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Real Estate Is Exhausting

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Almost three months ago, I asked the question: “Is Family Worth $400,000?”
After an hour of discussions and spreadsheet preparation, today I can say that the answer for us is “absolutely”.

We will be moving into our new super expensive house in less than two weeks.  This will be a huge change for our family and our impeccably sculpted affordable suburban lifestyle.


How affordable was our home?

Of all the houses for sale in Ottawa, ours was chosen by CTV News to represent our city in its House of the Month – First Time Buyers Edition.  As always, it’s a fun chance to see how far your money goes across this country of ours.  To see your own house in the mix was a pretty sweet surprise!

Honestly, I had meant to give pretty regular updates through the buying and selling process.  I had bought three houses before (one privately) and sold two houses (both privately) and everything had been pretty straight forward.

So, I expected to be able to give a concrete progress update each week.  If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you’ve been getting periodic updates from the Simple Cheap Family.  Basically, this whole process has been drawn out and exhausting.  To get you up to date:

  • It took over a week to negotiate with an out of town seller.
  • It took almost two weeks to get all the inspections and information we needed to waive our purchase conditions.  
  • It took two weeks of decluttering and minor repairs to get the house ready for sale.
  • We gave our failed For Sale By Owner attempt one month before changing course.
  • It took another week of staying up until 1am painting, landscaping, and staging.
  • We listed with an agent and had several weeks on the market with almost daily showings.  Yes, we got that house show ready almost every day with a three year old in the house.  
  • Finally, we found our buyers who waived their conditions today.  Woohoo!

I would like to say that things will settle down now.  But I’m not going to try to fool myself.

In the next two weeks, we’ll be packing, disassembling furniture, dealing with lawyers and mortgage brokers, changing addresses, and trying to line up the contractors for the new house.

When our closing date comes, we’ll be living with the in-laws and building front steps outside while an electrician and his crew rewire our house inside.  Then we’ll need to patch and paint the house, replace the upstairs unit’s kitchen and add whatever we need to in order to pass our fire code inspection to get our income suite legal.

I’ll try to post blog posts for you on a more regular basis, but if you want the up-to-date play by play, follow me on Twitter and Facebook.  I’ve got lots of stories guys.  I just need to have some time to share them!

I miss you all and wish that I could have had more time lately to visit your sites more and respond to the emails and messages you’ve been sending me.

Wish us luck in the next couple of weeks getting into the new house!

What about you?

Have you been wiped out by a real estate transaction?
Any requests for moving blog posts?
Which house would you pick from the CTV News House of the Month list?



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