It's official, we better start packing

Things have been pretty slow the past two weeks. Then BAM! Tim (our realtor) called. The house appraised out! This is such a relief. It's one thing to get a near asking price offer, it's another to have the house appraise at or above that price. Sometimes I wonder what we have done to be so blessed. It's so nice to see everything falling into place. I am a little nervous about the next few weeks. We have been holding off on packing until we heard back from the appraisal. Even with all of our preemptive decluttering Eric and I still have A LOT of stuff! With our estimated closing date in three weeks the whirlwind is about to really begin!

 

Not only do we have an entire house of stuff to sell/give away/pack/store, we still have to find the Airstream! (I'm not going to freak out. I'm not going to freak out. I'm not going to FREAK OUT!) The good news is we have a lead on one that is not far from here. It's a 1977 31ft that has already been mostly remodeled. 

Eric and I are going to look at it this weekend. Wish us luck! And here's hoping that totally awesome wolf pillow comes with the trailer!

Oh S***!

On Tuesday we had our inspections. The good news is there are no termites, the fridge is cold and the water runs hot (not really a surprise). The bad news is the septic system has some issues. Surprise! The drain field is busted… as in $3600 to replace, busted! 

In case you were wondering what a drain field is

Y’all would have been proud of me though. Upon getting the news that our deal was in danger of falling through, I totally kept my cool! Within a few hours I had 3 companies at our house giving us quotes to replace the drain field. The buyers received a quote of $3600 at the time of inspection. Rather than conceding nearly 4k on the sale price, or worse loosing the deal all together, we are going to take care of this ourselves. I feel fairly confident that we can shop around and have it done for less. I think we have found someone but if you know of a good septic tank company please let us know!

The buyers have been pretty cool about the whole thing! Yesterday we all signed an addendum saying the drain field would be replaced prior to closing. We are back on track!

Our next hurdle will be the appraisal... which is the real make or break for the deal. I'm trying not to think about it too much. In the mean time I'll distract myself with Pintrest photos of Airstreams and blogs about San Francisco. 

Airstream renovation by HofArc

Approximately 122 hours later...

Our house was listed last Friday at around 4pm. On Wednesday, shortly after the 6pm showing, Mr. and Mrs. C signed a contract and submitted an offer. Our house was viewed 4 times in almost as many days. Each showing received rave reviews and everyone who saw it rated their interest as “Very interested”. I am thrilled to say we accepted the offer. If all goes smoothly, in the next 30-60 days, Mr. and Mrs. C will be the proud new owners of a lovely home.

 

As excited as I am for the potential new owners, I should be a little nervous for Eric and myself. We are about to be homeless. The race is on to find an Airstream. With some estimating that 60% of all Airstreams ever made are still on the road, one would think this would be an easy task. Unfortunately for us this is not the case. We know we would prefer a pre-1982. We also know we want at least a 26 ft or better yet a 31ft. I have a layout in mind, but we may have to be more flexible with all of this. 

While there are a lot of Airstreams out there, there is a huge range in price and condition. It is important that we don’t put too much money into this because honestly we don't know if this is going to work out. At the same time, we are going to be pulling this thing across the country and then living in it! It’s going to need to be fairly nice.

Finding the right Airstream in the right location for the right price is going to be a challenge. I'll keep you posted on how that goes.

I have yet to freak out about our impending homelessness. I'm still riding the high of going from listed to pending in 122 hr.