Looks Like I'll Have To Sell The House

[Grogan]

I'm sorry to hear it's such a pain in the ass. You sure don't want to have to get Internet service from Space Karen.

It's getting like that here too, since they have started translating post office boxes to street addresses. There's stuff I have to relay to my parents because it has to go to the street address (I happen to have the mailbox for the street address, since I was the first person to get one in town here, before the community mailboxes were put in. They have theirs at another post office, a P.O. Box.

[Zema Bus]

Some sites said the IRS doesn't accept CMRA addresses (Commercial Mail Receiving Addresses) but I couldn't find anywhere where the IRS even addresses that. I also found many Reddit discussions last night where people said they are using CMRA's and UPS Mailbox addresses on their 1040 forms. If it comes down to it one idea I had was to get a PO box in another town, one that's not busy, just for that purpose, along with the informed delivery option so that I would know if and when anything showed up in it. I wouldn't expect to have to go there very often unless the post office stuffs the little box with stupid flyers, like they used to do every week in my slot here in the cluster box (they discontinued that when the pandemic hit).

They had a meeting today, and one of the things that came up was about them trying to find new employees to hire (the last two haven't worked out so well, one made lots of mistakes and then he disappeared, and the current one they hired 6 months ago has also been making lots of mistakes. While he was out on medical leave they had me correct a lot of them), and there's another contract employee currently helping out temporarily, the manager said she didn't know if they would be keeping her on because she's out of state (Louisiana) and that they're required to only have long term help who are in the state and within a 2 hours drive from the facility in case they need to come in for in person meetings. Well I'm already over 2 hours from there (at least 3 hours with traffic), and soon I'll be outside of CA as well. I've been working there nearly 10 years (it'll be 10 years in May) and I've never once had to drive there for a meeting, all the meetings have been remote. Maybe if just keep quiet about it and pretend I didn't know lol! I could always get another assignment elsewhere, and as much as that facility has become much more complicated of a place to work and as much as I'm burnt out, it still beats the many shitty places I've been assigned.

[Grogan]

I wondered about that... if you'd have to be taking 6 hour drives at their whims when they want you to show up in person. One thing you have going for you is that you're experienced and good.

Maybe the area you move to won't have a computer shop or something and you can gradually slip away from this.

[Zema Bus]

I just signed the offer docs on the house that comes with all new furniture, appliances, and a new 55" TV. My realtor in AZ will submit the offer tomorrow, then the ball will be in their court. I don't know if they'll accept it. There's a 2nd one I could try for if this one doesn't go through. With my luck as soon as I'm under contract with that place one will pop up in the listings that'll be the type I was really hoping to find.

[Grogan]

Great I guess, but you're going to have to move it all out so you have more room for accumulating junk. It even comes with a TV

I hope SOMETHING works out for you here.

(I mean, furnished is fine if it's furniture you're going to use)

[Zema Bus]

There is room in the backyard to have a couple extra rooms built

With money being tight it'll help that I won't have to buy a refrigerator, washer & dryer, blinds etc. The ball is rolling, I just sent the earnest money. That was painful to do with the state of my bank account, it was like making another mortgage payment. The fee for the program will be coming up too, also mortgage payment size. I'll get $5K for moving expenses from the lender once the loan closes on 02/21, and I should get my tax refund by early March. In the meantime I temporarily set my CC's to minimum payment to limit what hits my bank account during this period. It's going to be a rough time but I think I'll squeeze by. The lender is giving me too many things to get done all at once, they were asking if I could get it done by tomorrow, but I just can't tonight, I'm all used up.

[Grogan]

At least you're on course now, that's good news. Typical that they want everything now, now, now, money grubbing, now

[Zema Bus]

I let them know I don't have enough time to do all that in one day on a workday so they gave me the weekend

[Grogan]

How generous of them (like they had a choice). They just want to close deals as fast as possible so they get their commissions.

[Zema Bus]

And they sent yet more tasks today to complete. I don't remember it being this complicated the last time I did this, though at that time it was all analog (2006). That was actually worse though now that I think back on it, I had to run around all over the place to get it all done, signing zillions of paper documents and having cashiers checks printed (I had to do that twice) and then delivering them in person to the title company.

[Grogan]

It's still irritating, and it keeps you from relaxing. (but better than having to go out in public and stuff of course)

I used to do everything with cash and cheques. I was late to use a bank machine too, I think the first time I ever used one was 1989 and I got my sister to come with me to do it. I still haven't gotten around to depositing cheques with my phone (I'd still need to go to a machine to get cash anyway though).

[Zema Bus]

It is indeed very irritating. I gathered and uploaded a bunch of documents, and then I come to a section where they make me take a class about mortgages. I thought it was a weird requirement, I've never had to do that before, but I figured it would probably only take about 20 mins. No, it took four friggin hours! It was extremely long and extremely boring. I finally made it to the end and got the certificate they wanted me to upload. Then the next section asked me to identify which back accounts I wanted to contribute to closing costs - that's what their Instant Equity program is supposed to be used for! My bank account is nearly depleted. So that brought me to a full stop until I get clarification. I still have other chores they want me to do. I've already been at this all day.

I've been depositing checks by phone for a number of years now, I don't have to do it very often but it usually works really well, and better now than when I first started doing that. I resisted for a long time because I didn't like the idea of doing any kind of banking on my phone. The title company had a phone app that worked the same way to take a pic of my earnest money check, it only took a few mins.

[Grogan]

Holy fuck, that's not just jumping through hoops, but FLAMING hoops over a pit of boiling tar. A class about mortages, that's just ridiculous. Then another obstruction with the bank account (could be just boilerplate, but still, you have to stop and find out).

In retrospect, it probably seems like you'd have been better off selling your house first and scrambling to find a place (and/or rent something in the meantime) after all.

[Zema Bus]

Like those hoops we had to fly through in Far Cry 5 I'm really hoping it is just boilerplate. The majority of people aren't using both programs (Easy Path and Instant Equity) so I could see that being the case.

Yeah I probably should have just rented a house for a year (most rental terms are 1 year) while selling the house.

[Zema Bus]

I had another series of documents to review and sign, but these were at the site of a large mortgage company they seem to be using as the underlying mortgage servicer, and it's a company I've had a mortgage with before (Rocket Mortgage). It shows the name of the company I'm currently working with but underneath it says "Powered by Rocket Mortgage". I had to use a different email address than the one they auto-filled since it was the same as the one I used with them before, and was causing a "something went wrong" message until I changed it.

[Grogan]

Oh I really hate that, when a system won't allow an email address to be used because... years ago. In that case I'd create a new one, just for them, that they won't like

[Zema Bus]

I got the inspection report back. Lots of little issues, more than I would have expected for a one year old house. Some of the issues included an exterior receptacle that was not energized, multiple other exterior receptacles that had locks on them, so the inspector couldn't evaluate them. Air handler/furnace unit is not properly supported,vent tube exiting the roof had inadequate clearance above the roof, patio roof separation as the edges, no anti-tip device on the oven, dishwasher drain lacks a high loop to prevent cross contamination from the disposal, laundry room sink not secured to the wall, water heater drain is not attached to the pan, front door deadbolt doesn't engage the strike plate, gravel is in contact with the exterior walls, cracks around windows need caulking. There were other little things like that. And I noticed in the pics from the inspection report they left behind more stuff than I had expected (they moved out last Saturday) - there's still food in the refrigerator and freezer. I seriously doubt they eat what I eat, and it looked packed. And lots of stuff under the sinks. Maybe I should have gone with the other house, it was slightly smaller but it had a larger garage and nobody had lived in it before.

[Grogan]

Still food in the refrigerator? You'll know it's been there too long when the rump roast farts at you every time you open the door

It sounds like you'll have to spend money on that house.

[Zema Bus]

They submitted a request to the sellers to fix the significant issues so hopefully that takes care of it. This house was a compromise, I would have liked to have held out a bit longer now that more houses are starting to come on the market but I'd run out of money if I did. Maybe I'll eventually be able to work out a way to get what I really wanted, Or maybe I'll be stuck there for life. Either way still beats bleeding money until I run dry.

[Grogan]

At the risk of sounding corny, right now it's just a house. You'll make a home out of it after you have been there. As long as you are comfortable and have the amenities you need, nothing else really matters. You could have a mansion and it would make no difference if you only use a few rooms.

[Zema Bus]

I found out I have another Internet option besides the one I knew about (Cox Fiber). Their lowest tier is close to what I have currently with cable Internet. I don't know what the prices are yet.

Airebeam_fiber..jpg (155.18 KiB) Viewed 102326 times

I'm going to have the house wired with Ethernet after the old house sells (when I'll have money again), most newer houses aren't built with Ethernet anymore, they think everyone uses wireless now I guess. So that's kind of a regression. The old house was built with Cat5e but I had to re-terminate all 8 cables since they had it configured for phone use. In the meantime I'll probably be stringing Ethernet cable all over the place.

[Grogan]

That looks great, if it's going to be reliable.

I just have cables poking through the walls. 20 years or so ago, my Dad's friend Hank (who installed alarm systems and stuff) ran a 100 ft cable from down here, upstairs to the other side of the house. It's how my parents have connectivity, they plug in to (and use the wifi of) the upstairs router.

[Zema Bus]

I found another notice on my door from the local city, they want the pine tree trimmed. I had a lot of work done on the yard including trimming the tree in October after the last notice, and I have the gardener coming by every week to maintain it, yet I get another notice. So that's going to be another expense while money is tight. Soon I'll be in a place where there are no trees to trim or grass to mow, and no city ordinances because there is no city either (despite the name "Arizona City")

I have two signings scheduled with mobile notaries, one this coming week for the temporary "Instant Equity" loan that covers the closing costs, and the following week for the actual mortgage. If I can finish up with what's left to do, packing etc, I'll likely be moving the last week of February.

[Grogan]

Well, it's a nice progressive state, but California will California you to death

That's pretty quick, in a few weeks after finalizing things. It'll be a tough move, but time to get it over with and back to some kind of life.

[Zema Bus]

The tree is now very well trimmed. The first signing is done and the 2nd one is tomorrow afternoon, and the official closing day is Friday. I'm also going to crawl out of my cave tomorrow morning to get my driving glasses updated before the big trip since I haven't done that since before the pandemic. I hate going to healthcare facilities but at least this one is just an optometrist. I'll be glad when it's this time tomorrow night

[Grogan]

I hate going anywhere to do anything

That sounds good, that the end is in sight (maybe with new glasses you'll be able to see it... sorry!)

[Grogan]

So did your new house deal close today? Are you now officially a homeowner in Arizona?

[Zema Bus]

It did, and I am indeed Now I'm working on lining up a moving company and finishing up with packing stuff. I'll have to get some more moving boxes. Since the new place has new furniture I'll probably be leaving some some stuff behind, two couches, a dinning table, and all the appliances, so that should save on moving costs. I'm aiming for early March.

[Grogan]

I'm glad to hear it all went through. It's been a long battle.

Now the painful work begins though, packing up your life and moving.

[Zema Bus]

Thanks Grogan Yeah the next stage is the one I'm kind of dreading. I'll probably feel better about it once I'm on the road. At least until driving fatigue sets in.