Nice Weekend

It was a relatively quiet weekend in Somerville. On Saturday morning we met with our landlord to discuss moving out October 1st. Knock on wood, we will go through the home purchasing process without any delay. After the meeting we went for a drive to find an outdoor place to walk. I originally intended to go to a state park I had been to in Georgetown, but after ten minutes of driving, I realized we were past the general area of the park. So we continued driving westward to find something to do. In Essex I spotted a used bookstore and we stopped to fulfill Jennifer's need for used books and rest my tired leg (gym + driving standard = sore leg). While in the store Jennifer ran into a teacher she used to work with in Lawrence, although she couldn't remember her name. Rachel, the name we later found out from Meghan, knew of a cool little walk only a few miles from the bookstore. We got directions from her husband and found the little parking lot next to Route 128 and started walking into the woods. After about twenty minutes we were standing atop this giant rock that overlooked all of Cape Ann. It was a bit cloudy so we couldn't see Boston, but the view was great and the wind up there was refreshing.

We climbed back down and hopped in the car and drove towards Gloucester. There was a little festival going on so we walked through the shops and enjoyed the sea air. It was such a beautiful afternoon and it was nice to be outside. Afterwards we stopped at the mall to look for stuff for Jennifer and came home and made some pasta.

Yesterday, Tom and Jeny came over for breakfast and hung out until about noon. After that we just sat around until the late afternoon, when we went for a walk all over Somerville. It was a relaxing Sunday and yet I was still exhausted at bed time and went right off to sleep.

Sometimes You Gotta Jump Right In

If any of you are surprised by our jumping into the house thing, I can assure you we are just as surprised. We literally went from looking online last Wednesday to making an offer on the following Monday. Last night reality began to sink in as we reviewed several mortgage offers from a bunch of lenders. I suppose if we had done some research we would have learned that closing costs are a bit crazy. However, once we separated the deposit from the closing costs we were dealing with more friendly numbers and it all seemed a little more possible. While many of you might not care about this information I want to pass the word on since I wish somebody had provided this sort of info to me before I got here. Once again I have to thank Jennifer, because she really pulled it all together. This morning we woke up with a new focus and have now successfully sent an application for the mortgage, since we were required to this by Friday. Luckily Cara stopped by last night and let us in on the little secret that you can negotiate your interest rate with the lenders and so Jennifer was able to cut almost .5% off of our original quote, which over the course of the loan saves over $10,000. Nice!!!

Looking at the big picture it is really an easy process, but it when you don't know all of the steps it gets a little nervewracking. So the next step is the home inspection next week, followed by the signing of the purchase and sale agreement next Thursday. Then all we have left to do is wait for the closing at the end of September. It will all be done soon enough.

Moving On Up

It's the little one in the center with the wide driveway and two car garage.

We made an offer today and as of 7PM this evening it was accepted and we are one step closer to owning our own home. Next up is finding the financing, which shouldn't be a problem and then getting the home inspection before signing the bill of purchase and sales. I have to give tons of credit to my wonderful wife for driving up to Amesbury today and doing all of the paperwork and leg work for this deal. It's all happening so quickly, but I think we are both please with our purchase. The address of the house is 14 California Street. Here is a Google Maps link. The pointer seems to be a bit off, but from the photos above and the map you should figure it out. We own from the corner of California all along the California Extension.

I have to get back to work, but I wanted to put up some details.

Keeg

Location, Location, Location

Well it really does come down to Location, Location, Location. After a string of open houses today our favorite house has now shifted a little bit. While the house from last night is still number 2 on the list, we found a place today with the same style, but in a much better location. The new house sits on a .3 acre lot and has a nice flat yard. It also has a two car garage and is in a very quiet neighborhood on a more or less dead end street. Now of course we are thinking in the back of our heads, how do we know that there isn't another house out there that is better, if we wait a little longer. While we tend to make these big decisions relatively quickly, I think we do use logic and try not to over analyze things. Yes we could look at house for the next three months, analyze trends with regards to location, sale price vs list price and see hundreds of houses, but what is that really going to save us in the long run. I think we have a good idea after only a couple days and over a dozen houses, about what the value of some of these places should be and what we should offer. The top two right now are far better than anything else within this price range and really fit us very well. We originally thought of maybe getting something that we could fix up, but we really don't have the capital to do that anytime soon, so we shifted to looking for something that we can move into and might need a few things done here and there, but no major renovations.

The plan for now is for Jennifer to go up to Amesbury tomorrow, talk to the planning office about a first time home buyer grant (apparently they have a few of these that they give out if you attend a couple seminars and of course buy in Amesbury, stop by the Provident bank to see what sort of interest rate she can get for first time buyers and then meet my mom and Jon at the two houses in question. At that point assuming everything goes well we will put in an offer. Its a big step, but at this point we have seen about half of the houses available in Amesbury within our price range and we are comfortable with the place. My how quickly things can change.

Keegan out!

Back To The 'Bury??

I am sure this is going to come as shocking news to some reader, well to those few readers I have left, but Jennifer and I are really close to making an offer on a house in Amesbury. We decided on a whim to go check out a few houses this weekend and really fell in love with this one place. In our opinion it is a really amazing place, hopefully we are the only people that feel this way. It's relatively close to downtown, the only drawbacks seem to be that it is on a very busy street and the street the driveway is on is extremely steep. Besides that though we have had a hard time finding much wrong with it. The inside is amazing and was done over recently and wouldn't require much if any work at all. So what's next? Well we don't want to seem over anxious, although it would be a huge disappointment if somebody were to make an offer on it before we get the chance to. The plan is to talk our agent tomorrow to set up another showing on Monday, so my mom and Jon will get a chance to check it out. If they find it acceptable, I think we will be to quote another recent BoCaNO house buyer, "Pulling the trigger." What that means is that barring any other buyers trying to get in on the action or major disapproval from my mom and Jon, we will be one very giant step closer to moving out of Somerville and back home to Amesbury. For now we just have to hope that anybody interested in it was enjoying the tax free weekend, and not thinking about the house.

More positive updates soon, hopefully.
Keeg

The Heat Subsides

Finally this afternoon, Boston's fever broke, and now the temperature has dropped below 70 degrees. At sometime between 2 and 3 some cold air overtook the area and tonight we have shut down the AC and opened the window for a change. We played our annual whiffle ball game for BoCaNO and then went to the Sweetwater Cafe. I passed on eating and drinking because I have already been out a couple times this week and we really need to start saving money. I am looking forward to the weekend and taking a break from code writing. Hopefully it won't be too hot and I will get a chance to go to the beach for the first time this summer. I really want to go swimming in the chilly ocean.

Another Weekend, Another Dave Matthews Show

On Friday afternoon my wife picked me up at work and we drove towards Hartford for a later than usual show at the "venue formerly known as the Meadows." Luckily on the way there we encountered some crazy thunderstorms north of the city. The further south we drove the darker it got before the rain started pouring out of the sky. A little known fact about me is that I love thunderstorms as long as I am in the safety and security of a car. Anyway I used the video camera on my phone to try and catch some of the lightning and I succeeded.

Connecticut Thunderstorm Video (Requires Quicktime)

Eventually the rain subsided and we made it safely to Hartford. The show was pretty good, but nothing that really stands out against the rest of the shows. The band did play Sleep To Dream Her for the first time in over three years, which was pretty cool. Besides that there weren't any other real stand outs from the show.

Afterwards we drove down to the Riebe's for the night. The next day we went to KettleTown State Park, where we had a nice picnic and did some kayaking. The water was kind of nasty in the little cove we were in and there was a done of goose poo all over the place. However, after getting in the kayak and paddling around the corner and out into the open lake I was able to find a nice spot to go swimming and boy did it feel good. I will say though the condition of the water in the lake made me appreciate Long Pond that much more. We stayed at the Riebe's again on Saturday night and came back to Somerville on Sunday morning just in time to catch the latest Pirate movie at Assembly Square. The movie was okay, but nothing to write home about, I am sure I will end up seeing the third installment next summer though. After the movie I slept for about two hours and then upon waking up decided we should go to Newbury for a hike at the Old Town Hill.

We made it to the Old Town Hill at about 6PM and quickly realized we needed bug spray, but didn't have any. We quickly made our way through the trail system with our arms flailing like crazy people to keep the bugs off of us. We didn't see much, but it was nice to be outside in the unusually cool air, the calm before the heat wave. We capped off the trip to the north with a visit to my mom's house to get Red Sox tickets for Monday's game against the Indians.

Oh yeah I almost forgot, before we went back home we went to dinner at Skip's. For those of you not in the know, Skip's is a local classic, it is an old school restaurant that is only open in the summer. They serve greasy burgers, but their trademark is the Curly Q fries which are to die for. We ran into my old friend Bonnie at Skip's and I introduced her to my wife, which seemed to surprise her. Of course we made a quick stop at Hodgie's before leaving town.