We have closed 2 times now...



Updates- We finally closed on September 5th. Way past the contract date.  Basically no one wanted to take the blame for what happened but I am so happy to be done with the Carmel house.  I have a list of people who we will never use again when buying/selling a home.  Yes we have so many happy memories in the house, but we outgrew it almost immediately after moving in.  The neighborhood left a lot to desired and the taxes.

I learned a lot since listing in March about house selling and buying.  The local markets and tax rates/maps.  I would say I am a bit obsessed with looking up tax rolls, maps and percentages.  All so important that people don't think about.  Yes- you are told the taxes, but you have to find out if they are at tax cap, the school taxes and more.  I found very handy sites to look this all up.  Eparcels works for every county in the Hudson Valley (and probably more but I only checked Dutchess, Westchester and Putnam while we were looking.  his helped with property lines, tax history and sale history, way better than zillow.

On November 1st we closed on our new home.  Super excited and Tim has gone full blown contractor for just about everything in the house.  We did get the keys on the 27th, so we had a few days before hand.  He started with garage so then he could get his tools over to this house.  Then we started with basement, which resulted in flooding with the storm we had.  So while that is on a standstill we moved to the kids room, which now have polished hardwood and painted rooms.  They are set!

Thinking of buying?  Check out my tips-

  • Google the address and check pages 5,6,7 of them to get past the listings and see if anything happened at the house.  One house we saw and loved had a pedophile who had lived there.  Pictures of him in the house were used on a TV episode, bad vibes.  Another house had a murder happen in it (this was a rental we had looked at in June).  Crazy right?!
  • Drive around day time and night, check out the neighborhood, road, traffic. 
  • Schools- Join the local Facebook group for town/school and see what parents are saying.  
  • Use people your friends have used not just those recommended by the realtor.  Our inspection guy was a friend recommendation, he was great and we used him twice (the first house needed too much work we walked away).  We used lawyer that came recommended by friends. The lawyer we used to sell, was awful.  If I am paying you I shouldn't have to do your job. Also ask on FB, you will get the good, bad and ugly for sure. 


Get ready to watch the process as we make this house our home.  Who needs HGTV when you have Putnam Handyman and Karen...  just kidding, kinda!


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