With apologies to William Shakespeare and John Steinbeck, it was quite a summer. There were a lot of things going on, but the big news was that we moved — not far but enough to create a great deal of upheaval. The post title is perhaps a bit hyperbolic, but moves are always stressful and this one came with extra challenges.
My wife, Lisa, is a rising star with the state of Oregon, and early in April she told me that a move from our home in Wilsonville to Salem, the state capital, would be beneficial for her career. The prospect of moving to Salem was a source of low grade tension for several years and something I fought. I loved our home and the unique neighborhood we lived in. I also liked keeping my commute time into Portland at a reasonable 30 minutes. But this time was different. Lisa really needs to be within 15 minutes of work, rather than 40. (Wilsonville is right between Portland and Salem.) Our daughter is coming of school age in another year, and Lisa wants to be close when that starts. There is also built-in help from her parents who live in Salem. Lisa loves her job, and I don’t want to hold her back, so I quickly agreed.
Unfortunately, the reality of what I had agreed to sunk in a few hours later and I fell into a deep funk. Villebois, where we lived, is a beautiful master planned development — the largest non-resort community in the state. I knew we’d never find anything like it again. I was also sentimental about our townhome. It was the first house we purchased, it was where we brought our baby girl home after she was born, and it required little maintenance. I lamented that our daughter wouldn’t attend the beautiful new school down the street that is in one of the best districts in the state. I also started dreading how my commute was going to grow to 60 minutes one way. It wasn’t good.
After some tough but honest conversations with Lisa, I snapped out of despair by mid-April, and we promptly escaped on vacation — with all the uncertainty of moving, selling a house and buying a house waiting for us when we returned.
This next chapter really had its challenges. House hunting started out fun but quickly became a slog. We looked at a number of homes in Salem and the immediate surrounding area and most left something to be desired or the neighborhoods did.
Everything changed when we visited a newly constructed home in south Salem in May. We walked in the door and fell in love with it immediately. It was beautiful inside, had a clean look in its design, and the builder had upgraded the home with a number of features. We were going to make an offer…
Meanwhile, our home in Wilsonville didn’t take much to get ready for market and we started packing boxes. The first day on the market we received a cash offer that we turned down, as we wanted our home to go to someone who would live in the neighborhood, rather than an investor turning it into a rental. Later that first day we received an offer from a couple of my work colleagues. I had told them about the house, and they loved it. We were thrilled it was going to people who would take care of it. We made our offer on the Salem home, it was accepted, and everything was on schedule for a late June closing and move. That didn’t happen.
On the day we signed the sale papers on the Wilsonville home, we learned our buyer had been given bad advice from their lender and the loan had been declined. The solution was relatively simple but required the closing date be extended another month. We contacted the builder of our Salem home immediately to let them know of the situation. That’s when things got ugly. The construction company is local in Salem and small. They threatened all sorts of actions that made me think they needed us a lot more than we needed them. Had they just been honest about their financial situation and the construction loans they had to pay rather than playing games, they would have gotten the same result but without the animosity and distrust that grew out of unfortunate conversations. Pro tip: this is where it’s critical to have a good realtor.
The good news is that our buyer quickly met the contingencies required to fund the loan and we just had to wait for the closing date. The Wilsonville house was mostly packed up with boxes everywhere. We were all getting a little testy about the long transition when the central air conditioning went out during one of the hottest weeks of summer. We did have insurance on the home that covered such issues, which was a lifesaver, but it added another layer of complexity and red tape to a sales transaction that had started out pretty simple!
There was a lot of back and forth between the warranty company and the contractor for what ultimately was a simple repair. It didn’t get taken care of until after we moved out of the house and the new owners moved in, but at least it was fixed not long afterward.
We discovered, however, that the central air in our new Salem home wasn’t working either. Remember the pro tip? Our realtor stepped in and forced the issue with our builder, and the repair got done the day we moved in. A wire on the thermostat had been snipped during drywall construction, and somehow the home inspector hadn’t caught it during testing of the heating and cooling system. Hmmm.
There have been a few other new construction hiccups as we’ve gotten settled, but overall we love the home and have taken to the area fairly quickly. We’ve been in the house now since the tail end of July. It’s crazy to think how much has changed since April, but we’re grateful for a new place to call home and look forward to life slowing down a bit in the fall.