If you haven’t read Adventures in Real Estate – The Continuing Saga (Part 1) and (Part 2), you might want to do that first. 

Hallelujah, we are in our new house!

Okay, so my Sweetie looks MUCH better than this on his bike.

On Monday morning (August 22), we woke up in the hotel room, and my Sweetie got ready for work.  We enjoyed the hotel’s complimentary breakfast together, and then the Bean and I waved goodbye to Daddy as he rode away on his motorcycle.  That left me on my own to get myself and the Bean dressed, pack up the room, and check out of the hotel.  Bringing all our stuff down to the car on my own was no picnic.  I tried to call for a bell hop (do they still call them that?) but no one answered the phone so I went down to the lobby, picked up a luggage cart and did it myself.  After much chaos (I locked us out of the room at one point – thank goodness the Bean was out with me), I pushed the luggage out to the car, with the Bean riding beside the suitcases.

I had been calling our mortgage broker every hour to see where we were at.  At about 10am, he reported that the funds had been transferred, and we just had to wait for the title recording.  We were expecting our moving van to arrive at the house around 11am.  I thought we were cutting it a little close.  I was right.

statue of a woman cryingFollowing our realtor’s instructions, I warned the moving crew that they needed to park on the road when they arrived at the house.  Until we had official possession, we were not to step foot on the property.  The movers arrived promptly at 11.  I called our mortgage broker.  The paperwork was on its way to the title office, but they weren’t expecting to have everything completed until 2:30 pm. The movers were being paid by the hour.  Oh CRAP!  He said he would see if the seller’s realtor would let us start moving in early.  They had our money – it was just a matter of finishing the paperwork.  No risk to them at all. I convinced the crew to take a lunch break for an hour to buy us some time.  I think it might have helped that it was obvious I’d just been crying and I had a baby with me.

In the meantime, our amazing mortgage broker was also arranging to rent a moving van and hire crew of his own.  The idea was that, if the other realtor was going to play hardball, our movers would transfer the load to another truck and their job would be done.  Then we wouldn’t be paying a crew by the hour while we waited.

Promptly at noon, I got another call from the mortgage broker – we were all clear to start moving in!  Many thanks go to the other realtor for giving us a break.  I related the good news to the crew and opened up the house.  I already had keys because we’d been getting the hardwood floors refinished.  Shortly after that, both our realtor and the mortgage broker showed up to help.  Our realtor is an amazing woman who has  grandchildren, and she and the Bean hit it off early in our relationship, so they spent the afternoon playing on the back porch.  I directed traffic and answered questions, and our mortgage broker started putting together furniture and helped with the unloading of the truck.  Have you ever met a mortgage broker who did that?  I’m just floored.

We plan to spend many evenings enjoying a glass of wine on the back porch.

I had arranged for a babysitter to come take care of Jenna for a few hours in the afternoon so I could start getting unpacked and run some errands.  What a lifesaver that was!  By the time I got home again, it was time to feed the Bean and get her to bed, after which I had dinner and then continued working until my Sweetie got home from work (approximately 9:30 pm). What a long day! We sat out on our back porch with a glass of wine for a while, and then collapsed into bed with boxes still piled everywhere.  We were home at last!