here and how to get what we wanted with what we had to offer.

So she met us again today to countersign what they had come back to us on, only problem was Steve was in his office at Greenlane and I was at Auckland. So Jane doing her business bit, met with Steve and got his signature and then drove the 12 minutes to me and got mine. Then she went and presented it to the people.

At 12.12 today Jane called to say what they had come back with!!!
I like the number, I think it will be the best we get out of them. Steve is still hesitant and has decided we will wait until tomorrow to give our answer back.....mainly because he thinks we can do better, and plus we have someone wanting to view the house tonight (shame it is not tidy!), so he would like to wait for them to see it in case they want to place an offer.

So Jane knows that this couple tonight have to be told up front that an offer is on the table, if they like the place then they have to do some smart thinking and fast moving, otherwise the place will more than likely go tomorrow morning.
I am hoping that the couple tonight make a decision very quickly, because I would like to not keep the other people waiting until the morning, I would like to be able to give Jane our answer tonight and then she can verbally tell the couple if they have it or not.
I know I would at least like a verbal response before seeing it on paper, at least they can smile and go WOW we got it, tonight rather than waiting.

So the saga of selling a house continues. Hopefully when I post tomorrow it will be with good news.......come back later and see what happens.

Ongoing Selling

Well the open home at the weekend was a little slow, only 2 groups went through (we have since learnt that one group was our neighbour!) so a little daunting.
On Sunday we got a call to say that one of the parties from the open home would like to come through again, so on Monday evening they came and spent 25 minutes viewing every inch of our house and garden.

They have since put in an offer, and so we are now in the world of negotiations, what fun! I would rather we all just met at an office somewhere, sat in different rooms and then hashed it all out in 1 hour with the agent running between the 2 of us.
I am an impatient person, so taking days for offers to go back and forth is very frustrating for me! So they have placed in an offer, we have counter signed and as of now we are waiting to see if we have scared them away or if they will counter sign our offer.........we sit and wait!

Whilst this is going on though, there is another group that would like to view the house tomorrow night, so life goes on.

Will keep you posted on how things go.

Renting

When we first get to Hamilton we are going to rent a place to live. We do want to buy, but not knowing the areas, we will rent and then start looking.

Anyway, we have been surfing the web for places and keep coming across several, but they are being let by agents, no problem here, just we know we will have to pay a little more in fees etc by using the agent!

Contacted several agents today to find out fees etc. No worries there, not as expensive as I thought or though still up there with having to front up with about 5 weeks rent in advance!
So I explained our situation to one agent and asked how the process went? We wanted to view some properties online and then arrange a time to view the 1 or 2 we are interested in.
This is not possible!!!!
They would like you to do a drive by and then choose just 1 place to view, they will only show you 1 property a day?????
There must be someone out there who realises that we are not in the town, we can not just drive by these places and say yes or no to viewing. We do not have a week to spend in Hamilton trying to sort this out, we have 2 consequtive weekends (oh also they don't work weekends!!!)

So our thoughts of maybe using an agent as an easy hassle free way to get a property to rent down there has just flown out of the window, or more to the point I shoved it out the window at full speed!

So we our know back to our back up plan. Check the web site for private renters, call them and arrange a time to view their property on a Saturday morning and hope we don't have to run too far all over Hamilton after we have set up several viewings of different places.
This way will be hard work but at least we hopefully won't have to come up with 5 weeks rent in advance and pay an agent fee.

So the 2nd weekend in September will be our first jaunt down to find somewhere to live.
Will keep you posted on how it goes.

Selling Our House

We had a quiet week after the Open Home last weekend.
Good turn out for the first showing, especially with the rain.
We have had 1 mention of an offer since then, but it was very low compared to what we want, so has not actually gone anywhere.
Although we have a person coming through tonight at 5.30.
Don't mind having personal appointments, just gets a little tricky juggling it around the family.
If you are into selling your home, then you make it as available as possible, but I do hope this guy is prepared to smell the Apricot Chicken cooking (the smell will probably seal the deal) and have a 2 & 4 year old running round, as I have told them it is dinnertime they will have to accept us as they find us, although having said that, as soon as I finished work today I am rushing home at 3 to do some final touches that we weren't able to do and manage to get to work on time at 7 O'clock this morning!
So when Steve gets home with the boys at 5, they can play in the garden and not touch the house till after this guy has left!

More Work on the House

Another window finished.

Always great to have a little helper, even if he is just watching!

From this to this

Open Home

We had our first Open Home today.

Apart from it being a long morning, with me feeling like there was so much to do, the house looked good by the time we went out to lunch at Subway.

We of course moved some stuff out of the way whilst the showing was on, so our car and Grandma's car was full with stuff that needed to be out of sight but that could be returned after the half hour was up. Sure everyone knows what I am talking about and I am sure they have all been there. You know, things like the full laundry bag, the pile of wet washing, the extra chair that just doesn't look right left in the corner of the dining room etc. Toys from the boys room so it didn't look too crampt in there!

The Open Home itself, apparently went well. About 4 couples (not bad seeing as it is raining) and not bad seeing as the Property Press Magazine with our ad in it didn't arrive at our house until 11am TODAY, usually it is out about 11am on Friday, giving potential buyers the chance to see what Open Homes are on over the weekend (will have to investigate that one further) so we will wait and see if there are any takers, but hey always next weekend.

Lawn Mowing

When we got home from work today, Steve went and finished mowing the remaining little sections in the garden ready for the Open Home tomorrow.
He had a little helper in this project, one who seems to love the mower!

So there is Alex with his own little mower, assisting daddy to the best of his ability, just such a shame his mower doesn't actually cut anything! Would be so helpful if it did.

It was so funny watching him help daddy, as everytime Steve turned the mower off to empty the catcher bin, Alex would stop as well and turn the knob on his mower, at the same time as announcing to daddy 'I turn mower off too' then he would help empty the bin into the bag and then help put the catcher back on the mower.

He helped daddy do the whole lawn out the back.

Not much else for us to do before tomorrows Open Home, few little things to do inside the house, mainly tidying and cleaning, but just the basics that will just get messed up in the morning, the bathroom, the kitchen and the dining room table. So everything should be fine for the showing except maybe the weather, which is forcast for RAIN.

Mail Box

The mail box needed a new lease of life. So Steve, Ben and I sanded it back and painted it.
Ben was very helpful for a short period of time, then got bored, but at least he gave it all a go and helped a little. It now looks very smart and will hopefully give a good impression when people first arrive at the the house next weekend for the Open Home