Adventures in Real Estate

Long time readers may or may not remember, but we owned a rental unit up in Manassas.  But, it turns out that once we moved to Charlottesville, that was a big pain.  And it got significantly worse once our renters divorced-- all the stuff that the husband would normally fix, our tenant now wanted Craig to stop by and fix.  A leaky toilet is no big deal for Craig, unless it's two hours away.  Then suddenly he'd find himself trying to decide if he had time to make the drive, or if it was worth it to pay a plumber (gasp!) to take care of it.  That wasn't ever very fun.  The divorce also made things complicated for our lease agreement, since the husband no longer wanted to be on the lease, but the wife didn't technically make enough money to pay rent herself.  (Now ex-husband swore he'd continue to help her, he just didn't want his name on the lease, but that's a tough thing to hold someone to...)

So we felt stuck.  And on top of it all, they hadn't been particularly kind to our condo, and in order to get it ready to sell, Craig was going to have to put in several weeks' worth of work replacing all the flooring and re-painting everything.

As we always do, we hemmed and hawed for a long time, and ultimately ended up selling it to our tenant.  That felt like a win-win: we didn't have to kick her out of the place, and Craig didn't have to fix it up!  So that was great.  Except, as is also always the case for us, nothing is ever easy and while she was supposed to buy it in May, she had trouble getting the grant money she needed for the down payment, and didn't actually close until September.  It took so long that we'd figured it wasn't going to happen and were quite shocked when we were suddenly informed of our new closing date.

This was important because we were hoping to do a 1031 Exchange, which basically means you have to jump through a bunch of IRS-decreed loopholes in order to defer paying capital gains on the property.  This can only be done by having a Qualified Intermediary hold your money (for a fee!  He's basically the complete OPPOSITE of a bank!) and you have to designate which property you'll be buying within 45 days of the closing date on the original property, and then actually closing on the new property within the next 180 days.  (Those of you who have bought a house ever should be saying-- Wait, why is there so little time to find the property and then SO MUCH time to close on it???  What idiot came up with THAT rule???  That's the IRS for you!)

Anyway, the whole thing was very stressful and reading about it is probably boring you to tears.  Sorry about that.  All you really need to know is that ever since the middle of September, I have been frantically looking at real estate.  Camille has been my little buddy throughout this process, and she has become quite astute.  (Ask her about the place with the bubbled up flooring!  She was NOT a fan!)  We have also pulled Craig's parents in to babysit so he could come along, too.  We have worked everyone around us to the bone in this pursuit!  We made several low-ball offers on places, much to our realtor's horror, before realizing that for reasons I don't understand, those don't work here right now.  And after much anguish we finally actually bought a place.  It's a little townhouse in Crozet (the town just west of Charlottesville) and it's lovely.  If I had to, I could live there quite happily.  (It would be crowded with all the kids, but we could make do.)  (Here's the link, if you're nosy like me and love to look up people's homes!)

We closed on December 7th, and I'm pleased to say that it was THE smoothest closing we have EVER had on a home!  The seller fixed everything we asked them to, and then a few extra things to boot!  Nobody bought an $80K truck the night before closing!  (Hey-- maybe we should have bought a truck!)  All documents were turned in and ready in time!  Our lender didn't suddenly decide that the house was only in "fair" condition, forcing Craig to sneak in and repair things before we'd even bought it!  Amazing!

So that was great.  Except we suddenly had a townhouse on our hands that we needed to clean and find a renter for as fast as possible.  In December.  And, while the townhouse is lovely, it had a bit of a smoky smell leftover from a regular houseguest who was a smoker (but always smoked outside!  unless it was cold!).  So we had a lot of work to do.  In December.

Because, you know, things aren't busy enough in December, who wouldn't want to take on a project like this?!?!?

So on December 8th, we had a family cleaning party.  With all the windows and doors open.  Our kids hated it so much.  (But it gave us a great object lesson on why they should stop leaving our own door open all the time!)  We wiped down all surfaces with vinegar and washed all curtains.  We replaced light bulbs and scrubbed lighting fixtures.  (Apparently smoke is drawn to them because of the heat, and then sticks to the bulbs and heats up every time the lights are on?  Charming, right?)

I'm so glamorous when I'm wiping down every single surface with vinegar!

Nicotine on the back of the toilet tank.  And this is just the stuff that DIDN'T get into her lungs!!!  Don't smoke, kids!

Kendra actually makes those gloves look not like a serial killer!

Craig painted the master bathroom (a favorite smoking spot for this outdoor smoker) and also replaced the fan in there, which was also covered in nicotine.  Camille and I spent a morning hanging out there while the carpets were cleaned. 

Anyway, long story slightly shorter, we got it cleaned up.  We found a great renter.  He just moved in today.  No one mentioned that it smelled smoky.  HUGE sigh of relief.

Now I can get back to posting about the FUN things we did in December!  Like this crazy snow storm...!

Craig counted eight deer behind our townhouse eating grass through the snow!