We closed on the purchase of The Mini House today…
After last week’s last-minute fiasco of finding out the house was in a floor plain, we spent two day scrambling to get surveys, elevation certificates, and flood insurance. In the end, the news was actually pretty good. While the entire area was moved into a flood plain last December, our house is actually mostly above the flood elevation.
Specifically, the living area of the house (above the actual slab foundation) was at a high enough elevation to not be considered in the flood plain, but the backyard and a couple corners of the structure were a couple inches below the minimum flood zone height, and therefore part of the property is considered within a flood plain.
Based on the survey results, the required flood insurance (required by our lender) only costs $260/year, so while a new buyer may not be thrilled that the house is technically in a flood zone, the fact that it will only cost an extra $22/month in insurance should be a big deterrent for buyers.
We closed at 9:00am this morning, and by 10:00am, our contractors were in the house, ripping down light fixtures, tearing our wall paper, and getting ready to prep for paint. Ultimately, we’ll repaint the entire interior, replace all the light fixtures, replace many of the plumbing fixtures, replace about 50% of the flooring, repair the garage door, install new appliances, and get routine maintenance on the roof and HVAC system.
If things go according to schedule, we should be about 90% complete by the end of the week, with the rest of the work finishing at some point next week as everyone tries to get in some work around the holiday. I imagine the house will be ready to be put back on the market within 10 days or so, with a budget of $9000.
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