AW- housing and husky related. ETA: pics

[Deleted]

Since June 15 - when we first had any thought of moving - we have:

1. As of July 1, entered escrow on our new house. There have been only EIGHT houses for sale in our community this entire summer, we lost bidding wars on two of them, we beat out several other buyers for our house and had to go over asking, but we have now cleared all contingencies and are ready to move.

2. As of July 15, opened escrow on our house in Santa Barbara, which we bought in 2007 before the crash and held on to after we left Santa Barbara because I could not bear to lose our entire down payment. Selling to a buyer who is financing 75% but has cash to buy if financing falls through.

3. As of yesterday, opened escrow on the condo we have been living in since late 2011. We had multiple offer and ended up selling over asking. Buyers are buying it as a second home, and also have sufficient cash to close.

I am in shock we did this. There were so many moving pieces and parts, and last month, when I started thinking through whether we could pull it off, I was terrified and thought it couldn't be done. I am rarely intimidated, but I am not going to lie, I was by this. I thought something would malfunction, we would end up selling the condo and not getting a house and would be homeless, or we would buy the house and not be able to sell the other house and the condo and have to carry three mortgages, or we would pay over asking on the house and then not get the same interest from buyers on the condos, etc. And we had been so burned by the crash, until last year we had lost (on paper) almost our entire down payment in the SB house and were paying $3K month, even with a renter, to keep it afloat.

But now, it is over and I am SO RELIEVED. The purchases and sales are as tight as they can be. We will close on both sales before we close on the purchase (sellers have to live there through month end for tax purposes). We made enough on the condo we are walking away with our down payments on both houses and a pretty significant profit (which DH promised I could use to decorate and furnish the new house!), and I am going to live in a big, pretty house with lots of space, and a yard, again.

And since this is one giant AW- Nika's breeder texted me last week and asked for "formal" shots of Nika. Heard back from her handler; they want to show Nika under their kennel's name, which is a Really Big Deal since this kennel bred the top ranked husky in the country (Nika's dad), has been ranked top kennel in the country for years, and consistently wins Westminster. They wouldn't ask for her, and enter her, if they didn't think she had potential to be a STAR. We are going to show her through to championship then quit and have one litter of Nika puppies (get your applications in now, we won't charge for them but they are only going to the best homes; but really, who am I kidding, we will be keeping all the puppies ourselves). This is unrelated except it is another huge AW and I don't think I can get away with another separate post.

AND the rock star photos (ignore the serious, frustrated, pearled lady in the background, but definitely note the equally handsome but older and neutered husky photobombing pic # 2)):

[janegold]

Congrats, must be such a relief!!

And if we didn't already have one enormous mountain dog, I would be putting my application in for a Nika puppy this moment.

[emjacobs]

WOW you've been a busy lady!! Oh and I totally want a fluffy little Nika puppy!

[pantsparty]

Wow, elle. That is a hell of a lot of tumblers going at once. I think I would have had a heart attack mid-way through the process. I'm glad everything went as well as it could, and congrats on your champ Husky!

[snickers]

Go you!

[Deleted]

How dare you AW about your lovely Nika and not PIP!!!

*stomps foot*

[rex]

Awesome!

My head was spinning reading all of that I can't imagine how stressful it must have been to live it.

[Deleted]

This is awesome! You're a rock star, Elle

[HiC]

Your stars are all aligned! Shanti.

[bania]

Your pups are STUNNING!! Seriously they are beautiful.

Yay for everything falling right into place!

[gretchenindisguise]

That's amazing! Kudos to you for it all working out!!

I can't wait to see it all decorated gorgeously.

[Deleted]

It was SO stressful and I am in shock we did it. I am pretty good at logistics usually but this was a lot. To sell the condo while living in it took a lot of effort, staging, keeping the balcony where the dogs have their potty grass delivered immaculate, etc.

And the crazy, crazy, crazy part is that this was not even on our radar two months ago. I briefly thought when I made partner, on June 1, "well, I guess we aren't moving any time soon, maybe we should buy a real house." Then the following weekend we happened to be walking by an open house - for a home much more modest than the one we bought - and decided to go in. I said to DH we should consider selling our house in SB and buying a more modest house here. I had no plans to sell the condo, though, since we could rent it for enough to pay the mortgage. But DH felt strongly that if we moved, he wanted something as nice as our current condo but at least twice as big. This pushed our price point up substantially, which made me nervous because I was afraid we were buying in another bubble, so we decided we should hedge by selling the condo. This was also important because I didn't want to take out a mortgage higher than the tax deductible limit, and we didn't have sufficient cash on hand to avoid this on a higher priced home without getting money out of the condo.

Then we found out the market was so hot we couldn't risk selling our condo until we already were in escrow on a home; if we did, we could find ourselves with nowhere to live (Our agent suggested a short term lease in the apartment complex in our community if we sold first. So an extra full move. No fucking way.). But we couldn't make the offer on our new house contingent on sale of our other two properties because we were in bidding wars on all the houses we wanted. So when our offer on the offer was accepted, we immediately had to put the condo on the market, and Thank God it sold fast (in under a week). If we had not been able to sell it, we would have had to sell stock for our down payment, which would have required us to pay capital gains (15% of the amount of stock we sold). So it was all very tricky, and rushed, and stressful, and I will be celebrating this weekend and really celebrating when escrow closes in all three houses, Nika wins her first show (same weekend as we close on our house), and we have a nice yard and lots of guest rooms.

[muffin0]

Please please please let us have a dog. I promise nothing but the best for him or her.

My kids will LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE him or her.

[amberlyrose]

I want a puppy! Too bad I have 2 already. I guess I like them enough, though

[VeryViolet]

I started reading about the house stuff but it sounded too stressful so I skipped to the adorable puppies. I love them they are so cute!

[orangello]

Congrats on all the house stuff, but ZOMG - your dogs! Are gorgeous! Your older one.../swoons

[Deleted]

Nika is so beautiful.

[Deleted]

And also, just to bolster Nika's cred as ML Mascot, please look closely at her snout. Do you recognize the light beige smudge? You should. It is salted caramel gelato. My baby bear is just as hooked on it as I am, and she had been licking a mostly empty quart right before the walk. I hope she doesn't have to be really thin and quit eating gelato when we show her. That might be a no go.

[elleblue]

Pretty pup!

[snipsnsnails]

Whoa, she's gorgeous!!

[WOT?*]

Nika is gorgeous. Congratulations on all housing fronts. Dealing with a sale and purchase at the same time was frustrating but dealing with two sales and a purchase must have been a Holy Hell. I'm looking forward to pics of the house when you get it pulled together and furnished.

[muffin0]

Also I have to add I will obviously register baby Nika as a therapy dog so he or she can ride with me on the plane.