We received notice that our mortgage has been sold.  Not unexpected but, the first payment will go the new company.  Annoying.  I expect we will get another round of new homeowner offers/threats when the new mortgage is officially filed.  Apparently our warranty is about to expire, we need more insurance, our windows are bad, we need furniture and our water needs treatment. Hope no one sends us anything important mixed in with all the junk.

The well continues to be a problem with the pump running every few minutes without any water usage in the house.  Seems like a check-valve problem to me.  I turned it and the water heater off during out travel.  When we returned from our NY/PA trip I restarted them and purged air from the system. Kyle from Shane’s Pump Service took one look and confirmed my diagnosis.  He pulled the pump and found there was improper wiring and no secondary check in well.  Seemed prudent to replace the pump and wiring to minimize future problems.  They were done before lunch.  Looks like the pump check leaking was adding a couple of dollars a day to our electric bill.

Wait there is a campsite in the woods. Do we have squatters?  Brian and I check it out and find a lot of junk; a tarp over ropes in the trees, a tent, bedding, hammock, cots, tools, coolers, trash everywhere.

Whew it is/was theirs. She claims she thought it was all cleaned up, and she hadn’t been to it since she hurt her knee. ??????

Pre closing Inspection Day- Saturday

OH NO. She is a long way from out, Some or our furniture was mistakenly moved to storage and more was packaged to go so we called the realtor who failed to make the appointment and updated her.  She talked with the other realtor and we found items returned that day instead of next week as proclaimed.

Felix the cat

She has a cat who has only lived at this address and she wants us to adopt it.  It is neither an indoor or outdoor cat as it goes out when it wants but is not sufficiently independent to make it outdoors.  We must decline.

Preclosing Inspection Day 2- Sunday

Still lots to move but she has some help.

Closing day March 11

She signed her papers at 9am with the plan to return for her money at 3pm.  We check the house again at 11 and she still has a lot to move.  She apparently doesn’t understand but our realtor explains it very succinctly to her.  We agree to close at 3 but escrow a portion of her proceeds for a complete out by noon the next day.

Closing day +1

Pictures come of a clean house just before the noon deadline and a clean shed shortly after our reminder.  But when we arrive around 1pm there is still much to remove from the porch and the house and shed.  Seems you can stage a picture to demonstrate your position.

We help her move the rest of the stuff from the shed and house and change the locks.

Closing day +2

We arrive to find piles of stuff abandoned on the lawn and driveway.  Must all be junk at this point.  We spend the day cleaning the house and trying to get the internet working prior to our delayed move in tomorrow.

Day 3

Now let’s see if I can get the motorhome up the driveway.  Slow and bumpy and steep.  Whew made it and only scrapped the jacks at one point at the top where it levels out too quickly for the long wheelbase.  We can do this!  It settled in near the shed and the extension cord reaches the porch. Now to move stuff into the house.

When I contacted the internet provider he confirmed the power supply for his microwave equipment was missing and he would bring one by the house on the way to the office tomorrow morning since he is a neighbor.  He stayed and helped with the setup of our router in the Verizon dead zone by hotspoting my phone with his AT&T phone to permit initial setup.  Guess we need to change to AT&T.

Oh, rats!  We hit a snag with our initial lender.  The offer just isn’t what we want.  Our realtor points us at a local lender she has often worked with.  On the first walk through it appears she can better meet our expectations.  So, we start the process all over.  The burden for this is all on Kent.  He is meticulously downloading documents and uploading to the new lender’s system.  It is an all-day task but looks like we can live with the proposed loan.  We head off into appraisals and underwriting…. just a lot of waiting on our part.

Up before dawn to meet the Inspector at the house by 9AM.  It’s 34 and snowing when we leave camp and we cross a couple of ridges getting to the Interstate.  It is never really slick but the temperature gets down to freezing and we are grateful to meet the salt truck between the ridges. Inspection goes well with no serious findings and the inspector helpful with advice on the small things he does find.  We will have a few honey dos to get done this first summer.  It is a nice chance to look around the property a little more and chat with the seller.

We get a bit more flavor for the area when we grab lunch at Tellico Plains, Tellicafe.  Waitstaff and even customers are all very chatty.  I try their house-make green tomato and country ham soup…salty but sooo good.  A swing by the realtor office puts us in Sweetwater just across from the local Ice Cream Parlor, Sweetwater Creamery.  We check it out of course opting for delicious lemon crunch and pecan caramel.  Back on the road, we are back at camp by dark.  468 miles today. Ugh!

The other two houses are along the TN side of the mountains but about 4 hours south of our current camp.  Our local realtor enlisted assistance from a knowledgeable associate in that area who met us at the 1^st candidate.  It is a winner: log with lots of great interior wood detail, great-room living space feel, cozy, two bedrooms plus a big loft all on a quiet private lot.  The second candidate is a barn-like structure and further back into the National Forest.  Intriguing.  We look at it for about 3 minutes and rule it out.  Interesting and quirky; but, no.  We wander back toward civilization via some really forgotten roads (thank you Garmin).  Once we acquire a cell signal, we call the realtor to confirm our intent to make an offer on today’s house #1.  We learn that the seller has another offer but they will hold their decision until 4PM the next day.  Bummers.  We make the long trek back to camp arriving after 10PM and crash for the night.  The next morning our offer goes in and the waiting begins.  It seems like an eternity until Saturday evening at around 8PM when we learn our offer has been accepted.  We got it!  The process begins.

During our time in NY Lynn has spent many hours scouring home listings and put 6 on the “got to see” list.  One went off the market while we were away.  With a bit more research, we determine another is actually near the county landfill and located on flat ground on a lovely treed lot but surrounded by hayfields.  It comes off the list as well.  Our wonderful realtor set our visits and we preview 2 log homes near Mountain City.  One is really big with 4 bedrooms and a two-car garage but it took 4-wheel drive to get up the gravel driveway.  Ugh!  The 2^nd is pretty nice except the kitchen is small and feels isolated (not the great room layout we are going for), there was very little level ground to park, and no room to add a shop.  It stays on the possible list but we have two more to review.

A quiet (and bit early) toast at home.  It is going to be a year full of changes!