Selling our house started out as a marathon. Let me correct that. Selling our house was like the tortoise running a marathon. On the market for two years, there were definitely times when I believed that the house would never sell. Even when we had an offer and signed the papers and heard from our realtor that the inspection went well, I still had my doubts. Today was our supposed closing day. Last night at 6:15 Alex received the papers from the lawyers (via email) that we were supposed to have signed, notarized and FedEx-ed back for the closing today. As an added surprise, it looked like we would have to bring cash to the closing that we hadn't anticipated--there goes the $300 (yes, three hundred) that we thought we were making on this deal. Last night I went to bed thinking our house wasn't going to sell and we would have to buy the renters a new washer and dryer (after several complaints) on top of everything else. Alex assured me, as he always does, that everything would be okay.
This morning I woke up to a new month and what should have been a new start with our old house behind us, but I was still having negative thoughts that the deal wouldn't go through. Alex went to work and I began furiously going through my closet analyzing the possible eBay value of my stuff to make up for the money we'd be losing every month renting out our house. At 12:34 Alex called, and that's when the sprint began.
12:34pm: Great news! The realtor lowered some of his fees, the earnest money hadn't been deducted from the amount we owed, and we would get our escrow balance back from the bank after closing. Alex had the papers and was finishing up some things at work--before leaving for Florida at 4:53pm--so we could get this deal signed.
1:43pm: Alex gets home with the papers; we head to the bank (with kids in tow) in search of a notary public.
1:53pm: Get to the bank, get two lollipops for Catcher, wait for the greeter woman to tell us that it's a 30-minute wait for a notary. Alex says, "No thanks," and we're out the door. He has a backup. He helps me load the kids in the car then gets in his truck and says "Follow me. If you get lost, just hang a left on Barton Springs and turn into the parking lot of the Hyatt." Ok...
2:23pm: Pull into parking lot of Hyatt. Get the kids out of the car and follow Alex into a strange office complex. We ride up the elevator to the fifth floor and enter a stale office of cubicles and room dividers. Alex asks the first person he sees where he can find April, and she kindly points him the cubicle in the back left corner of the room. I see Alex shaking April's hand as I round the corner with the kids, and two minutes later our documents are signed and notarized. Alex and I part ways. He has to stop by his friend's office--the one who told him about April, by the way--and then drop off our papers at FedEx for overnight delivery before heading to the airport to catch his flight.
2:30pm: Phone call from Alex. There's one more set of papers we have to sign that he just got from the lawyers; however, the good news is we can just sign and fax back so he forwarded the documents to me.
2:41pm: I'm back at the apartment with the kids. I check my email, download, print and sign everything, and take it to the leasing office downstairs to have them fax it for me.
2:43pm: The guy at the leasing office tells me there's some little glitch with the fax/computer/something-or-other system, so it may not go through.
2:46pm: False alarm: it worked!
2:52pm: The kids and I are back in the apartment. I text Alex to let him know that the papers were faxed, and he texted back saying he just dropped the package off at FedEx.
3:35pm: Alex is at the airport with time to spare for a couple tacos. The kids and I are noshing on granola bars poolside.
So the closing didn't happen exactly today, but when all the paperwork arrives at the lawyer's office tomorrow, everything should go smoothly. At least tonight I won't go to be thinking the house hasn't sold.
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