Damn it is cold outside. I was surprised the girls gave me 24 eggs this morning and Jim brought one more up when he fed them this afternoon. Not bad for a very cold day. It isn’t going to warm up for the next ten days or so. This will be our longest stretch of cold weather all winter. At least it is February and somewhere in my brain remembers it won’t last long. We got about another inch of snow today and the temperature may have gotten up to 10 but not much above that. We are to go down to 11 below zero next Sunday. The forecast is showing snow possible for the next ten days. I am ready for Spring already.
I went to Cottonwood Falls at noon to deliver eggs and to drop off the title paperwork to the seller of the house I am buying. The roads were better than I expected. My Forester handled like a champ on the snow. It is nice to have a car I trust that I can drive on snowy roads. The Prius didn’t do so well on snow.
I called the title company today to find out what our next steps are in closing. The lady I needed to talk to was on the phone and I chatted with the dingy secretary. She talked in circles and really didn’t know what she was talking about. I was trying to tell her that both the seller and buyer were ignorant and didn’t know how the process worked and needed to know what we needed to do next. I think she was just as ignorant. I didn’t get very far with her.
Anyways the seller called and got to talk to the person in charge and we are closing this Wednesday. Wow! Things happen fast sometimes. I quickly called my bank and arranged for the funds to be transferred so I could have the money on hand to close with. They told me to wait 30 minutes and then I was to call back to give them wiring information. Their phone system got overloaded and I haven’t been able to get back through. I will call either later tonight or first thing tomorrow morning. They told me it only takes an hour to transfer money so I have enough time to get that done before closing.
The seller will continue to stay on the property for 10 days after we close. Trust that isn’t an error in judgement on my part.
I called my insurance agent and got the ball rolling on getting the house insured. I only have two questions I need to ask the seller and the insurance agent was going to take care of the rest. I never know how to answer some of the questions. Those type of details don’t matter to me.
We are transferring utilities after the seller vacates so will wait another week or so to arrange all of that. I’ll make some calls tomorrow to find out if I need to do deposits, etc. and if so will get that taken care of. No big deal if the utilities get shut off for a day or two since we won’t be living in the house.
I picked up the bid from the roofing company. It was three times higher than I expected it to be but we found out the house has three layers of roofing, including a layer of wood shingles. Evidently someone put a layer of asphalt shingles on top of wood shingles. Jim says that is a no no for roofs. They will rip it all off and put up a new base coat, whatever that means. Jim seemed to think it was a reasonable bid given what they are going to have to do. This stuff is like a foreign language to me. The same guys did two of my other investment properties roofs two years ago and did a good job so I trust them. I signed the contract and put it in the mail today. They will add me to their list of jobs to do whenever they can get to it.
Once the seller moves out we will start cleaning, painting and figuring out what repairs will need to be made. Jim and I will do some of the work and we will have to find contractors to do other parts of it. I would like to have it ready to rent by April 1 but not sure we can move that fast. We will see what happens.
The seller is hoping to have both the inside and outside of the property cleared out of the stuff that is on the property within 10 days. With this icky weather I’m not sure how successful he will be able to be. We may be making lots of trips to the dump and needing to borrow or rent a truck for a long weeks worth of hauling work. May need to hire some extra strong people to help us out.
I have green chicken in the crock pot cooking for dinner tonight. It smells like it is done. I’ll fix some veggies for me, potatoes and a salad for Jim and dinner will be ready. Nice and easy dinner.
I had been looking for a project and guess I just picked one up. It will be fun to paint and clean and get the house ready to be lived in. I sure trust it will turn into a good investment. One never knows when you buy a property what problems you may also be buying. Some are obvious, like the roof needing replaced, but some are hidden and are surprises.
Grateful for the eggs the girls gave me on this cold day, grateful for a project that will keep me busy for the next month or two, and grateful for Jim expertise on remodeling.