We're in the Money

The loan approval came back thumbs-up: I was funded! 

By now we were less than a week away from my originally scheduled closing date of September 2nd.  Due to all the uncertainty around the deal, the tenant had not yet started moving out.  The sellers asked if I could push back the closing date to September 10th so she would have time to relocate.  I agreed - I was happier with closing later in the month anyways, and in any case, I was willing to do whatever it took to avoid needing to deal with an eviction.

At last, I let myself exhale and started to believe that this was actually happening.  I began taking care of all the little stuff in life that would need to happen as part of my move.

I switched over my electrical utilities.  This was all quite easy to do online - it took a little while to find the right options on the PG&E website, but once I did, it was pretty automatic.  One oddity was that, while I was turning on the power in my new place on 9/10, they wouldn't let me keep power in my old place later than 9/23.  I'm not sure if this is because they don't allow more than a 2-week overlap between services, or if it was because of the date when I was submitting the request.  In any case, while I still would have my apartment until 9/30, I was planning on being all moved out by then, so didn't see a problem even if they cut the power early.

Next up was Internet.  Again, Comcast lets you shop for stuff and schedule it online, but requires you to complete the order with a chatroom-esque customer service rep.  Once again, I was blown away by how positive the experience is.  I know that everyone loves to hate Comcast, but they really do have great customer service.  They let me order my internet-only package at the promotional price even though I was a current customer and wasn't getting any of the bundled services; and, the rep even knocked my installation fee in half without any prompting.  Good stuff.  (All their goodwill would be promptly annihilated a few weeks later when I met the Incompetent Install Technician from Hell.)

I'd decided that I would switch over insurance agents as part of the move.  For some reason my lender doesn't require HO-6 insurance, but I wanted to get it anyways, because, y'know, it's smart.  I scouted for local agents in Millbrae, found one I liked, and started moving stuff over.  This turned out to actually be the single most difficult of my various transactions, because my previous agent did not want to let me go.  I think it's actually easier to switch between different insurance companies than to switch between different agents in the same company.  It took a couple of phone calls and a firm written letter until I got my policies set up with my new agent.  (If I had to do it again, I probably wouldn't have bothered.  One of the funny things about all this is that, in the more than five years I've been with my agent, this is the first time we've ever actually talked; previously everything was handled through his staff or online.)

Last but not least: the move.  I'd thought for a while that I would pay for a moving company.  I used to move myself, but it was always incredibly stressful.  The last time I moved was from Kansas City to San Jose, and hiring professionals (Allied, in that case) was so great that I decided it would be well worth doing again.  Unfortunately, all of my friends and relatives move themselves, so I didn't have any good referrals.  Instead I hit up the online review sites (Yelp, Angie's List, Google Local, etc), scouted out a few places, followed up with three (Go Pro Moving, Lunardi Moving, and one other whose name escapes me at the moment), and eventually decided to go with Go Pro.  None of the companies was willing to do an an-person binding estimate, which I kind of understand - especially for a 1-bedroom single guy like me who is packing himself, they aren't making a lot of money on me anyways, and so the time it takes to drive out and do the estimate isn't worth it for them. 

I decided to wait until later for a few other things - updating the Post Office and my magazine subscriptions, for example.  I was now more or less set, and coming down the home stretch.