Category Archives: Home

Our House has a Foundation

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I drove past our new home site after work the other day, and the walls of our foundation/basement look to be completed. It was getting dark and my phone took horrible pictures, but I was able to lighten it up and you can sort of see our “house” as it stands now.

There are 4-5 houses in mostly the same stage of construction on the street. The lumber has been delivered for one of the houses, and it looks like ours is just one step behind it. The sales guy said that once the lumber arrives, the house goes up quickly, yet they’re still estimating that we’ll be ready to move in in March. I’m new to the home building process, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t be done earlier than March if it goes quickly once the lumber is delivered.

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Home-less!

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One of those things you never think about enjoying – but we’re “officially” home less. Closing was on the 1st, and I’ve got the final HUD-1, and the confirmation that USAA is mailing us a check (MoversAdvantage), but I don’t have the money in our account, nor is our mortgage showing as zero balance. They said it could take until this morning for that to happen, so I’m not going to start making any phone calls yet.

Last weekend, we finished packing and put all of our furniture, and a good bit of our “stuff” in storage. Anything we didn’t sell, donate, trash, or bring to my mom’s with us is in storage – and it still takes up a lot of space: 12 storage pallets…

On Saturday, we’ll be making our last drive to DC for a while – our flight to Europe leaves from Dulles. We’re doing a park and fly deal with an airport hotel – we’ll leave our car there for two weeks, then stay there the night we get back into the states: all for $99+tax, less than we’d pay for 14 days of parking at Dulles ($140 in the economy lot). Our flight from Europe gets back about 9pm as well, so having the chance to rest the night before driving 4 hours will be much appreciated.

Here’s to enjoying our vacation without a home on the market to worry about!

Healthcare updates for 2015

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Dad’s company has sent out details to the health plans for next year. We had to select the HRA plan this year because we were already under an FSA plan when we had to switch from my company’s benefits to his. But, this year, the HSA plan is the only option. The company contributes $2250 for a family plan and we’ll contribute the rest of the allowed maximum – one of the few things that is deductible on PA state taxes. They also lowered the employee contribution prices of their health plans. We’ll be paying $77 less per bi-weekly pay period starting in 2015 (about $166/mth).

We rarely go to the doctor except for preventative appointments (and the random blood test for medicine maintenance), so I don’t foresee that we’ll use a lot of the HSA money – but we’ll be able to keep it from year to year.

I’m also playing with our portfolio goals spreadsheet in Google Sheets – and we *might* be able to contribute a total of 75k (including company contributions and matches) in 2015. I don’t want to say for sure since I can only guesstimate our mortgage and utility payments as of now. But, I think I’m going to be shooting for a 60k contribution goal, which might change as we settle into our new house.

The last bit of good news is that Dad’s company no longer has a vesting schedule. He will be 100% vested in his 403(b) as of January 1, 2015. I still have to wait 3 years until I’m vested in my employer’s contribution, but that’s not a big deal.

Here’s to hoping that in 10 years, we’ll be financially independent!

Closer to Closing

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We spent the weekend selecting the floors, carpet, cabinets, countertops, etc that we’ll be putting in our new home. We also got the final contingency expired or removed for selling our house in VA. We’re actually going to sign all of the seller paperwork tomorrow at the bank. We’ll be getting about 82k estimated by the HUD-1, plus about $2500 back from escrow, and $2500 from USAA’s MoversAdvantage. Well more than the 20% we need for our new place.

We’ll be putting down only 20% on the new place, and saving the rest to buy the appliances that the house doesn’t come with (fridge, washer/dryer, freezer, blinds) and networking. We’ll also be saving about 2k per month towards “extras” while we have no mortgage. Our new mortgage plus “escrow” will be about $2100, more than we originally thought, but we’re also getting a lot more than we originally thought, and it’s still less than we are paying on our house in VA, so it’s an improvement. We’re probably not going to escrow – it may depend on any fee/interest rate hit we take by not escrowing – but we’re leaning towards not escrowing. We have the discipline to save it ourselves, and almost 9k/year gaining interest, even at less than 1%, is still pretty good.

The movers are coming this Saturday to take everything out of the house and put it in storage, then we’ll be “homeless”. Closing officially happens on October 1, and we’re 95% of the way there. I’m not going to say 100% until the money is sitting in our account though! Interest on ~85k for at least 5 months will be kinda nice.

Donating, Trashing, Selling, Moving

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Total items out of the house: ???/365

I really have no idea how many things are no longer in the house, because this past weekend, we almost finished packing up the house for the movers to come on the 27th. I took 2 RAV4’s (with the middle seats folded down) worth of trash and recycling to the dump. We also had a junk removal company come and take the piano, a couch and a daybed. We thought about listing them for free on craigslist, but I was concerned about timing (we were only in town for 1.5 days) and potential damage to the house with amateurs trying to move the piano. Since the piano was going, we had them take two other large furniture items we knew weren’t going to fit in the new house as well. $450 well spent I think.

I tried to sell three more items via a Facebook yard sale, but no bites. I think we won’t be using them in the new place, but they’re either worth much more if I had time to let them sit on craigslist, or they might fit in the new place, so we’ll just pay to move them with us and address the issue later.

I have a few (3) boxes marked donation – I don’t have time to get them to the donation center, so they’re in clearly marked boxes and will go straight to the donation center in Pittsburgh once stuff is out of storage. We’re paying by weight, so I’m not too concerned about the cost to move/store them.

When you put all of your stuff in the garage in boxes, you really get an idea of just how much stuff you have. We have a two-car garage – pretty normal in size. It is completely full of boxes about 4-5ft high with a little path all along the edge, and we have more boxes scattered throughout the house. On the plus side, we have almost everything packed up – there are a few last minute things (like sheets on the beds) to pack, but we’ll be able to do that the night before or the morning the movers come. We’ve gotten to the point where we wonder how exactly to pack certain things – like snow shovels…

We’re almost to closing, and it’s looking like we’ll make it to closing on October 1 without any issues. I’ve already put on my calendar when to call the electric company and water company to come out and get final readings. Looking forward to being mortgage free for a few months!

To Escrow or Not Escrow

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With our new house, since we’re planning on putting down 20%, we were given the choice to escrow our taxes and insurance or not.  I didn’t realize this was even an option – we’ve *always* escrowed.  Of course, this is the first time we’re putting a full 20% down on a house.  There are advantages and disadvantages to each option, but I think we’re leaning towards not escrowing because we know we have the discipline and would like the interest.

To Escrow

Escrowing is “easy” – we don’t have to worry about paying our property taxes each year – the mortgage company takes care of it.  If we were bad at budgeting, escrow would be a good thing.  However, we’re pretty good at budgeting for long term expenses (we do it for our vehicle property taxes as well as car and life insurance).  If we don’t escrow, we’ll have to save up for the first payment – which is in April for my mom (same county, different school district).  Now, our home should be assessed as unimproved land for that first April payment, but then we’ll need to pay the full amount once they figure that out.   That’s potentially having to save 8k in one month for taxes.

To Not Escrow

One of my pet peeves about escrow is the analysis that they do each year and it alternates between sending us a check for a few hundred dollars and us owing a few hundred dollars per year.  I wish they’d just assume that the taxes will be higher (because they probably will be!), and charge the difference – instead they send us a check, and are “surprised” when we owe money the following year.

If we save our money ourselves, we’re looking at earning interest on about 9k/year – not much right now, but possibly more in the future.  And we want to pay the mortgage off in about 10 years, so we’d be paying the taxes and insurance ourselves anyway at that point – might as well get used to paying it ourselves now.

Have you had the choice to escrow or not?  What did you choose and why?

Under contract to sell!

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Our house in VA is officially under a ratified contract and off the market.  The expected closing date is October 1.  *fingers crossed* that we make it to closing on time!

We’re going in to sign the paperwork to start our new construction on Saturday – putting 8k into escrow, with a ballpark final price of 362k.   That’ll put our estimated mortgage (with taxes and insurance) payment at as low as 1800/mth , and as high as 2100/mth, depending on the interest rates available when we close and how many points we can pay.  One local lender is offering 3.25% right now for 2 points, but if we go with them, we’ll lose out on a 35k builder incentive credit.  We have to go with the builder’s lender to save that – already figured into the 362k amount.  Their rates aren’t bad, but I don’t know what options we have for paying points to reduce our total payment.

I ran a few numbers, and paying points up front will lower our payment more than putting more down.  We’re going to put 20% down, whatever the final cost is, and save the rest for either paying points or paying for appliances that aren’t included (fridge and washer/dryer).  Anything else will go towards paying the movers and replenishing our emergency fund.

Offer #1

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In the last few days, we’ve had a lot of progress on the selling and buying front.  We’re pretty sure we’ve figured out where we want to live (Jefferson Hills), in new construction. I’m testing the drive into work tomorrow to confirm if the commute is OK.  I got myself a parking pass – it’s in one of the more expensive areas ($121.50/mth) because that’s all that’s left, but it is a garage.  After the bus passed by 3 days in a row without stopping at my stop for me to get on – resulting in me taking 1.5hrs to get home each time – I’m done with the bus for actual commuting.

We also got an offer on our house in VA tonight.  Almost exactly what we were asking for – they offered list price with 10k in closing cost assistance.  We’re countering with list price and 5k in closing cost assistance.  They want to close while we’ll be in Europe, so we told our Realtor that we need to close before we leave (preferable) or after we get back.  So, our closing date may be Sept 30.  Not so far away!  Fingers crossed that we get to closing with this first one!

We’ve never dealt with new construction, but we *really* liked the model house and the available lots.  The model was within our price range, and there were some options that we would do without to make it even more affordable – but we’d finally have our “dream” kitchen!  They want 8k down before we can get on the construction schedule, and then we’d complete the financing when the house was finished.  We’re looking at 5-6 months at least – during which time, we’d be living at my mom’s and saving money (almost 3k/month) to buy the “upgrades” we want that aren’t offered as part of the package – like a specific range or custom paint colors.  We’re trying to do our research about the builder through Angie’s List and BBB, but this is new territory for us.

Has anyone bought new construction?  Anything we should specifically ask or research about the builder or the process?  Or anything else that would be useful for us to know about buying a new construction home?

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

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We have to pick where we’re going to live in Pittsburgh over the next few months. We’re at least trying to decide what part of the city we want to be looking in so that when our house does sell, we’ll be ready to seriously look for something.

We were originally looking at the North Hills (North Allegheny school district), but after commuting for the last week and a half, I’m wondering if we shouldn’t live closer to my job – in Squirrel Hill (my job is in Oakland). I’ve been driving to a park and ride and then riding the bus in (the 61C), and it’s taking me about an hour each way. I leave before Daughter Person gets up in the morning, and I’m home in time to spend about 2 hours with her before she goes to bed. I’m used to getting up at 7:30, to be at work by 8-8:30 and then picking her up by 4-4:30pm. This long commute stuff may be for the birds. I have been taking the bus primarily because at my mom’s the bus takes the exact same route I would drive, it only takes about 5 minutes longer, and it’s free. Living in the North hills, I’d be driving every day, paying $87/mth for parking, and theoretically driving 30 minutes each way (I’m going to assume my co-workers are being generous and stretch that to 40-45 minutes each way). That kind of commute was fine – when I was single, and when I wasn’t a parent. Now, I want to get home to spend time with Daughter Person in the evenings – not sit on the bus or in the car all day.

We’ve talked about possibly buying in Squirrel Hill – the neighborhood just outside of Oakland where I work. I could walk it (about 20-30 minutes – biking is not an option because I’m very hill averse), or take any of 5 buses home – all of which seem to come more often than the bus I ride now. Tonight, the one bus I need to get home drove right past CMU without stopping because it was full – so I waited *another* 30 minutes for the next bus – something I’d rather not continue to do.

There are some advantages besides the shorter commute: a smaller home is easier to find, we’d be walking distance to a lot of great stuff – a grocery, a jewish community center, lots of restaurants, etc. But there are some serious downsides: the schools are crappy from what I’ve heard (especially compared to North Allegheny), and it’s in the city, with smaller yards and property. We’d pay 3% local tax instead of 1% local tax (comes out to about $4000/year). *But*, we’d likely get rid of one vehicle (and be able to get a 1 car garage instead of 2), and not paying gas or insurance on it – but that doesn’t quite match up to $4000/year difference (maybe $3000/year). We’d still have a car payment because we’d be keeping the car with the payment, but we wouldn’t be saving for a replacement car for a while.

The housing prices are within our price range, and in decent parts of town (except maybe the schools). The commute can’t be beat – and if we ever worked outside the city, we’d be right downtown and could get most places pretty easily.  We know this isn’t likely to be our “forever” house, so there are some compromises we’re willing to make.

Are we missing something major to consider? Does anyone have kids in the Pittsburgh Public Schools (Colfax K-8 and Alderdice High school) that would be willing to talk about them?

Settling In – Part 1

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After one week at my new position, we’re starting to settle into a pattern living at my mom’s.  Although, when they say you can never go back, we’re living that at the moment.  We’re all trying to keep our distance from each other, but the house is small, so we bump into each other a lot.

I’ve been driving to a park and ride and then taking the bus into the city.  The first day, I didn’t get home until 7pm, I left campus at 5:45.  Now, I’m getting there earlier and leaving by 4:30 and getting home by 5:30, even with stopping at the local wine store 🙂   If I was driving, I’d only save about 5-10 minutes, because I’d take the same route the bus would.  But, I’d have to pay for parking whereas the bus is free for me as university staff.

Daughter Person is really liking her new daycare – she actually wants to go to school every morning.  The center is really small, but the teacher enjoys what she’s doing and it shows.  We haven’t had any potty accidents except the first day she was there (yay!), so my biggest fear hasn’t materialized.

Our house in VA had 6 showings this weekend, but we haven’t heard any feedback yet.  *Fingers crossed* that we hear something shortly.

Money is flowing out a little more quickly than it’s flowing in due to all the moving and the registration fees and license fees, and not being able to rely on our systems for saving money (like our large freezer).  We’re limping along as best we can, and hopefully we’ll get some new systems in place to help us save money.

How have you adjusted to your new life when you’ve moved?