Washing my own carpet

I spent the last day and half washing carpets. The grocery stores here rents out carpet cleaners by day. Monday - Wednesdays you can get two days for the price of one. I rented one to wash both mine and my parent's carpets.

My muscles are aching right now. But it's worth it. The carpets are fresh and clean and it only cost $40 including carpet cleaner fluid (and our labour of course).

Property tax glitch - get my money back

My home buying experience, the closing part, went off pretty smoothly.  I think I was at the lawyer's for a whole of 15 minutes to go over the paper work.  Well this weekend I found a little glitch.  I called up the city to set up my property tax payment.  Now during the closing, my lawyer said that the seller couldn't stop the payment for November's taxes.  No big deal, they paid November's taxes, I will just give them same amount in the final settlement.

 

However, when I talked to the tax office, they told me that payment for November was cancelled at the bank.  Now I'm responsible for November's taxes and a $25 service charge.  I don't think so.   The morning I called up my lawyer and explained the situation.  I forwarded her the invoice from the city, which shows that November's taxes weren't paid, and the $25 service charge.  She's going to see about getting my money back.  I better get my money.

Happy Friday.

Happy Friday!

I'm really looking forward to some R&R this weekend.  It's been a crazy week, hopefully I can devote sometime to 'getting it together'.  Yep.  I went out for lunch every day this week.  I haven't exercised once.  I'm sleep deprived.  I have bills piled up to be paid (don't worry none are overdue I just need time to transfer money and make payment).  The list goes on.

 

My goal this weekend is to get back to normal.  Also, if I have extra time leftover I want to make a new budget.  What with new expenses like mortgage, condo fees, taxes etc. it's important.

Enjoy your weekend.

Condo & my first piece of furniture

At 630 square feet I would describe my condo as cozy. It's one bedroom, one bathroom with a nice open plan. I have stainless steel appliances and an eating bar. There is a little corner fire place and a huge window in the living room. The bedroom has a decent size window too. Right now the walls are kind of a white with a greyish blue tint. I'm planning on repainting. However, there is a huge list of other things which require money, the painting will likely not happen for awhile.

I made a rule for myself when I bought this place. I will only buy one big piece of furniture (anything requiring over $250) a month. This allows me to save up for the piece of furniture and to take my time looking for the right pieces at the right price. It means I will have to live with a barely furnished apartment for awhile, but it makes the most financial sense to me. This month I already bought my big piece of furniture - the bed. I was planning to get a complete bed with mattress, headboard, and footboard(optional depending on the style). However, when negotiating for my mattress I got them to throw in the metal bed frame and delivery on top of a discount. Essentially it's a bed, just without the headboard/footboard. I think I can live with that until I find a suitable headboard I like.

I went shopping with Sis who was visiting. Then when I decided which mattress to buy she said she is going to buy it for me as her and BIL's housewarming present to me. It is very generous and totally unexpected. It feels good to have such supportive family. Also, I'm going to be a good PF blogger and save the money I would have spend on the purchase for that extra yearly lump sum mortgage payment I can make.

Condo offer Take 4

This offer followed closely after the previous offer, but I didn’t want to write about it until now. I’m sure you’ve guessed why. Because I don’t want to write about until I know that I have it for sure. Here are the details.

After the last offer fell through, we immediately put in an offer for this place. The only reason I chose the last one over this one was because of the price (this one is a little more expensive but for good reasons).

I’m going to use some numbers to make things easier but just remember I subtracted x amount from the actual price. This is because I’m not sure the blog is anonymous anymore. The listing price was $80K. After looking over the comparables, we decided the maximum we are willing to pay is $70K. My agent suggested putting in an offer at $58K to give us room to negotiate.

It was Saturday on Thanksgiving weekend that we heard back from the seller agent. The counter is $70K and it’s a pretty final offer. I understand the seller agent had to give up some of his commission in order to get his client to $70K.

There were some discussions over the comparables because apparently we were all looking at the same ones. After pulling up some blue prints etc. my agent figured out we were right. She suggested we try one more counter at $65K to see if they are bluffing. I agreed and off she goes to call the other agent.

Since it was Thanksgiving Weekend everyone was visiting and wanted to see the listing photos. I showed it to them along with photos of another unit on sale, on the same floor, same square footage, layout, and listing price, facing a different direction. Low and behold the other unit dropped their price to $69K!

Here is how I worked it out. We already made the offer at $65K, and if they accept that’s it.

What if they haven’t accepted? I strongly believe they haven’t because they were pretty firm on $70K. If this is the case my agent thinks I have two options: cancel this offer and make an offer on the other unit; or stick with $65K as our final offer. I asked if we could go back and lower our offer. My agent said but they already know we are prepared to pay $65K for it so there is no leverage. Ah…I don’t think so. I was willing to pay $65K before the other unit lowered their price. I mean the listing price of the other unit (from which we negotiate)is already lower than the final offer of this unit.

So I told her to call them back ASAP. If they’ve accepted our offer of $65K then there is nothing we can do. If not, then explain the situation and say our offer is now $63K. If they accept then we have a deal. If not, then we will make an offer for the other unit right away.

Guess what happened? They accepted the $63K.

A friend of my said if that happened to her, she’d be so offended that she'd walk away from the deal. I guess. But I don’t think the offer would be any different for the next buyer since there is a good comparable at a lower price. And you’d have to pay condo fees, taxes, mortgage etc. on a vacant apartment while the next offer comes along.

That's the story on this place. Also, the other unit went Pending two days after us. The final price on that one ended up being $62.5K. I got the keys this Friday. I am slowly moving my things in. I'm so excited. Sorry all. No photos. But I will try to give a better description soon.