SOLD!

Received the offer on Tuesday, met with our realtor Wednesday, countered and our counter was accepted that afternoon.  Close of escrow is on 10/11 and we have to be out by 10/31.  We're hoping to be out at least a few days before that but we'll see.

Sold sign was added yesterday, lock box for realtor showings was removed and they picked up the stack of flyers the real estate office had made about the house.  She suggested we keep a few for our 'scrapbook' - and we also saved all the pics of the house off the real estate website.

We have a lot of memories in this house and many parts of leaving are hard.  But our new adventure will be amazing and we are super excited about it!!

Termite inspection happening in about an hour and the full house inspection tomorrow morning.  The roof inspector will 'just show up' so we'll be ready for that as well.

J. is heading to Visalia today for a high school reunion lunch so H. and I will be manning the home front.  J. will be home tomorrow afternoon.

On Monday, we will trek to Reno and Carson City for a few days with a list of things we need to take care of - including looking at apartments and visiting the boarding kennel to check it out.  And getting a PO Box in Carson City so we can start having mail directed to our new home.  (I don't want to change address to an apartment for a couple months and then back to the house - we'll just use a PO box to start and when we're in the house, we'll revert back to using that address and cancel the box).

We're super relieved that it sold quickly and while there was a twinge of 'damn, we should have asked a bit more' (the offer was what we asked), we are fine with just being done.  The new owners have aggressively planned to release all contingencies by 9/23 so it will be a super busy ten days or so of inspections, (likely) some repairs, etc. - .

Time to get dressed to prepare for inspector arrival and then I need to work on cleaning the house.  We're relieved to not have to make it spotless day after day but the new owners will be here tomorrow to accompany the inspector so we want to have it look nice.  H. and I plan to stay while the inspector is here - two hours in the park on a very hot day is not appealing to either us or the dog - so we'll have them inspect the study and then we'll close the doors and hide out in here until they leave.  I will attempt to get H. to watch a movie with me - fingers crossed.

UPDATE - met the new owners today - they came to accompany the inspector.  The inspector arrived early - I was just stepping out of the shower when he rang the doorbell - thank goodness H. was home to answer.  He (inspector) started the outside inspection.  After I was dressed, I went outside and asked 'so are you expecting the new owners?'.  His iPad said 'meet owner' which was me as far as he was concerned.  But the family showed up - they were outside for quite a while.  The inspector didn't ask them to come in with him - so I finally went outside and invited them in.

Very nice couple.  Eight year old daughter.  And the wife's parents who have been in America for a few months.  They live in Hayward and are basically moving out here for the same reason we did:  better schools.  As I was talking to the wife, she said 'you can stay longer if you'd like'.  I said 'well, we'd both need to talk to our husbands about that and our real estate agents, too'.  Later, the husband approached me and said 'we aren't going to move here until January so you really are welcome to stay here if you'd like'.

Could it get any more perfect?  Really!  It's perfect.  I emailed our agent and he explained the next steps - we'll let the process go through 'as is' but there is a form for the buyer to rent/lease back to former owner so that's what we'll do.  Definitely through November and hopefully December if needed.

We really have no idea when our house will be done so having this extra time will be stellar.  Their mortgage and taxes are more expensive than what we pay currently but not more than we'll pay for our new house so...it will be fine.

No logistics of moving to temp housing at this point.  No worry about what to do with the pets.  We have another month or two here to work through all that.

OH - and they bought the dining room furniture and kitchen table and chairs from us as well.  They will bring cash next month and we'll just leave those pieces here when we leave.  They also will keep the chaises and pool bins.  (The chaises were going to be trashed so....we'll give them away).

There's really not a lot of furniture we're taking - if we keep whittling down what we have, we'll be able to get things moved up there pretty efficiently.

I am worried about winter.  Traveling up there in December is troublesome.  But J. said (when I called him in Visalia to share the incredible update) 'we'll just have to dodge storms'.  But at this point, for all we know, we might be up there at the end of November and in our house.  We'll see!