We're buying a house!

I have at long last some news to blog about! Yes we found our home! 

What a mad week it has been! Firstly let me say thank you to all of you that sent me birthday wishes via email and in the post, Much appreciated. On Sunday Rob and I went to view a bungalow we liked for the second time. Having given it the once over already we definitely liked the place, but wanted to see it again to make sure. On Sunday evening Pat, our realtor, Rob and I sat down and drafted an offer for the property, it was submitted Sunday evening and the offer time was extended to 8 pm on Monday evening (my birthday).

I was hoping to be able to tell you that we secured the sale on my birthday, but sadly that was not to be. The owners countered the offer and it was still to high for our liking. I can safely say I was pretty depressed on Monday. However, all was not lost, after a phone call between agents, we knew that if we met these people half way we would make a deal, so that's what we did on Tuesday and submitted a new offer. Yesterday we heard back that the offer and all our terms had been accepted, (pending inspection next week).

The offer will complete on Feb 19th if the inspection goes well and finance is secured, which should be okay as we have all our ducks in a row. The closing date is May 1st, and we should officially take up residence at the end of May when our rental lease expires, which gives us 4 weeks to do a couple of things in the house, a little bit of painting and move our stuff in.

So what's this bungalow like I hear you ask? Well it's old but beautifully renovated, with a large, new and rather gorgeous kitchen, it has 3 bedrooms, the master one being exceptionally large as the owners added a 12x12 extension., The hardwood floors throughout are all new, as are all the windows and the roof. There is a dining nook off the kitchen with French doors that open out to the back deck with is so cute as it runs along the entire length of the bungalow at the back. The living room is very cute and small, more of a formal seating area, and then adjacent to the living room, double doors take you through to the family room, a more casual area for TV and recreation, off the family room in a small passage is a double cupboard that accommodates the washer and dryer and opposite that a cupboard which currently houses a freezer and the cats litter box. :o) This is also where the back door is located. In all there are 3 access points at the back of the house, the third door being in the master bedroom which leads out to the deck also. There is one bathroom in the property next to the master bedroom. There are 2 sheds in the back garden, a smaller garden shed and a large...very large storage shed. The whole place is very cute and had loads of curb appeal. It's in an area of Dartmouth that we like very much and located on a quiet and pretty street full of mostly other bungalows. A well manicured box hedge frames the front of the property giving it even more of a cosy and cute appeal.

In our deal we negotiated all of the following: all curtains and blinds, stove, fridge, dishwasher and microwave, electric fireplace, lawn mower, hedge trimmer, bathrooms cabinets and mirror. As they say over here, everything is negotiable in real estate! It is very different from the UK where you tend to buy the bare bones and not a lot else. The owners also agreed to fix all guttering, weatherproof and fix all internal and external doors (which were ill fitting in some cases) and box in the electric meter on the side of the house. I can tell you these owners have great taste in colours and decor, so the great thing is hardly any painting to be done as I love it the way it is. Just their boys bedroom needs the once over.

So now it all systems go with papers to the lawyer, life insurance to sort out, and our down payment, which is currently being held in an RSP (retirement savings plan) over here. Exciting times and much to do in the coming months, I can't say I am looking forward to moving as I didn't much like it last time round :o) But at least we will be in before Summer. Just keep your fingers crossed for us that the home inspection doesn't throw any spanners in the works!

In other news we have just renewed our permanent residence cards, we had a few months left to run on the current ones, but wanted to make sure we renewed in plenty of time, not knowing how long it would take, a mountain of paper work and 7 weeks later they arrived. We will definitely go for citizenship within in the next year or so...whenever we have time to fit it in!