Not Quite Closed

Lisa and I went into Reno yesterday to pay the rest of the money (and the closing costs and property taxes) for Fernley House, after stopping at Lisa's insurance agent to add homeowner's insurance to the policy. (Until yesterday, the owner who has been renting us the house until he was allowed to sell it to us when the deed restriction ran out was responsible for the insurance.) We delivered the check and signed many papers. It turns out that the initial closing cost estimate was slightly low, which means the certified check wasn't quite enough to cover the total. This could have caused some problems; however, because the closing amount included some prepaid property taxes that didn't have to be included in the total, we were able to get around it by writing a personal check to Lyon County for the property taxes and having that line taken off of the closing amount. That takes us from slightly underpaid to slightly overpaid, and the title company will refund us the balance. The title company will send the property-tax payment on to Lyon County, and we'll be good until next July.

We're not completely done yet, though. I thought we'd be able to close yesterday, but the title company needs to do some things, and therefore the agent told us that she'd give us a call today and we could come back in to Reno late today. Assuming no further hitches, escrow should close today and we should get clear title to The House. Had I known there would have been any issues, I would have scheduled our initial appointment for Monday afternoon instead of yesterday. Still, I'm not complaining, and it could be worse. Because they do all of the deed filings electronically, they can turn it around in one day; the agent said that in the past, it could take a couple of weeks for the county recorders' offices to process and return the necessary documents.

Mystery Lumber

Before starting work this morning I took a brisk walk of around 1000 steps around the block because I haven't been walking enough, according to my blood sugar readings. It had to be brisk because it was below freezing out there and I had to keep moving. Anyway, I noticed that there was a small pile of lumber in the front yard that had not been there when we left for Reno yesterday afternoon. I guess that means that the building contractor who is going to shore up the cracked floor joists is almost ready to get started and had some of the materials delivered late yesterday afternoon. Whether they'll show up today and start crawling under the house and installing new floor joists, I don't know.

Update, 1200: The contractor arrived later in the morning, and his men went under the house to assess specifics. They've now gone away to get more supplies and will be back later. Fingers crossed that they can get the job done this week.