New House Delays

Theoretically, we should have been bale to move into the new house sometime in April – I’m thinking it may be May at this point.  We still don’t have an electric meter, and no clue on when that will be installed.  It has to be installed by the electric company, and my guess is that they’ve been busy doing other things this winter – like keeping the power on for everyone else.  Once the electric meter is installed, we’re looking at at least 3-4 weeks before the house is finished, then 2-3 weeks after that to close and move in. I’m going to put my money on sometime in May.  The worst part is that the builder has no clue when the install will happen, so therefore, we have no clue.

I’d really like to get in as soon as possible, for a few reasons:

  1. interest rates may rise in June, I’d like a rate < 4% thank you very much
  2. We’re all ready to move out of my mom’s house – desperately!

We can of course, walk away at any time and just be out our 8k escrow – and we’ve seriously considered it.  8k is a lot, but not that much in the big scheme of things, especially when we’d really like our own place.  Unfortunately, we’d have to buy a place and remodel the kitchen (at least), and that would take 1.5-2 months anyway, so we’re not really any better off if we go that route.

There’s no recourse available to us yet other than losing our 8k.  *But*, the builder can opt to raise the price 30 days after the estimated completion date, and we can simply choose to walk away at that point (with our 8k).  But that’s only if the builder decides to try to raise the price on us.  The next opportunity to walk away without losing the money is in early September – one year after the original contract.  For now, we’re just going to sit tight and wait.

We’ve put a lot of things “on hold” until we can move – like saving for a trip to Disney next fall using CC points, because we can’t be applying for new cards when we’re waiting to get our mortgage approved.  Dad is considering changing jobs, but we really can’t until the mortgage goes through. We spend a lot of time in the car driving to and from activities for Daughter Person, because we signed her up closer to the new house rather than my mom’s.  We’re also not as aggressively paying down our car loan until we get the final damage from closing costs.

Right now, our life is full of “when we (finally move)” wishes.

2 thoughts on “New House Delays

  1. donebyforty

    Sorry for the delays. I don’t know to what degree you’re comfortable negotiating, but if the contractor’s delays result in a higher interest rate, you may try having them bear the costs of buying the rate down.

    Reply
    1. Mom Post author

      That specific part has already been negotiated – when we signed the contract. As long as they’re done soon-ish, we’ll still get a decent rate. And the rate is only important to us for cash flow reasons. I have every intention of paying off the house early to reduce our overall expenses for retirement. And with a lower rate, I can put more money towards investments every month. I also have no problem refinancing almost immediately to get a better rate 🙂

      Reply

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