A summer full of projects

After a drawn out escrow process, largely due to home appraisal delays, we finally have a close date.  It took weeks to get the appraisal lined up, for no good reason, and then the house didn't appraise for the price we had offered.  Our realtor was more than a bit surprised, considering this was only the 2nd house in 30 years of buying hundreds of properties that did not meet appraisal.  What I find most ridiculous about the appraisal process is that they price it to the nearest thousand dollars.  On a $200,000 home that is a percent error of 0.5%, and there is no way an appraisal is that precise.  I would be willing to bet that even with careful record keeping you couldn't accurately track the costs to build a home from scratch to that level of precision, which makes appraising it that tight a bit ridiculous.  Appraisals should be in a range of + or - several percentage points.  The difference on ours was just over 2% of the purchase price.  However, had we needed to pay the additional amount, it would have increased our closing costs be several thousands of dollars.  It seems a bit ridiculous that a sale could fall through because of something like this, but that is exactly what is happening all over the country.  In our case, the seller agreed to just give us the house for the appraised value.  That is another reason to make offers conditional upon appraisal.

Our close date is set for next Friday.  We will move in gradually over the next bit as we will be out of twon the next weekend.  Mom and Dad have graciously offered to help with their truck, so we will be able to take some loads of boxes over during the week before they skedaddle.  Then we have to rent a truck and get all the big stuff moved.  Before we move in we are planning on doing a bit of painting, and then once we move in I am going to be out sweating in the yard.  It's going to keep me busy through most of the summer.  Collyn is already gung-ho about using the house, even if it is just to hang out in.