Class of 2013 is awful quiet

[amybelles]

Checking in...I am looking forward to being a full-timer in a couple days...and maybe finally getting time to relax and spend more time here! It's been so busy!

 

I ended my 30 year teaching career on Wednesday. This weekend we are moving out of the house we've lived in for the past 23 years. I am pretty emotional/sentimental right now, but excited at the same time. We have two more sleeping days here. We will be moving a few pieces of furniture to storage, along with things we may need in the future...everything else has been sold or will be given away or trashed. We will be back and forth to the house in the next two weeks, cleaning up and finishing packing/moving. We're staying at a local campground for now. Settlement is June 27th and June 29th we head out for our first little trip to Ocean City, MD.

 

Wow, Medico! The St. Joseph statue really worked! Congrats! We will be checking out the Villages in September as we have two friends who bought there. I also want to look at RV resorts in the area. How far in advance did you make the reservations for Ocala Sun Resort? We have not made any campground reservations beyond early September when we go to upper peninsula, MI.

 

Koop, good luck with your closing today and congrats!

 

Blue Road, the stained glass art sounds great! I would like to eventually find some art area to get into, as I used to love to do arts and crafts years ago. Good luck with the personal news...that must have been quite a shocker!

 

I will do more catching up later. Hope to get to know everyone here.

[Medico]

Since the winter is the in-season there, Ocala Sun said we got their last seasonal site (Nov. to April). I would recommend NOW to make a reservation for this winter!

 

There was an RV Resort in Beverly Hills, Fl that said they still had space, but they responded too late for my needs. I had already booked in Ocala Sun. Good Luck and welcome.

[amybelles]

Since the winter is the in-season there, Ocala Sun said we got their last seasonal site (Nov. to April). I would recommend NOW to make a reservation for this winter!

 

There was an RV Resort in Beverly Hills, Fl that said they still had space, but they responded too late for my needs. I had already booked in Ocala Sun. Good Luck and welcome.

Thanks for the welcome! I understand what you are saying about it being booked up already due to being in-season. We have friends who are going to be staying at Belle Parc in Brooksville. We still don't know what we want to do...one step at a time, I guess. We have our summer planned, and will probably stay close to family in PA through November. We visited our friend in the Villages in March, and the idea of a home base appealed to us. My dh has to get both knees replaced, so it may be best to be out of the RV for that. Then while we are in Florida for the winter, we will store the RV and use it to travel to other places in Florida (short trips.) So many decisions!

[GR "Scott" Cundiff]

Good luck to all on the house sales, etc. We're out here living the dream. No big problems and lots of big blessings.

[Medico]

Thanks Scott. We're hoping for a rapid closing as there is no bank involved in this all cash deal. I think the house will fly through the inspection. Since we are already living FT in our coach there is no change in lifestyle. The household sale is done and the house is totally cleaned out. We are ready for this closing!

[GR "Scott" Cundiff]

Speaking of house inspections, let me tell you what happened with our first sale.

 

The people buying the house wanted to be present for the inspection. Two brothers showed up, they were both in maintenance type jobs so they knew the lingo. The house inspector was a very nice older man. Frankly, he just loved having the two guys follow him around, all the way up into the attic. I was listening in to the conversation they were having and the more they listened, the more he talked. Repeatedly, I heard him say things like, "Now, if this were a new house this item wouldn't be up to code." Well it wasn't a new house, it was over 40 years old.

 

He, in my opinion, was caught up in showing off to these two guys and they were feeding it.

 

A few days later they came up with a crazy advised offer on the house. They basically wanted it to be rebuilt into a new house that would pass current inspection standards. I said "no" and they backed out of the deal.

 

The next offer brought a different inspector and a buyer who also followed him around the house. He was very positive about the house that, the inspector thought was in great shape "for it's age." The buyer told me it was the nicest house in that price range in the entire area. They found a minor thing or two and we cooperated in splitting the cost.

 

The rest, as they say, is history.

 

No real lesson learned because you can't pick your inspector and you can't keep the buyer from egging the inspector on.

[skp51443]

You can't pick your inspector but you can talk to your realtor about the inspection and what went wrong. It won't help you but it might be enough to have the realtor say "We have had problems with that inspector in the past, please pick someone else." if he gets picked for one of their sales in the future.

 

I was present with my inspector when we sold and he was great, he did a fantastic job and everything he found fault with he discussed how to fix with me. I ended up fixing almost everything he found wrong in a few hours and was able to submit a letter to the buyer saying what had been corrected. I made sure that my realtor knew what a great guy he was, picky fellow and cut the house no slack but didn't go overboard either.

[Koop]

Thanks for wishing us good luck amybelles. The closing went smooth, so that's behind us, we no longer own a sticks and bricks. I've set up our mail forwarding in South Dakota and will complete the legal residence there in August when we get our drivers license, vehicle registration and set up a family trust. WooHoo, 35 more days until I walk out of the office for the last time!

[dosbeagles]

Well open house today. We are moved into the rv and been sleeping in it for the last week. Still have some furniture to sell. Upstairs of the house is completely empty and only stuff down stairs is the furniture for sale. Just posted a bunch of stuff on craigslist. Will see what develops there.

[Medico]

We have been notified that our closing is tentatively scheduled for July 10th. Inspection on Wed. this week. House is only 19 years old with a new roof, new windows, new kitchen, new water heater, new appliances, fairly recent paint job, with all the landscaping done. Will be a great house in move in ready condition for the new owners.

 

All cash buyer put $10K down so she is motivated to close quickly. That's all right by us!

 

We just got back from Syracuse CW Rally. Generally a good time. Some problems with weather causing large areas of Fairgrounds to go under water. We, along with probably 800 to 1000 other RVs were at the new Destiny mall, high and dry on blacktop in 4 of their overflow parking lots. Could walk to the Destiny USA Mall for dinner and shopping. By Friday morning they had a fleet of school buses shuttling us back and forth to the fairgrounds (several miles away). We picked up several accessory items we wanted, and ordered a baseplate from Roadmaster (we already have a Roadmaster tow bar) for our Liberty. Once the closing takes place we will order the Brakemaster Supplemental braking and brake away system, then have them all installed at once.

 

All in all we had a good time. Our grandson had a great time in the Youth activities area both days we were at the fairgrounds.

[harrysteven]

We've been living in our coach since mid-March. We sold our house in mid-June. But we haven't gone on the road yet and won't until I retire in 6-9 months. Are we still part of the Class of 2013?

[Medico]

I would think if you are living full time in your RV, then you are a member of the class of 2013. Welcome fellow classmate!

[So47]

Tell us more. Enquiring minds want to know.

. Slow to reply, sorry, but most of you have gone through this whirlwind before we have. All is good to go EXCEPT a/c was replaced two years ago by a yahoo that was not licensed and did not pull a permit. My GF had no clue as it was a referral from a friend. She trusted him to do the do. Yikes! If he does not follow through as he has promised to fix this snafu, in two days we will have to shell out serious dinero. If this happens, it happens. It will be cold comfort to napalm his behind after the fact, but we are prepared to do so. I am a huge Holmes on Homes fan and I think his b....ing about lousy house inspectors has had an impact on the industry. Even though we are currently dancing on hot coals, it's a good thing. Garage sale this weekend. Please Lord, no rain. Amen.

[TXiceman]

We are in the RV full-time and enjoying it. We had to move to another park north of Houston as the sun and concrete were too much. Trees are nice. I have to work until 12 JUL 2013 and then we are out of here. Headed to a volunteer host assignment in NE Louisana through the fall and then back down to the Houston area for the Hoildays with the grandkids.

 

Sure will be glad to having to get up and go to work.

 

Ken

[Medico]

Well, things are happening today. About 10 years ago we installed a shed and hot tub. The permits and inspections were lost over time, and I could not remember who did the electrical inspection on the tub. Got new permits yesterday, had electrical inspection today, passed!!!

 

House inspection was this afternoon. Hopefully everything went fine. It should because we have put A LOT of money in house over last few years, much to replace things like roof, windows, water heater, new kitchen, landscaping, new garbage disposal, etc. Radon test is ongoing.

 

Everything else is in the hands of the attorneys now. The buyer wants to close by July 10th.

[ronwar]

Checking in to the class of 2013 really late, but we will be out of the house next week. We have actually been planning this for ten years. We weren't planning to have everything done so soon, but the house sold in 1 day. The closing is on the 28th and that is also my wife's last official day of work. My wife managed to sell 80% of the furnishings through friends on facebook. This sunday we are moving in at Northlake park in Houston to stay for a month, while the dust settles from the home sale. Hope to see y'all on the road.

 

Ron & Liz

[Zulu]

Checking in to the class of 2013 really late, but we will be out of the house next week. We have actually been planning this for ten years. We weren't planning to have everything done so soon, but the house sold in 1 day. The closing is on the 28th and that is also my wife's last official day of work. My wife managed to sell 80% of the furnishings through friends on facebook. This sunday we are moving in at Northlake park in Houston to stay for a month, while the dust settles from the home sale. Hope to see y'all on the road.

 

Ron & Liz

 

Congrats! Excellent job on selling your "stuff". We ended up doing an estate sale.

[Medico]

More bad news that will cost money ($1500 in this case). A broken chimney pipe in the attic had evidently exhausted warm, moist air into the attic resulting in a minor mold problem. We have contracted to get it mitigated, but are very frustrated at the additional costs. Other than some very minor maintenance issues which will not be our responsibility this should be it. At least we really hope so!

 

At least we finally got the CoO for the shed and hot tub. Everything passed.

[dosbeagles]

Well here we go again. Signed a new offer on the house. They want a 40 day escrow but we countered at 30, really want this place sold. Good news is these people appear more qualified than the first lot. The new ones are putting over 75% down so there should be no problems with the loan. Will have to do another home inspection but we have fixed some of the issues with the first one. We have had two garage sales and all of the stuff that did not go is going to a neighbor's rummage sale to support her kid's basket ball team. Still have some stuff on Craig's list but hope now to blast off by 8/1. Monday we go in and wife officially retires. Things are back moving forward again.

[Medico]

Good luck with the new sale. We are just waiting for the repairs to be accomplished (scheduled for 6/28) and for the lawyers to finish their work. We had a survey when we bought the house (we paid for it) so we are hoping the buyer will accept our original survey in lieu of a new survey. If not, there's another $300 lost. Oh well! We will sure be glad when this is over.

 

This is the very last house we will ever buy, period. Too hard to be rid of them. If we had been renters, everything would be done by now!

[saltytuna1]

Just checking in to say that after 4 and a half months of fulltiming all is great!! To all of the homesellers, hang in there it will happen. The home sale was by far the most stressful part of the fulltime move. I 'm sure the laws differ state to state but in our case we negotiated with the buyer on a dollar figure to compensate for a few of the repairs called out in the home inspection so that I didn't have to deal with them. The inspection also noted all items that weren't up to 2012 code on our 1957 house and we had to laugh at quite a few of them, I did replace a few GFCI receptacles because they made sense and were not replaced earlier because I was lazy. We also negotiated some furniture towards the repair costs, that was a win-win for us.

 

Safe Travels,

Steve

[lg61820]

Looks like I am flunking and won't graduate with my class. I didn't get the house ready to sell and then accepted a new assignment at work. Not sure why those things happened. Maybe a fear of living life without restriction? Best wishes Class of 2013. I will shoot for Class of 2015. LG

[Jim Hicks]

Just checking in to say that after 4 and a half months of fulltiming all is great!!

Steve, let me second that. Robin and I have been full timing since April first. We haven't looked back. The only regret is that we didn't do it sooner. BTW if you bring that Ultra to Sturgis let me know. We will be volunteering at Custer, and have plans to make our first Sturgis Rally.

[saltytuna1]

Steve, let me second that. Robin and I have been full timing since April first. We haven't looked back. The only regret is that we didn't do it sooner. BTW if you bring that Ultra to Sturgis let me know. We will be volunteering at Custer, and have plans to make our first Sturgis Rally.

Jim, As of now we have no real plans for August, but we just might be close to the South Dakota area (Minnesota). I'll let you know if we decide to make the ride over towards Sturgis.

 

Safe Travels,

Steve

[Medico]

Well our buyer has cancelled all contingencies except the mold mitigation which is scheduled this Friday. The bill should be about $1275 total for that. The buyer is as anxious as us for a quick closing, so if the lawyers are done and everything is ready, perhaps we can close before July 10th. WE HOPE SO! This has been a long process and we are glad it's almost over.

 

We have been living FT in the coach since May 2nd. We are getting settled in quite nicely. This heat over the last couple of days, and continuing to the weekend is kind of tough. Have to use the AC all afternoon until bedtime.