Closed on Condo

So, please tell more on the lending and legal end. Just getting ready to sell one of my houses.

RL

Hello Deb,

Congrats on the condo. Please type up and share with us the experience from picking and buying the condo to fixing it up. I am sure there are lots of folks on here that would be interested in reading it. Thanks.

--Islander

Islander & Ronnie,

I posted under "real estate lawyer" our closing experience. It's a good read 🙂

Where do I start. We looked at probably 13 different condos in June. We have been coming for the last 10 years for our annual family vacation. We spent a day with our realtor. I had done a lot of research before hand and had given him a list of units to view that I got off the MLS. Initially, we thought we wanted ocean front, but ended up at Mahogany on the hill with a gorgeous oceanside view. We had to find a happy medium between what we wanted as owners when we are there and what someone else might want who was renting for vacation purposes. I think first timers would always prefer beachside. For us, that didn't matter. We have always rented a car and we go to different beaches every day, so walking out to a beach wasn't necessarily a priority. Space was. Alot of the units we looked at on the beach seemed smaller and more "cavey". Typically, the 2 bedrooms, one had a beach balcony and the other was on the back side with no view of anything. Our unit has 3 oceanside balconies and is a good size condo. HOA fees were a small consideration. Point Pleasant seemed to have the highest.

Another thing we found out, after the fact, is that from a financing standpoint (if you don't plunk down 100% cash), if you get traditional financing, the lenders will ownly finance on "approved condos", which we found out meant that there is what they consider condos and condotels. The complexes that have onsite management and operate as a quasi-resort are considered condotels and they won't finance those. I have no clue how those folks purchase those unit unless they pay in cash. Didn't ask.

We were blessed to be put in contact with someone who does side handyman work, to come do fix-it stuff at our condo for us and haul off the trash to the big dumpsters. He is head of maintenance at a commercial building. I'm not talking just trash, but a sofa/sleeper and loveseat and other big stuff. Stuff not worthy of even giving away. He put up our ceiling fans, a new window unit in our living area, and some other stuff we needed repaired.

We bought all of our paint & supplies at Home Depot and tiling products. We had someone come & paint the living room/kitchen. The painter was recommended again, and gave us a fair price. My sister & I painted the rest of the unit. It was a bear! But we were on a budget and time constraint. We basically had 14 hour days of labor. The first 2 days with no power, so we were limited to daylight hours. There was carpet on the concrete steps inside (split-level unit) and we ripped that up and tiled the stairs. Not only did we tile it, we mosaic tiled it. Yeah....we're nuts! But...it is gorgeous! When I come back Labor Day, I will seal the grout.

Since we threw the sofa & loveseat out, we had to find something to replace it. That was interesting. Once we looked at furniture, we realized that the remaining chair cushions and dining cushions were worth recovering versus buying all new! We shopped around. We were flabbergasted at what the 3 piece, what I call Herculon, sets were selling for. We went to the old Rooms to Go, now Furniture to go or something. They wanted $2500 for what I would pay $900 for in the states. It was all pretty much the same. We ended up by a recommendation, going to Silk Greenery and working with the owner. We ordered a nice fabric sofa sleeper for $1500, that included shipping from North Carolina, which is where she gets her furniture. She also has a seamstress there and fabric, so they are also recovering all of our cushions. The remaining furniture that we kept was rattan.

We used a new friend's card to get into PriceSmart and bought a new window air conditioner. Will probably need to get my own cards for there & Cost U Less this next trip.

K-Mart is our new best friend 🙂 Prices are not much different than stateside with a few exceptions. Patio furniture was outrageous there. Go to Home Depot. We also brought down 4 very large suitcases of stuff...linens, bedspreads, towels, wine glasses, plates, etc. I bought those plastic bags from Linens & Things and vaccuum packed all that stuff which took up 2/3 less room and I was able to get all that down there. Only one suitcase was over the limit which cost me $25. If I would've shipped it down...yikes. I priced a 25lb box at $65 for a 2-3 week delivery thru USPS. Of course we had our clothes in a carry on, but we didn't need much since we were holed up painting. We were pretty nasty looking characters while we were there.

Had an interesting WAPA experience. We had someone get our power turned on for us and when she went there, they apparently had the seller's account listed backwards and couldn't find it. They didn't know what the meter # was. She called the HOA maintenance guy and had him crawl under the building to get the meter number so that WAPA could turn it on. Now had it been us doing this...we would've been clueless and who knows how long it would've taken to get it on. She went down on a Wed morning and it was on Thurs afternoon.

Deb

Deb: Congrats on your new home! You quickly learn to appreciate the things that we do have here, huh? Cost-U-Less doesn't require a membership card. They do have a card that is supposed to give you some kind of reward for shopping, although I have never gotten anything. Next, you will learn who ships to the VI quickly and easily, like the Company Store, Pottery Barn, etc. Have fun!

Thank you Deb for the write up!! Congrats.

--Islander