Officially official?

...DW got her "orders" in the mail yesterday. So we are now trying to figure out what to do next. They are having her report to the base after Oct 4th, but before Oct 6th. Then they will train her on the computer systems that they use when she has her in processing. They(meaning the assignment officer) have told her that this will be half days work so she will still have to time to study for boards. She can also take something like a week to locate housing too. What a hectic time, and it is still months away!! She will attend COT starting Nov 7th.

I am meeting with a realtor today to talk about a good time to place the house on the market. Having gone from an apartment to a house it was easy, but going from a house to a house (one mortgage to another) how does that work? We can't get one without getting rid of the other, but what a pain....especially if we sell the house BEFORE we have to leave! Then I envision loads of items in storage, and us in a rental for an unspecified amount of time. I realize that I want to get as much out of our house as we can, but at the same time would rather not end up renting. Oh well, I will live with it....whatever it may be!
Sally, Jenn how did you handle moving from one mortgage to another?

I have already started the lists of things to "touch-up" and fix, and straighten and clean and get rid of.....it is a very long list....I can't even think about trying to find a house in FL yet!

Deep breaths...in...out....in...out....

[mommax3]

When does she officially finish residency? Does she have any vacation time between now and then? Do you have close friends she could stay with for a couple of weeks if you and the boys ended up moving before her residency ended?

About going from one mortgage to the next.....when you list your house, you will give a date that the new owners can take occupancy. Make that date one you can live with. Sometimes buyers try to negotiate using that date.....they will pay you more for the house if you can get out sooner, for instance. Think about those kind of scenarios ahead of time. Once you have a signed contract on your current house, even if you haven't closed, sellers in FL will be willing to take you fairly seriously. Your realtor/mortgage broker will walk you through the steps of getting a new mortgage contingent upon the sale of your current house. If you want to be more informed before talking to the realtor, check out one of the "Dummies" books.....we read through one last time and it was a good review for us. All of the contract stuff is so standard for realtors that they go through it fairly quickly, so the reading we did on our own made us more confident during the process.

Take things one step at a time and try to get a handle on your time frame first. We are living in our third house, and each time we have moved, selling the house has been the LEAST troublesome part of the whole process. The logistics can be tricky, but just know that by breaking the whole thing down into little "to-dos" you will be able to handle it. I have always been adamant for the sake of the kids (not to mention me! ) that when we move, we move ONCE....i.e. no living in a rental and then moving into a house a few months later. My oldest, especially, thrives on routine, so getting into one as quickly as possible has been key during our moves. We have been lucky that we have always been able to move from one house right to the next.....but it was a definite priority and caused us to choose a house (the one we live in currently) that we didn't really like that much.....BUT it was available during the two days we had to look at houses and the owners were ready to make a deal. If I had been more flexible, we would have not bought anything during our first trip, lived in temporary housing for a few weeks, and found something more to our liking. However, I was 30 weeks pregnant and freaking out. So we have lived with the house (which is really fine, just didn't meet a lot of our preferences) and I was able to stay in my comfort zone as much as possible during the whole moving process.

So what I am trying to say in a very long and convoluted way is that you need to determine what your priorities are in this move and act accordingly.....it may be that you both feel strongly about moving at the same time (when Gretchen is finished with residency), or not living in temporary housing, or...... Figure that out first and that will help other things fall into place.

I haven't forgotten about your question regarding the bonus pay. I asked my husband about it in the car and he even remembered the form you need to get and where you can get it. I will ask him again while I am sitting at the computer so he can dictate his answer to me!

Sally

[DCJenn]

yup-

everything she said...

Seriously though, the only way to do it is to break it all down in to baby steps- I find that making a list and being able to cross things off was one way for me to get through sanely.

Another recommendation I have is to be utterly relentless in getting ridding of cr*p. The military moves are weight based and you DO NOT want to go over your limit. (It's a lot but I've never moved kid stuff too so I have no idea what you're dealing with, furniture wise)

Get rid of anything rickety or worn out because military movers are notoriously horrible (remember what happened to my cat, after all). Dump any winter clothes that you don't think you'll need. We stored some winter stuff while we were in TX and once we got everything back out styles and our tastes had changed anyway. Dump all of her books that she hasn't opened since med school (you can probably give them away here!) and anything that you are feeling obligated to keep but really don't like or don't need. Remember, your stuff will be shoved in a moving van with the stuff of at least four other families.

I feel your pain.

Jenn

Hi Matt,
I feel your pain -- minus the military stuff. We have a pretty tight window to move in between the end of fellowship (6/30) and the beginning of residency (7/15). And yes, those two weeks are without work, income, or health insurance. Hello COBRA coverage!$!
We decided that our top priorities are to:
1. Move together. More or less. I might fly w/ the girls but we want to get there about the same time.
2. Pack once in Denver and unpack once in Portland. That means no storage or rentals on either side.
3. Choosing between closing earlier or later than we would like, we told our realtor that sooner would be better. It is a possibility that we could rent back from the buyer of our home. I really don't want to move everything to storage and live in a rental for a few weeks. But I'd rather have a home waiting for us in Portland that have to rent there and move within a few months. Like Sally said, once you have an offer in on your current home, you are in a good position to make on offer in FL.

And for all the home repairs -- just list them out and break it out by what you want to get done week by week as you get towards listing your house. We did that and what seemed to be an undoable list of tasks is just about complete -- with no time to spare!

My final bit of advice is to find a good realtor. They will all make about the same amount of money but the level of service they provide can vary greatly. We interviewed a couple of them -- that alone helped us to negotiate a lower comission. We found someone who understood that we were having a newborn and what that meant, understood our tight timeline, and our priorities (above). That was not the case for everyone we talked to.

Good luck!

Re: Officially official?

...DW got her "orders" in the mail yesterday. So we are now trying to figure out what to do next. They are having her report to the base after Oct 4th, but before Oct 6th.

Uhh....isn't that October 5? Is that typical military?

Well, Gretchen finishes residency on Sept 30. She has three months of "easy" rotations....B&D, Derm, and her office month. She can take vacation about anytime. We have family near but not where we could live with them, and the friends that we would want to stay with are also putting their home on the market! I guess we would just have to move into rental....which I could live with if we can get what she was suggesting for our list price! Even after it is negotiated down to where she said was her bottom line it is still a 20%+ gain for us.

IF we were to list the house in the spring/summer it would most likely sell quickly-the current market average in our neighborhood is about 75 days on the market. So in my little world, if it listed today and someone bought it on "average" that would be near mid-June. Then you have to figure the closing time...which I don't think we could push out until October, since we live a block from a school! It would suck to miss that "new" family wanting to get settled before the school year. Our timing just sucks for moving. Anyway, you add about another 30-60 days for closing and that puts you somewhere around mid to late July...maybe August.

The realtor also smacked me with reality....and I think that I remember reading the same thing around here somewhere! She told me to get a storage unit and get rid of the "clutter". We have more stuff than we know what to do with in our unfinished basement. Not enough house and loads of wonderful things needing places in the livable parts of the house. So I suppose I will check into that later today....

Nellie- she has three days travel time that will be reimbursed...so if you figure she makes it by "2400" on Oct 6th and she left on the 4th....I don't know!? I am getting a first-hand education on military dealings, that is for sure!...I suspect that it will only get better too!

Matt,
I'm not sure -- but I thought that the days on market figure included the time to closing. : So an average of 75 days would maybe mean the house is under contract in about 45 days??
I will see our realtor tomorrow or Friday and I'll ask her. I've been wondering about that anyway.
You might as well shoot for the moon and ask for the closing date you want and see what happens. We're going to give that a try -- I'll let you know how it goes!

[mommax3]

Matt,

Make sure your realtor shows you (this may have already happened) what houses like yours (same age, BRs, baths) are selling for and find out the average price/sq. ft. in your area. Sounds like you are in a good position, though! You can work things to your advantage during negotiations regarding the date of possession.....you could rent back from the buyer like Nellie said (when we moved to San Antonio, we allowed the sellers to rent the house from us for about 10 days because they had just had a new baby that was having some problems. The fee they paid us more than covered our stay in a residential type hotel, and although it was a pain, it wasn't the end of the world. Your realtor should be able to help you find reasonable temporary housing. I agree that you should take advantage of the summer and get your house sold, even though the timing isn't great for you. We may have to move separately next summer.....if DH takes the big bonus this fall (which he will unless we find a job with a big old signing bonus) he can't get out of the military until September, although the date on his contract is sometime in early June. SO if we don't snag a signing bonus, (which isn't likely, sadly) we will put the house up for sale sometime next spring and shoot for moving out sometime in June. Travis will have to stay here in temporary living facilities until he is done, but I will have to move with the boys and get us settled before school starts. It will SUCK, especially if we move back to Indiana (rules out weekend visits from DH!) but it is bad enough being the new kids at school without being the new kids who start school a month after everyone else.

Don't take the travel stuff too seriously.....but DO report by when they say. When Travis reported, what it usually amounted to was signing some paper and then leaving and coming back the next business day. If I were you guys, I would plan to hit the road as soon as she finishes so that you can get the lay of the land before she gets sucked in. Have her use the "easy" months she has coming up to study for Boards. She will have a fairly light schedule as she in-processes, but she will be experiencing bureaucracy at its finest (you will get a taste of it too.....smile pretty for that id card! ) and her days will be unpredictable. Has she talked to anyone at Eglin yet? The assignments officer should be able to give her the name of someone in her dept. and a phone number......that was very helpful to us when we were coming here. They will be able to give Gretchen a MUCH better idea of what to expect during in-processing than will the assignments officer. Around here, it seems to take a while to get "privileges" at the hospital......many nameless faces have to see and sign off on various documents that prove the new person is really qualified to practice as a physician in their particular specialty. It may take longer here because they have to be privileged on base as well as downtown at the civilian hospital, but when things are happening in a military timeframe, don't expect them to happen quickly.

Good luck as you get your head around all this......remember, take it one small step at a time.

Sally

The realtor left a really nice display of the houses that were on the market and the ones that have sold in the last 12 mths around our area. We live in an area where we are the youngest family on our block, not much turnover in homes. Anyway, the market prices are good and the demand is VERY high for the school district....so I don't think there will be a problem unloading the home. As far as the time on the market versus contract time... I just found the average time listed, not contracted. There were a couple homes that were listed and closed in 21 days, though!! Then there were also the 2bdrm 1 bath homes listed for 166 days (can you say too high?!).

We have not talked with anyone from the base yet. I think I read somewhere that it would be about 30 days before we had a sponsor contact us. I am anxious for that. As far as privileges, that is all in the works already. We got a bunch of paperwork about three weeks ago and she has gotten it sent back in already.

I do have another question though, why do you have to check in with the base housing when you get there? (it seems that there is no available housing that they could force us into anyway?!). From the wording on the papers we have, it seems that you can't enter into any agreement until you arrive there? It makes it sound like a trip down before we need to be there for house hunting would be a waste....just wondering what/how you did?

[DCJenn]

Matt-

We have never checked in with housing- mostly that's for the people who will need to be using base/post housing- the enlisted personnel or those who actually have enough rank to get some! and we never had them approve any of our home purchases or rentals, either. A lot of times the enlisted personnel get themselves in to trouble renting places they can't afford so I think that's whatthe approval is about. We had the same instructions and ignored them, rather effectively too, I might add. (and the paychecks still come.)

One other note though- the lady who arranged our move this time suggests that we all keep all of the paperwork related to each move as she had a very high ranking officer get audited for a move that took place several years prior and he ended up owing $ because he didn't have his paperwork. We have an entire file devoted to nothing but orders, leave/TDY paperwork and moving documents.

And unfortunately, our experience with sponsors was pathetic. We tried to be better when it was our turn but we weren't that great either. I'll find the number for our friends who are there and see if she can help. I know she and her husband bought a house- they have two kids and he's AF as well. (and they are fun people, she and I planned the Holiday Party one year- they'd be fun neighbors, that's for sure!)

Jenn

[mommax3]

I agree with Jenn about the sponsor thing....don't hold your breath waiting for them to call. In both of our moving experiences, we have never had any contact from our "sponsor".....I don't even remember hearing that we had one this last time. Go ahead and make the call yourselves and get in touch with someone who can give you some useful information.....it's great that Jenn has friends there!

We did check in with the housing office at Lackland, although we had already bought a house by the time we saw them. They were trying to act all patronizing and official, but really couldn't do anything to us for having bought a house without their "permission". I think the reason Jenn gave about airmen/soldiers getting in over their heads financially is part of the reason for that requirement. Another reason I have heard is that the housing office keeps a list of dishonest landlords and places where military folks have had difficulties, so that new people don't go to the same places. I don't know if DH checked in with the housing office here or not (probably, because he is on the anal side ) but it had no impact on us. Go ahead and take your house hunting trip whenever you want!

Sally

Words of wisdom! I love it! Thank you!

Gretchen has been all uptight about looking for a house without having the "blessing" and having checked in with the housing office. I will relay your information, thanks!

I would love to be able to contact someone "in the know" if possible Jenn! If you can't find it or don't remember, that is Ok....we do have one contact there. He is retired military from Eglin and lives in the area. He is a friend of my inlaws, who were career AF. They have promised to hook us up with a realtor in the area....unfortunately, they are in Japan visiting their grandkids until mid April! Oh well, someone is better than no one! Again thanks for you insight and experiences, I am very appreciative!!

[peggyfromwastate]

As far as the time on the market versus contract time... I just found the average time listed, not contracted. There were a couple homes that were listed and closed in 21 days, though!! Then there were also the 2bdrm 1 bath homes listed for 166 days (can you say too high?!).

Thi strikes me as odd because out here the market has been so hot that owners get very anxious if their home hasn't sold within 1 week... The house we bought in the end of May (put under contract) wasn't available for occupancy until mid July, which was fine with us b/c we couldn't move in until early August...

Another thing to consider-- have you contacted the millitary regarding moving your stuff? I don't know how it will be in October, but in August, when we wanted to move, we would have had to give them at least 6 weeks notice to just get movers that may possibly be able to move our stuff, and that was after we found out that my husband wouldn't have his orders 6 weeks before we would need to move. Since Gretchen already as her orders, this shouldn't be a problem for you. We ended up doing a DITY, and we cleared (profit) about $4K. That was partly because we moved from accross the country (total of 2750 military miles, I believe) and according to their calcs it was supposed to take us 10 days to move. Of course, the time from when my husband was released from OBC (Officer Basic) to the time he had to inprocess was less than 10 days, but anyway... So by doing a DITY we were also able to get our stuff on time, since we had it with us the whole time. I know several people here at USUHS who had to wait up to 4 weeks for their stuff... But like I said, August is the big military month for moving, from what they told us... Anyway, just another thing for you to consider! I know some people have done partial DITY moves, and probably that's what we'll do next time... I'm already spazzing out about going over our weight restrictions--- 4 kids, two adults! I'm already planning what pieces of heavy furniture I can leave behind!!!! I do not want to pay those fees! (This time had we had the military move us we would have exceeded our limit by lots, and that would have been $$$$$$$...)

I do know (very casually!!!) an air force pilot instructor stationed in Pensacola who is on the wait list for USUHS. If he hears that there's a spot for him, he and his family of 4 will be moving up here and he'll be putting his house on the market. He may have some isights as to realtors in the Pensacola area, etc. I can contact him and see if he'd be willing to give you some advice, if that would help! He is also a military "insider", I would say! I believe he went to the AF Academy, then became a pilot for 2 years, then has been an instructor for 4 or so. Anyway, we met him through the interview process at USUHS (we hosted him in our house while he was doing the interview) and he is soooo nice and open, and he could have some tips for you... Let me know!

Good luck! Lots to do!!!!

Peggy- If you don't mind, I would like all the contacts that I can get!

The housing market here is active, but like the case with the 2bdrm home, most in our area are inhabited by the little old folks that are now needing more money for their retirement and trying to get more out of the home that they have lived in forever! Thus the long market time.

Most homes here are listed, contracted, and change hands within about 38 days!

[peggyfromwastate]

Peggy- If you don't mind, I would like all the contacts that I can get!

Matt- PM me your email and I will email my contact (he's a really cool guy-- I'm sure he'd be glad to help if possible) and try to get you all in touch!