A First Time for Everything

Amy and I became homeowners today. Settlement was around noon. Stately Baptist Manor is a 1750 square foot townhouse with a Newark mailing address and easy access to major highways. I wish I could say it was on acres of land with clear lanes of fire in case of Zombie attack, but that will unfortunately have to wait until Baptist Manor versions 2 or 3. Baptist Manor's current form should handle our family well even if it grows by a few members in the coming years.

We'll take up full residence by the end of July. Amy and I are quite happy, but we'll be spending a lot of time cleaning the house up in the next few weeks. The previous owners were only required to leave it "broom clean" and evidently they don't really know what a broom looks like. The tub and shower are caked with some retched substance. It's far nastier than anything I've come across and that includes my time in college on all male floors with shared bathrooms. Some of the carpets are similarly vile. The original owner appears to have enjoyed eating his dinner in the basement in front of his big screen. How much he ate is debatable since he seems to have trampled most of it into the basement stair's carpet.

Oh and the previous owner didn't bother to actually fix any of the things he agreed to fix after the initial home inspection. Thankfully we received more money back at settlement after our walk through exposed this. But this means we have to get a bunch of work done ourselves instead of having him take care of it. Very annoying.

The good news is that our initial down payment and closing costs were less than we expected. Amy and I have been saving for this since we got married last year and we didn't have to touch Amy's portion of our savings. So we're in good financial shape should anything come up (like having to replace a vehicle).

We'd like to thank the major players; our mortgage broker Damian Wing of GMAC, our lawyer Brian Murray, and most of all our Realtor Megan Johnson from Remax Associates in Suburban Plaza. Our inspectors, Granite Inspection Services and Promise Pest, were also first rate. The seller's realtor, Remax Sunvest... hmmm... lets say that he's not so highly recommended although he did try to make things right by us out of his own pocket.