Will our new house in north Oakland be ready for occupancy by the 29th of May, 2025 (the day before LessOnline starts)?
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My wife and I currently live in Washington, but own a ~90 year old house in Oakland. It was purchased in September of 2024, and renovations (updating wiring, replacing old appliances and counters, redoing the floors and bathrooms and lighting) started in November. At the time, we were told that the renovations would be completed at the end of January (so, 2+ months).
Then we were told end of February.
Then end of March.
Then end of April.
It is now mid-May, and the house still isn't ready yet! We're in the home stretch, according to our contractor; the floors and appliances and such are in, the electricity and plumbing are done and the walls repaired, all the major work seems to be complete. Possibly the last step is permit sign-off. Contractor says he's "working on" having the house ready by end of May. We've given him lots of reasons why it's important to make this one, and asked that he be more pessimistic than his prior updates, which seems to mostly have made him less confident but not actually moved the estimate.
The market resolves based on whether, before the end of the 29th of May (Pacific time), our contractor confirms to us that the house is ready to move in. It doesn't matter whether or not we actually occupy it by that time.
My household will not bet on this market after the 15th of May.
Update 2025-05-14 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): For a Yes resolution, the contractor must confirm the house is ready to inhabit.
This is possible even if some planned renovations (e.g., stair carpet, stacking washer/dryer, moving a secondary fridge) are not yet complete, provided essential functions are met (e.g., stairs are usable, at least one fridge is working).
The creator will assess if the contractor's statement that the house is 'ready to inhabit' is a genuine reflection of its condition and not a 'blatant misrepresentation'.
Update 2025-05-14 (PST) Given the amount of work we had done and the fact that it was all done while we're hundreds of miles away, we went through the permitting process (or rather, our contractor did). We don't expect our general contractor to tell us the house is ready until the permit is completed. In the highly unexpected case that he tells us that the permit isn't completed but the house is ready anyhow, it would come down to the previously-mentioned "blatant misrepresentation"; such an unexpected event would be quite suspicious, but could still resolve either way.
1,000
3.00Latest chat with the contractor:
> My wife: Big thing I want to know is: Right now, none of us know whether we can move in by the end of the month. Do you think we will know one week from now?
> Contractor: Yes you will be able to move in by end of month as we sit right now
Man, what does that even mean? (I don't think this guy has ever heard of a confidence level or the planning fallacy).
Anyhow, he's sending us an email with more details tonight.
@nikthink Assuming he isn't blatantly bullshitting us about it being ready to inhabit, that would resolve Yes. For example, if the carpet on the stairs is not in yet but the stairs are otherwise totally usable, that doesn't impede the house being ready to move in; if the stairs are unusable that... doesn't strictly speaking make the house unlivable but it would be deeply inconvenient in a way that goes far beyond comfort. Or - to mention some elements that appear to actually be happening - if one of the fridges needs to be moved (but there's at least one working and usable fridge) and the washer/dryer aren't stacked (because there's a missing piece) but they work the way they are, those would not impede a Yes resolution.
@SeekingEternity : if nothing got done until this market resolves, what would you be missing to resolve "yes"?
like, is it the fridges which are not there? what's missing.
@nikthink TL;DR: The thing we know we'd be missing is the word of a professional that the house is ready to inhabit, rather than any specific item (but there may be specific items we don't yet know about).
We're still waiting on the promised email of the house status including what all is still needed (one of the horrible things about doing these renovations remotely is that we're at the mercy of whenever the contractors bother to give us updates about what has or hasn't been done). I don't actually know of any specific items that would prevent move-in right now except that I'm pretty sure the contractor doesn't have the permit sign-off for the work yet, and between the fact that we weren't able to observe most of the work and that one problem we ran into was some really questionable prior un-permitted modifications to the home, I do in fact want that sign-off (and I'm pretty sure we can't get it after moving in). Supposedly the permit inspector was going to come this week but that was never a firm promise, and I think we'd have heard if that happened (though the week isn't over). The last update we got did include some work still needed (bathroom vanities installed, for example) but supposedly that was going to happen over the week leading up to now.