Whew! I was all the way at the bottom of the third page of threads! Time for me to post!
Hope everyone has been well over the past couple of weeks!
Reason why I haven't posted lately:
Friend of a friend (well, the "boss" of my consultant who is helping me through the land mine of closing my practice and being sued) was selling a house in the neighborhood I really want to live in - 2 blocks from the elementary school, 3 blocks from the neighborhood pool, 5 minutes drive from the day care, 10 minutes drive from church. All of these things are at least 20 minutes drive away from our current house. My consultant told me her "boss" who is really her best friend, I think, was selling this house - she and her husband bought it for a hispanic family who moved here a few years ago and weren't citizens so couldn't get a mortgage. Now they are citizens and have bought the house across the street from this one.
The "boss" told my consultant that SBH and I could have first dibs, before they put it on the market. So I assume there is no realtor involved, that the boss will show us around the house, give us a couple of days to think about it, then we get the mortgage etc. and no big hassles.
WELL. There WAS a realtor involved - big wig big city Richmond realtor who put the for sale sign up BEFORE WE'D EVEN STEPPED OFF THE PROPERTY! Then tried to convince us not to buy it, I don't know WHY?! I get pretty stressed, but we went ahead and put a contract on it less than 48 hours after we saw it.
Just got the inspection report back last night. I was getting really excited about moving - looking forward to being in the area in which I spend most of my time, near friends, much better neighborhood for the kids, etc. etc. The house is on a slab, and is 27 years old. Realtor told us the roof is 12 years old and so has used up about half its life. B.S. It is a 10 year roof. There are soft spots in the siding where water may be leaking into the walls. The plumbing is 27 years old and imbedded in concrete slab. The heat pump is new, but the air handler is 27 years old. BOO! And we already had some reservations because the house is about 400 square feet smaller than ours now.
So we're going to have to tell the ahole realtor that we're not going to buy it. I hope it doesn't ruffle too many feathers. But, ya know, I've lived my life trying not to ruffle other people's feathers, and it has gotten me nowhere but sad.
I am really disappointed, though. And the more I think about it, the more I realize how much disappointment, isolation and loneliness this house has for me. We bought it to get out of living with SBH's parents, where we'd been for 8 months. It was 1 mile away from the property his dad had just bought to build an ATV dealership, which SBH was supposed to run and inherit. It was about 10-15 minutes drive from the office where I was practicing at the time. And it was about 15 minutes away from SBH's sister, who has a daughter 8 weeks older than our daughter. We were swapping baby-sitting at the time and I thought I would be close with her and the girls would see each other a lot. SBH's sister also lives in the same subdivision as my closest and oldest friend in this area, who I also thought I would see more of and spend more time with.
SBH's dad is now in bankruptcy because he couldn't get the county to approve his building, his wife left him (SBH's step-mom), and he is selling the ATV dealership, if he doesn't lose it to the bankruptcy. He fired SBH who was working for him in his machine shop until the ATV dealership came through, 6 months after we'd bought this house and 3 months after I'd gotten pregnant with our second child. SBH's sister is not a healthy person, and only causes pain & distress in our life. A year after we moved into the house, she decided to work full time at home, watch her own kids, and not take care of my D. I went through the stress of finding a day care person, then she moved her D to the same day care. Which was great, but I still felt resentful. Novw we hardly ever see her or her kids. I have moved twice from the office I was in, to offices further and further away from our house. Now I don't even have an office! And my best friend is so involved with her kids and her neighborhood, she never has time for me. Our neighborhood had few houses when we moved in, but now is full of retired people and young couples with either no kids or tiny babies. Yuck.
I have a couple of close friends in the area I want to move to. I am really disappointed. SBH doesn't really want to move. THat makes me feel sad and lonely. He said we will continue to fix up the house (good thing, since we have $600 worth of fix it up stuff from Lowe's in the garage now!), and I can keep looking in that neighborhood for a better house. I guess I just feel discouraged and disappointed...
There is more, but I'm going to end this post because it is probably really long and start another one, just to keep it organized!
Peace to all - just writing this and knowing I will get supportive responses helps me feel better about everything - thanks guys!!!
