Episode IV: A New Home

The great Suburban Exile of 2010 has ended.  After a month of living off in the 'burbs and commuting into the city, we're finally settled in our apartment.  That we own.  But it wasn't easy getting there, naturally.

Once June had hit and we were living in Connecticut, we had a new deadline to worry over.  June 30th was the last day we could close to claim the several-thousand-dollar First Time Home-buyer Tax Credit that the government began early last year as part of the larger economic stimulus.  We had the usual runaround, hearing "of course we'll make it," and, "don't worry about it."  But that's what we heard in March.  And April.  And May.

While our bank had pulled its approval of the building, another bank had gone ahead and approved it.  That bank closed several apartments in the building and our future neighbors started moving in.  We abandoned our bank, and started from scratch with this other bank that had approved people.  The new bank was wonderful; they accomplished in a week what the first bank to two months to do.  They rushed everything through for us, and all was moving quickly.

But not quickly enough.  June was flying by, and we were getting closer and closer to losing the tax credit.  Delay after delay we could handle, albeit grudgingly, but losing the credit would have been an extra slap.  Finally, as the end of June neared, our lawyer, the bank's lawyer, and the building developer's lawyer set a date to close and hoped that we'd have the final green light from the bank by then.  That date was June 30th, 10am.

Around 10pm on June 29th, we got a call from our lawyer.  We're going to close!  Probably.  There was some confirmation of funds transfer from the bank that we needed, and that hadn't come in yet.  Our lawyer told us to be ready at 10am, but not to show up at the closing table until he called.  Just in case.

The next morning we had our final walk-through in the apartment before the closing.  We walked around looking everything over one last time.  But mostly we were just wondering, would this really happen?  10am came and went.  10:30am came and went.  Finally, the phone rang, and we were off to the closing table.  Two hours, and many signatures and people shuffling, later we were homeowners.

Wasting no time, we immediately scheduled the movers for the following Monday and painted over the weekend.  It's good to be home.

Suburban Exile - Day 17

I was thinking I would post often about the exciting suburban life of Stamford, CT.  I thought I would have a lot of richly humorous stories about the people and ways, navigating the winding streets and sprawling shopping centers.

Nope.

With a commute ranging from one and a half to two hours each way, I find that I'm not doing a whole lot of living while living in Stamford.  Each morning, I wake up by 5:30am, so that we can both be ready to drive to the train station at 6:30am.  After work, by the time we're back at the house, it's nearly 8pm.  Sometimes later.  Exhausted from full days of work and traveling, there's generally enough time for dinner, some reading, and then sleep.

I don't mean to complain too much.  The truth is that we're still saving quite a bit of money living out here, paying no rent, utilities, and little for food.  It's been great to spend more time with family, and we've been very fortunate to have the kind of family we do.  Even the cat and dog have begun to peacefully coexist in the same room.

But at the end of the day, I can't wait to get back to Brooklyn.  On that front, we've applied with a second bank, giving up on the first one's incompetency altogether.  The application, up through the appraisal report, was all rushed through in eight days.  So now we're waiting, just as were before, for the final green light to close.

Fingers crossed (again).

Apartment Drama, or, Exile to the Suburbs

At this point, I'm calling it: We will not be moving into our new apartment this weekend.

For those keeping track, we found our new home back in January and signed the contract on it the first week of February.  (For those not keeping track, here's all news I remembered to print.)  There were some early complications in the way the condo was set up with commercial space on the ground floor, but those have long since been worked out.  Back in March, we had our first walk-through, and we were glad to see that it was largely ready for us to move in, with only cosmetic things making our punch list.

In April, we waited.  Waited for bank to give us our loan approval.  When that came, we were truly excited.  Everything was falling into place, and we were set.  Now all we needed was for the bank to make some final approvals on the building itself after those earlier complications.  But all signs pointed to closing in April, or perhaps early May at worst.

Toward the end of April, we heard the building had been approved by the bank.  Our lawyer scheduled a closing date for May 11th.  We were warned that the bank might not have all their ducks in a row by then, but that there was every indication to believe it was possible.  With certainty, we were told, the process was so close to being finished that there was no way the closing would be delayed beyond May.

So it was a time for celebration.  We threw a party in early May to say farewell to our backyard garden (and celebrate a birthday).  We told our landlord that the end of May was when we'd move out of the apartment, giving us time to paint the new place.  Wheels were turning, and we came to realize that Memorial Day weekend, if not earlier, would be when we moved.

Then, suddenly, the bank withdrew its approval of the building.  They'd approved it on a false premise, we were told, they didn't understand some key elements of the way the commercial space was set up.  Huh?  At least one part of the complication came from the fact that the condo uses one address, while the commercial space uses a different address.  Paperwork got confused, the bank got confused, and pulled their approval.  Whether or not we would close in May was once again under question.

Still, we were told not to worry.  The bank would sort out its confusion and re-approve the building any day now.  Any day now.  We asked our mortgage brokers for daily updates, but the answer remained "we're just waiting for the bank's approval."  We tried to be hopeful, as the weeks wore on, but in the back of our minds we were beginning to realize we needed a back-up plan.  And fast.

Which brings us up to this week.  Just yesterday, our lawyer called me again with a tentative closing date on Thursday.  That cuts is close, but still allows us time to move to our new apartment this weekend, since we can't stay in our current apartment beyond the 31st.  Relieved, I shot an email over to the mortgage broker again asking if he thought this was a possibility as well.  He does not think so.  In fact, he's confident we will not be closing tomorrow or Friday.  But he assures us, he's working as hard as he can to get it through as soon as possible.

Time for Plan B.

Lynn's parents have offered to take us in.  They live in Stamford, CT about a forty-five minute train ride from Grand Central.  They have a guest room in their basement with it's own bathroom.  We'd have use of a car, and would be train commuters to work, along with thousands of other suburbanites.  Three and a half years ago, I retreated to Stamford to wait out the job hunt, and now it looks like we'll be returning.  While I'm not looking forward to the commute (at all), I'm grateful for their generosity.  It's won't be convenient, but it will be a way of saving money and spending time with family.  And it's certainly a more viable option than finding a Craigslist short-term lease for a married couple, living out of a hotel, or hopping from couch to couch among friends (although I am also extremely touched and grateful to all of you who offered).

Louis the cat, however, may disagree when he meets Riley the dog.

Walk Through, Take One

On Friday, we saw our apartment for the first time in over a month.  Despite the general craziness about the condo structuring sill on-going, everyone involved is pretty confident that things will still move forward.  (That's a relief.)  So we had our first walk-through since the apartment has been finished.  There will be two more along the way, one in several weeks, and the final right before closing.

It was a little surreal.  For one, this is the first time we've seen the apartment finished.  The last time we went to the building, there were no appliances in the kitchen, not quite everything had been painted, and many of the little finishing touches had yet to be installed.  The hallway on our floor had no carpet or paint as well, and truly felt like a construction zone.  This time, nearly everything was in place, and it looked like a real apartment.

Our apartment, which was the other surreal part of it.  We've been looking at apartments for a long time, and have seen so many, and have invested ourselves in more than a couple.  Is this one really ours?  No, not technically yet, but it's darn close.

For now, the questions are moving away from "What will our monthly expenses be?" and "Is this a good location?" and instead becoming "What color should this room be?" and "Along which wall will we put the couch?"  And that's close enough for me.

So Maybe That Catch Isn't So Little

The new apartment saga continues.  While our mortgage brokers and the bank lenders bicker about what forms we should or should not sign (all of which carry little real meaning), new regulations from Fannie Mae have thrown another wrench in the works of our new building.

The building was built with the first floor much larger than the upper floors.  The first floor was intended to be large enough to hold a grocery store, or some other comparable commercial enterprise.  Meanwhile, there's a two-level garage underneath the first floor.  Compared to the upper floors, where the apartments are, roughly 60% of the floor area is commercial, leaving about 40% residential.

With the beginning of 2010 comes a new regulation stating that new condominiums cannot have more than 20% commercial space.  Whoops.

Not sure where we go from here, but it looks like it'll be an interesting ride.

Well, There is One Little Catch

Our contract on this new apartment is secure.  Our mortgage application is in progress, but there's nothing really to be worried about at this point.  But there is one possible catch in all this, and it involves the question nearly everyone has asked me since the last post.

When do we move in?

Because this building is new construction, they haven't quite secured their temporary certificate of occupancy (TCO) yet.  That is, the city has not certified that the building is ready and safe for people to actually live in.  Once the building receives their TCO, we'll close and move in between 30 and 45 days after.

They were expecting the TCO by the end of January.  Hopefully, they'll get it soon.

The Pen is Mightier

When I was young, I always knew how important something was by what pen my mother used to sign her name.  If it was a permission slip for school, any bic lying around would do.  But when she signed something important, she pulled a red leather sleeve from her purse.  Out of that sleeve came the most beautiful gold Cross pen.  This was important, this signature meant something, it needed the appropriate pen.

When I graduated high school, I had a diploma, wore a cap and gown, and celebrated with friends.  But when my mother gave me my own gold Cross pen, I knew my life had changed.  I was an adult, my signature meant something, I needed the appropriate pen.  When I graduated from college, she gave me another gold Cross pen.  Then I knew: I was on my own, I was making decisions for my life, I had to know when to use the appropriate pen.

* * *

After the first attempt at buying an apartment fell through, Lynn and I took some time off.  But before long, we knew we had to get back on the horse and start looking at apartments again.  So we hit the open house circuit and checked out some new possibilities.  One was fantastic.  It's in a new building, so everything is brand new.  There are two bathrooms (this becomes important when you're married), great kitchen appliances, and even a washer and dryer.  There's a roof deck with views on Manhattan, and the elevator goes all the way up for those of us who are too lazy to take stairs.  It's a great apartment.  And the most surprising part was that it is far more affordable than many of the other, older, apartments we've looked at.

We moved quickly, and made an offer.  It was accepted that same day.  Oh boy, I thought, here we are again with an accepted offer and needing to get to the contract phase.  This time, though, things went smoothly.  All the paperwork checked out and things were looking good.  Our lawyer worked out the contract with the seller's lawyer, and in just a few days we were set.

I brought the contract home from our lawyer's office so Lynn and I could sign it together.  We each signed with a gold Cross pen.

So Close, and Yet So Far

As happens with big changes in my life, I've been ignoring the ol' blog for a while.  It's been a particularly eventful holiday season and New Year!  I'll add more stories with time (maybe).

Lynn and I have been house-hunting.  Well, I guess you could say we've been causally browsing for over a year, stopping by open houses in our neighborhood on weekends.  Just before Christmas, we really started seriously looking—and finding.

We settled on a very nice apartment on Montague Street in our neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights.  It had two bedrooms, 1.5 baths, and was a duplex spread over two floors.  We loved the light, the feel, and were drooling over the space.  It seemed like a little two-story house, tucked away in a historic Queen Anne-style apartment building in the middle of our fantastic  neighborhood.  What could go wrong?

Lots, apparently.

First it was the price.  The sellers, in defiance of the current economy, the housing market, and their own broker's advice, set the price way too high.  We knew we could not afford it at their price, but we also knew it wasn't actually worth that price.  Or at the very least, this market would not support that price.

So, at the advice of our broker, we offered a significantly lower price.  To the sellers, it must have looked like a low-ball offer.  To us, it was the highest we could afford—and a stretch at that.  Initially, the sellers countered our offer with a number that didn't show any seriousness in negotiating at all.  After all, we knew, they had already turned down offers higher than ours.  We went back and said that our first offer really was our "best and final," and we were willing to walk away if they felt it was too low.  They accepted.

Thus began the rush to get into contract.  We had an inspection, the apartment passed with flying colors.  We had to look into the financial history of the building, which is a co-op, and do the due diligence there.  Here is where things fell apart.

A co-op, as most of you who don't live in NYC may now know, is different from a condominium situation.  In a condo, you own your apartment, it is your property.  In a co-op, you own a share in the "company" that owns the building.  Your share is proportional to the size of your apartment, and you own the permanent lease on your apartment.  With co-op buildings, the co-op board of directors also wields extensive powers over the building and its finances, so it is vital to check into the history of the board's behavior.

This particular co-op board took very good care of the building.  They also tried to take care of their residents by now raising the common charges.  But they did this on debt, acquiring a huge mortgage on the building, taking out a line of credit, and depleting their reserves.

And then there was the elevator.  Two years ago, the elevator was found to be in bad shape.  They could update it to the turn of $250,000 or perform several small maintenance repairs that would make it last another two years.  Well, those two years are over, and it's time to update the elevator.  Because the building has so much debt, and no reserves, that money has to come from the residents.  It was too much money for us.

We went back to the sellers, explained the extra expenses and offer an even lower price to off-set paying for the elevator.  They declined.  We moved on.  We sure learned a lot about the process, though.

And it definitely helped prepare us for the next apartment.  To be continued...