Newport Beach House...2 years... sigh...

I am currently sitting at the kitchen bar in Newport house...

We are in escrow with a date to close next week!!

Not too bad for a slow market! Two weeks and we had an offer. 

 

Sam and Doug [a guy who works for us] are doing the final fix it list for the buyer... They had THE dumbest home inspector I swear.   Some of the stuff he wrote up is ridiculous!

 

Wine cooler not on, could not check if operable.

Uhhh hello I'm looking at it right now and it says a chilly 65 degrees?

Master Bedroom Fire detector not operable.

Ok... we pushed the test button and it started screeching?

GFI switch in bedrooms not hooked up.

Uhhh ya, because we didn't put in a light fixture - the owner can pick out their own - when the fixture goes in - Bingo its operable!

Flashing not on right side of fireplace

Hhhhmmm then why can we see it?

 

Whatever... if that is the only kind of stuff they can find... works for me!

We also had a bee problem in a tree in the backyard.  The buyer wants us to remove the tree because the bee's will return - of course he is right but he wants the tree removed because he is putting in a pool and its gotta go anyway...

 

I am starting to get annoyed with this buyer.  Sam isn't, he is use to punch lists for final payments in construction.

 

[We do high end remodeling on custom homes with very picky owners]

 

The buyer for Newport is a retired engineer with nothing better to do than requesting more from us! UGH!!!

Anyway, the best news of all is we got our Final Inspection from the city today. Sam was sweating it but I wasn't... Sam knows what he is doing.

Hopefully a week from today this will all be over!! Keeping my fingers crossed.

Part of me is bummed to see this house sold.  I grew up visiting my Grandparents in this house.  I believe they would be proud to see how we upgraded it.  It took 2 years to complete.

 

Two LONG expensive years.

 

Did I mention expensive?

 

Oh ya I guess I did...

 

That I will NOT miss!!

Nor will I miss the monthly house payments while it sat empty...

or the gas to drive down here once a week I won't miss that either! 

 

It's SO beautiful though, many times I wished we could have moved in it.  However, I know this neighborhood could NEVER have handled the Silva Family. 

They have Nannies in a nice QUIET neighborhood.  We are not quiet...

We have a TV in the backyard for football season. We have outdoor speakers for the stereo system!  On any given night we have 6 people over for dinner [teenagers mostly] and eat in the backyard. We test dirtbikes up and down the street to make sure jetting is right

[just a couple of times nothing obnoxious!] 

We wash dirtbikes in the street in front of our house!

[Wow we sound like nightmare neighbors... but we're not... we are in bed by 10pm most nights and Sam helps any neighbor who asks if they need something fixed]

This Newport Beach neighborhood is full of upwardly mobil yuppie families.  They wear suits and ties, drive BMW's, Mercedes, and Lexus'.  They have housekeepers and Nannies who walk the toddlers and babies to the park every morning to chit chat...

 

So I guess, the bottom line is its time to let the house go.  We will NEVER live in it and we are tired of leasing to renters.  So lets get out while the market hasn't bottomed yet.

 

Besides sometimes I realize the Lord works in mysterious ways.  If Kieffer hadn't broken his leg, we wouldn't have been home to make sure this sale happened.

 

WHOA.... the Lord does work in mysterious ways!! 

 

We just found a 1967 Camaro in the Los Angeles Craigslist!  We have been looking for one like this for a VERY LONG time!!! You see, Sam had one and it got stolen 20 years ago. They never found it... and he has always wanted another one.  He wanted one 'unmolested' meaning no one had done a bunch of stuff to it. To find that... was going to cost a fortune, so we had pretty much given up hope on buying a 1967 Camaro again.  They are getting harder and harder to find.  We find them once in a while but they are usually in Texas, or somewhere back east. This one is an hour away! So we are finishing up the stuff we have to do here and going to check it out. Its in the San Gabriel Valley, where we bought the trailer.

I said "Ask him if its haunted like our trailer" Sam laughed.  We have a family joke going - The trailer is haunted, that is why so many things went wrong on our Texas trip!!  I say it happened on the dinette table because it didnt come with one!

 

If we weren't here doing the fix it stuff we NEVER would have found the Camaro...

 

I'll let ya know if we become the proud owners of a 1967 Camaro!!!