Creating Kris

It’s ours!

Yep, it’s official, Paul and I are finally building our “dream home”.

We signed the papers yesterday evening and also picked out our outside colours! We are going with a brown roof, a beige brick, and a beige garage door (more peachy/white tones than yellowy or grey), with cream siding and white trim on the windows.

Here’s a general idea of the colours:

Sooo nice to be moving on from the stressful, organizy, paperwork-y, finance-y stuff to get to do the fun stuff like picking out colours! We have our first Design Centre meeting in a couple weeks, when we will meet our designer and go over the choice for the first “stage” of completion (Structural) as well as the second stage (Framing). The decisions need to be made in August so we are on a tight schedule there!

Paul and I went out for drinks and dessert last night to celebrate but also had our papers spread out across the table to get a head start on choices – it’s a little overwhelming!! but also very neat to be able to have those decisions up to us!

Looking forward to this new experience and interesting journey!!!

New house “snags”

Ok, is this not the worst “catch-22″ ever…?

1. You are not allowed to withdraw RRSP funds under the Home Buyers Plan unless you’ve already entered into a written agreement to purchase a home.
2. You are not allowed to enter into an agreement to buy a home (with this builder anyways!) without giving part of the down-payment the same day, with funds already in your bank account.

Since it takes 3-6 business days (apparently) to withdraw the funds from your RRSP, this means someone can’t use her/his RRSP funds for the first down-payment on a house if one is required upon signing the agreement.

So either this a big flaw in the great-sounding Home Buyer’s Plan or Minto is really on crack for wanting 5% of the cost of the house the very day you sign on the dotted line.

Speaking of Minto being on crack, do you know they want 12.5% total down-payment, and want it within the first couple months of signing?

Which may have been more do-able had we been able to use our RRSPs for that first 5% because that’s where the bulk of our funds are!

Oh and also, I made a mistake in calculating the total amount in our RRSPs, so that was a disappointment. I think it was because we’d been paying off the RRSP loan every month, so two payments were coming out for about the same amount even though the 2nd payment wasn’t actually going towards new contributions.

Another big snag: our RRSP share values suck beyond all sucking right now. If we withdraw them now, we not only haven’t gained a penny of interest on them, we actually *lose* over $1000 from what we’ve contributed over the past 5 years!!!

Our “dream house” is looking a little too dreamy right now. We might have to give this one up and go with another neighbourhood or a later closing date or different street or combination of those factors.

We decided!

So we did go with the “quiet crescent” option!

We went back to the Sales Centre and model homes yesterday (this time dropping the kids off with my parents first!) and spent some more times in the homes. Although we really loved the layout of the Sutherland, the Westminster was a really nice place, too, and we could picture how to change things from the way they have it set up in the model home that would better suit our needs. For example, the model home has a large living room area in the blended living/dinning room area (along with a piano in the dinning room, um, no!), but we would make the dinning room part take up more of the space and have a smaller living room area.

After exploring each house again a 2nd time and going over the floor plans again (and again), we decided it was a perfectly OK compromise – the Westminster would be a great home, and it would be worth switching to since it means a) we’d get to build on the quiet crescent instead of the busy street and b) we’d have a closing date of April 2009 instead of Sept 2009 (and therefore would not disrupt the kids’ school year!).

So we went for it! We put a hold on the lot and this week we’ll finish getting all our ducks in row to take care of the financial aspect of things. We could go with the banks (or broker) that I’ve already been in touch with (and pre-approved with), but if we switch banks and use the builder’s “preferred” financial option, we get a $1650 credit towards upgrades. I’ll take the upgrades thanks!

Until we sign those papers though (and write all the cheques for the down-payment), someone could come along and try to “challenge” our hold by providing a firm offer of their own (pens and cheques in hand). We’d still have priority to keep the property but we’d have to come back within 2 hours with our own signed agreements and money in the bank. And if our funds were still tied up and in process of being released from our RRSPs, etc., we could lose the house.

But yesterday when we were told about a lot that had a “hold” on it where we could build the Sutherland if we wanted to “challenge” the existing hold, I was like “That would be kinda mean.” And we didn’t do it. So I’m hoping that no one will come along and do that to us.

Assuming all goes well though, hopefully we’ll be signing the papers this week and will be home-owners next Spring (still not moving ’til the end of June or start of July though)!

Oh, and we have a good omen on our side! Avery keeps saying that our new house will be across “Crocodile Lake”, and right across the street from the lot is a bit construction muddle puddle lake! LOL So really that house was meant to be ours!!!

Here’s a pic of the model that would be built, followed by some pics of the site of our (hopefully!) future home!

continue reading »

house shopping update

So last week I was in touch with a mortgage broker and I sent in an application to be pre-approved for a mortgage with CIBC. Both went just fine – CIBC pre-approved us and is sending a certificate in the mail, and the mortgage broker told us we would be able to still look for a house in the size/price range we want, even though right now my income is a little less because I’m on car accident insurance coverage instead of a full salary. So I can hopefully stop feeling like I need to rush myself back to work before I’m ready, we can still build our “dream home” with what we have right now.

So today we took a look at Chapman Mills, and the area is just perfect. 6 mins drive away from the new RCMP HQ, but only 25 mins from the old one (33 if you don’t take the highway, a bit more with traffic, of course). Great neighbourhood and wow is it ever growing fast! There’s a school right up the road from the little area where lots are currently available but it’s a Catholic elementary. There’s another one close by as well but it hasn’t been built yet. So we’re not sure where Harmony will be for grade 6. However, we do know where she will likely be for grades 7 all the way up to 12!! A brand new middle school/high school (OCDSB’s first serving that range of students)! Which will be a 4 mins drive away. Also near lots of great shopping and parks and things like that.

Looking at the models was really busy with the kids (omg they were awful, I’m glad the windows were all much to pretty to break by throwing small children through!), but we made it through the 5 single-family homes within our general range of what we were looking for. We saw the Fraser but it was definitely too small. The Chelsea 4 was next and was very nice and a much more comfortable size. We saw the MacPherson, which we knew we weren’t a fan of because of the layout of the bedrooms.

Then we got to see our top choice, the Sutherland, and the layout was just as fantastic in person as it was in the floor plans. And they had this neat little extra window you could cut through the wall between the hall and the kitchen so you can see the front hall and doors right from the kitchen, very neat. The kids ran up and down the stairs while Paul and I sat in the living room comparing the floor plans to the real thing. Very nice feel to it, it really felt comfortable but also spacious. The family room was very open concept with the kitchen, but those two areas were separated from the rest of the house in a way that made it feel like a “just the family” relaxed area. The floor plans had shown a regular closet in the laundry room / mud room, but the model home had the upgrade of a little built-in with cupboards and hooks and storage nooks, perfect for kids!

Then, while we were there, we went to check out the last house in that row, the Westminster.

continue reading »