Hectic Week, But Positive Outcome

The last week to 10 days or so has been a time with a minimum of active participation on the forums, and especially on the blog. I’ve not even done much more than check other’s blogs and to check forum topics and comments. I have made a few comments on the forums, but little else.

The reason is that it looks like our home is sold and the 3 year process of trying to sell it, research and buy our Mobile Suites, and begin to think of living in it full time. A month or so back, I had commented here on the blog that we had a young lady sign a contingency contract, contingent upon her being able to sell her home in Topeka, Kansas.

About a month to a month and a half after that we got an e-mail from her that she had experienced a medical emergency and that she had a doctor’s appointment with an oncologist on March the 9^th and a different physician on March 29^th. Shortly after what would have been her oncology doctor’s appointment she sent an e-mail, and from that message I thought she still had the plans to buy the house.

Then, she sent a later e-mail that she had gone to Topeka where two different parties had made offers on her home. The problem was that their offers were $15,000 to $20,000 less than what she needed to get. Fairly soon after that our realtor contacted us to let us know that she had released her contract on our house.

Because of that, I got gun-shy with any others that even looked at the house. While we were on our Red Rock Canyon vacation, we got a call when we were traveling to Elk City to see Alicia and Slade at Rolling Retreats. The call was from a lady that had looked at the house soon after the first lady’s contingency contract was signed. On that occasion, we told them of the contingency contract and they informed us that they would have needed to have done a contingency contract as well.

In their call back on to us on Tuesday, April 19^th, she said that she and her husband wanted to look at our house again and make an offer on it. We scheduled an appointment for Wednesday evening at around 7:00pm. That would give us time to do our running in Oklahoma City and still get to the house to vacuum floors and do a little cleanup.

Wednesday came, they came and looked, and then we sat down to talk. The outcome is that we are losing money on the house, but it will still be a financial gain for us as we will no longer have that large house payment. They are a young couple (remember, young is relative since I’m nearly 65) with two kids. Even the kids are excited as they both have friends who live in our neighborhood.

So it is basically a win-win-win situation. We’re winning by selling the house. They are winning because ours is a better house and they have sold theirs already, so they need a home. Their kids are happy because it isn’t a completely uprooting experience. Since we have been selling and giving away “stuff” for some time, there is little we would have to do to get moved.

The closing is scheduled for May 20. We told them that we could be moved out of the house before the weekend before that, which was this weekend, the 14^th and 15^th. That is a godsend for them as well. He was either awarded or won a trip to Hawaii at his employment, along with several others. Their planned departure date and time is scheduled for May 21 at about 1:00pm. They were faced with less than 24 hours to move and organize things before the trip. As it is, they are getting to move this weekend and will have time to get ready for next weekend’s trip departure.

We moved our Mobile Suites to a mobile home park on the northeast side of Oklahoma City. We will gain again as it is less than three miles to work and the lot rent there is less than $200 a month, including water and sewer. In addition to that, we are located immediately to the west of a large RV park called Twin Fountains RV Park near the junction of I-35 and I-44.

All along, I have been hesitant to post notices of the impending sale of the house because of the loss of the first contract. I prefer to remain “gun-shy” until after the papers are all signed. But, this week the couple buying the home got their final approval of their loan and the home inspections were done with little of anything to be concerned about.

I guess I can now at least pretend to be less gun-shy with all things falling in place for the sale and can now announce that since last Sunday, May 8, we have been officially living full-time in the coach.

We were fortunate in that a space became available at the last minute that makes backing the coach into place a lot easier. In other words, there isn’t any difficult 60 to 90-degree backing turns. There is also a fence on the east and north sides of the coach and some on the west. So, with about what we planned to buy in temporary fencing for our lot, we are getting a much larger yard for the dogs.  We installed the new fencing today.

(Link to above fencing, two panels equaling roughly 6 feet in length that interlock together.)

http://www.lowes.com/pl_Decorative+Garden+Fence+Panels_4294807986_4294937087_?cm_cr=Fencing-_-Web+Activity-_-Fencing+Top+Flexible-_-SC_Fencing_TopFlexible_Area-_-124265_5_fencing_Pop_Cat-5

Two more winners there; well, winners except they are getting a lot smaller yard than they had before and no pet door so they can come and go as they please. But, since we work less than three miles away, we can drive home for lunch and let them out at midday. They are limited in space that we will allow them to run while we are gone, but they aren’t too active anyway at 14 years for TJ and 12 ½ years for Lady.

While we will be “static” full-timers, the next phase has begun. Once we retire in 3 to 5 years, then the traveling will begin. Also, with a big house payment gone, it will be easier for us to afford some more trips, including 2-week vacations. Bring it on!!!

Pictures to come later, after things slow down a bit.  We’ve been busy for roughly 10 days trying to get things done.  We could both use some rest.