1864!

I have not only been negligent in my blogging, but we have also lost momentum on doing house research.

Today, however, I got a call from Value Net a company that is contracted through our bank to appraise our house (without actually seeing it) for a possible home equity loan which will be necessary to fund the home rennovations. This is all still very tentative, but since the appraisal is free - we figured it had to be done at somepoint, right?

The bank let me know that this person would be calling to confirm some details on the house - such as have we added a big pool or any other big improvements. So I was kind of expecting something along those lines. The interesting thing is what they do is compare your home to others that have sold in the area and my understanding is that they only do an in-home appraisal if the amount of the loan is above $250k (which thankfully, ours is not).

She confirmed the address and if we are in a subdivision. Then she asked me to confirm the year the house was built, "Does 1864 sound about right?". I confirmed :)

We had always known that the house was most likely from the 60s (1860s that is) - but had never pulled up the public files to get any further details. For some reason it was strange hearing it said out loud and thinking wow - this has been around for 143 years.

This also means the house was no spring chicken (in its 50s) when my family moved in 1916....so it had so much history even at that point.

In any case, we should know the outcome of the appraisal early next week. The only other notable suprise was when she asked me what I thought the house was worth. So I very quickly did the math, what we paid + how much we need for a loan = my answer. Really I'd love to know what they do with that information. What sane person would ever give a number different from how I calculated mine?

So that's the big news of the day. I hope to fill in some other details from the last month or so - but no promises. In a few months, there should be pictures of Casa de Champaign from my little sis - hopefully she will let me share. Especially since she is the one who calls me to remind me I haven't posted and also claims she has started her own blog and just doesn't know how to do it yet :)