Preparing for the Move – Progressing

This day, Saturday, February 4, we find ourselves with another hurdle addressed in the relocation from our Newport News home to a new home in Northern Virginia. We had a person come to measure several windows in our home here to replacement of the window blinds. The ones that are currently installed are very old and the slats are drooping from the sun’s heat and look pretty bad. We had originally planned to replace these blinds but over a period of weeks or months. Now that we are putting this house on the market, we need to replace them blinds now, before our local Tidewater area Real Estate Agent, Kristie moves forward with the listing of our home for sale.

So, now a major hurdle in the prep process has been initiated. The designer person will compute the costs for the replacement blinds and labor for the installation of the new units. If the blind styles we want to have in the house are in stock for the company, we can accomplish this task in the next couple of days (weekday) and that hurdle will be checked off as completed. Then YEA US.

Expectations are that Dave, our esteemed handyman expert will begin addressing the 20+ tasks we have identified as necessary pre-market. He has the list, or at least the list as it was. We keep finding little things that if left, might detract, but if addressed with hopefully increase the likeability of our house for prospective buyers. So on this Sunday, February 5th, we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel of home prep for sale. Got it, moving on.

Updates to the house for the market preparation are well underway. Dave will be here again this morning to tackle more of the items on the preparation punch list. We will need to ensure that no time is wasted and perhaps accelerate the preparation. Because……..

We traveled up to NOVA on Sunday, February 12th. Looked at four condo units and made an offer to purchase the fourth condo we viewed which is located in Alexandria, VA. The same neighborhood that we left earlier in 2022. We’re BAAAAAACK!!!!

The seller has accepted our offer, our agent is negotiating the final nits for the agreement to be totally in place. However, from all indications, the seller is very motivated so I have no fear that the nits we discovered will not be addressed. YEA US.

Contract documents sent to us last night (02/12/2023) and we electronically signed and returned them to Alanda. Expect to see the Seller’s signatures as full acceptance of our offer and required items today. Seller has asked for a March 10 closing and our financial institution has agreed that the date for closing is reasonable and acceptable to them.

We also have our selling real estate agent, Kristie who is preparing to conduct a discussion visit for the actual placing our Newport News house on the market. Things are a ‘happening.

Contract for the Alexandria Condo has been accepted and signed by all parties. We have a firm, signed, ratified contract. Our agent will do the home inspection with the contracted Home Inspection Service rep. The contract will be uploaded to the mortgage lender officer and the process for closing will officially begin!

We got notification last night (2/14/2023) that we had a fully ratified contract in hand. Alanda, our buying real estate agent, uploaded the ratified contract to the Credit Union’s Loan Officer and we will now move forward on that track for the mortgage loan processing.

We were contacted by email this morning with the title agency for the entry of document tasks necessary for their efforts in conducting our closing process. At this point, we have performed all of their required tasks, except for the actual transmission of the Earnest Money transfer process.

Now we have to finish up the prep tasks and get our selling Real Estate Agent Kristie the access she needs to stage, photograph and put the house on the market! High hopes that we can get a solid buyer in place within a few days or a couple of weeks. That would be the perfect solution. However, perfect is not something that the Hodges Clan is known for having for themselves with their actions. But one can always hope.

I will keep this post open for a couple of days for update entries. The actual mortgage process and closing process are now in process!! We will transmit the “Earnest Fund” monies either today -2/14 or tomorrow at the latest. Got to have that money in the hands of the Title Company shortly (process deadline) so we will move quickly to get that task done.

Fingers Crossed again folks. Next steps are doozies.

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Author: harv1941

Just a summary, I am 83 years of age, retired in July 2013 and settled down to promoting the dangers of bacterial meningitis, which killed my beloved son, Mike in 2009. My wife, Charlotte, and I embarked on an adventure of live aboard cruising, aboard a large Blue Water motor yacht. While our beginning was rather fraught with hurdles, we continued to look forward to the day we moved aboard the Misty Lady and cruise the eastern seaboard and associated waterways. After more than four years of life aboard this Bluewater Motor Yacht, I developed an advanced problem due to interaction with medications and experienced rather frightening balance problems. Therefore, getting on and off the yacht was fraught with danger of falling between the docks and the boat's hull. Walking the docks was also problematic considering that our yacht club docks were all floating docks and my balance problem was a danger during the walk from our yacht's docking slip to the clubhouse or out to the DC Wharf facilities and our car housed in the yacht club's reserved garage. SO, we had to regretfully put the Misty Lady up for sale and move back on shore. We moved on shore, first into a condo apartment in Alexandria, then after two years there, we relocated to the city of Newport News, in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. Our original desired location was in the city of Hampton, Virginia, which is the oldest English-speaking settlement in the United States having been established originally in 1610. My ancestors came to this country through this settlement in the mid 1600s and lived in that area for around 100 years before beginning a migration of one portion of our family toward the west. I looked forward to moving back to this area and exploring the roots of my family, both maternal and paternal ancestry, but we found a great house in the Newport News area and became ensconced in the terrific neighborhood of Kiln Creek. My wife, being still actively employed, received a substantial offer in a position with a government contractor firm back up in Northern Virginia. So we put the Newport News house up for sale, receiving and accepting an offer withing two days. We then relocated back up to the city of Alexandria and into another high rise condo. My wife reached a point where considerations for retirement were becoming very important. She indicated that she really didn't want to retire in Alexandria, so once again we began a house search in the Tidewater area, this time in the City of Williamsburg and in a community restricted to 55+ age owners. We found the ideal location, initiated the sale and closing for our retirement home. We then put our condo on the market. Alas, the market was not as robust as before so we had to change asking price a couple of time, but finally the Alexandria Condo was sold. Now we are set to enjoy the great locations found here in the Tidewater/Hampton Roads area, considering that we are history buffs and there are literally hundreds of historical sites in this segment of our nation. Of course living in Williamsburg is the epitome of history living life. So, now we are in our retirement home, in a great retirement type community. A great clubhouse with a fine dining restaurant, a grill/pub, an award winning PGA designed golf course and miles of walking trails. Looking forward to my wife's eventual full retirement and the two of us visiting all up and down the east coast historical spots.

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