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.