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Update (pre-Diaryland) It's a veritable update storm!

2002-07-31 - 3:15 p.m.

This update is following relatively hard on the heels of the previous one but I had some (hopefully) interesting developments going on and if I cover them now they won�t make my next update onerously long.

The main thing is that the funding for the house was released! Now this may not seem like a big deal since, as you all know, I nailed the funding down long ago with the bank. What I may not have made clear is that the release of the funding from them was dependant on the pre-sale of the second unit. This hadn�t seemed like a big deal when it was negotiated because I knew the housing market in Ottawa was pretty fast and could, particularly in my neighborhood, easily support what I was asking. It�s a high-end place but it�s in a high-end neighborhood and my place is totally on par with the other new construction there, with the added bonus of it not being a condo, having a back yard, and definitely being better quality. In short, it seemed logical to assume the place would get snapped up. Plus really, who wouldn�t want to live in my beautiful house in my fabulous �hood? In-con-ceeeiv-able!

Alas, it seems that if you�re a big development company that people have heard of, with sample showrooms and a huge budget for marketing, you can pre-sell units with no problem in this town. If, on the other hand, you�re an unknown with a very nice set of floor plans, elevations and spec sheets, albeit combined with some other elements into a nice marketing package, people are reluctant to put a lot of money down without seeing the finished product (and the fact that I could see the whole thing in my head was less use than you�d expect). And it was only in the last week that the stucco was finished and the scaffolding came down from the outside and the drywall went up inside and you really could see with your own eyes what the finished product had the potential to look like. All this is to say that, while I and my real estate agent are still confident that the place will sell to an appreciative buyer, it hasn�t happened yet. Fortunately, my bank is also confident of this and because of this they have decided to overlook the pre-sale condition of the loan and have had an inspection done to see where the house is at and released funds accordingly. Woo hoo! I can pay back much of the private funding that I had borrowed, pay the contractor his next payment and pay off (which amounts to a transfer to the construction loan) the mortgage which I had originally existing on the property. This consolidation also means that I won�t have my regular mortgage payments every month in addition to carrying the interest on the house funding - it will all be incorporated into one entity and I�ll just be paying the interest on the funding until the take-out mortgage at the end of the whole thing.

In short, I can worry a lot less about the immediate sale of the second unit. It�s a relief to be able to have that extra time and not worry about how I�m going to keep finding private funding to keep the project going until I meet the conditions of the loan. Not that I couldn�t have found the funding - I know where I could have and no, it doesn�t involve shady characters that will break my legs if I don�t pay them their 50% interest - but now I don�t have to. Whew!

As for non-house stuff, I finished the second module of the weight lifting instructor training this past weekend and taught my first partial class on Monday. By that I mean that I taught for two sections of the class (using the mike and everything!) and accompanied the senior instructor on the stage (called �shadowing� - sounds kind of surreptitious and spy-like don�t it?) for the rest. It went very well and I got some great feedback and high praise from the team leader that was evaluating me.

I�m going to cut it off there �cause this is getting as long as a regular update and that hadn�t been my intention.

Take care and I�m sure I�ll be in touch soon,

Shawna

Before - After


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