Realty and Reality

It's the beginning of the weekend, and it's POURING! Tim and I were going to take a break from house hunting this weekend but of course there's a house on the market we have to go see, so Tim has an appointment with a Realtor for bright and early tomorrow morning. (I have acupuncture instead.)

Last week's search was exhausting. On Saturday morning (While I was doing my acupuncture session.) Tim found a short sale in our area. It has a lot of negatives, it's in a poor location right at the end of a T-intersection, and the lot is 1/2 the size of the lot we have now, the neighbors don't mow their lawns, and it still has its Christmas lights up. But it is "cheap" for California. Tim happily reports, it needs quite a bit of work... the fence at the back lot has fallen into the trailer park behind it, there is a dog living in the garage, the interior is dated and in need of help, etc. He looked at this before we met with the Realtor and was really excited about the possibility. I on the other hand had just gotten used to the idea of moving OUT of our area, not to a worse location in it! So we'll see what happens.

So after he got done touring the short sale, off we went to meet with a Realtor. In contrast, she showed us things around the top of our budget. We weren't familiar with the neighborhoods but they looked quite nice. Unfortunately the locations would be a bit of a commute for us. Almost all of the houses were staged and/or already remodeled, but we did find a few that had potential and needed work, but again since they were at the top of our budget the price didn't leave much room for remodeling funds. We liked some and are watching them, but don't think they'll come down as much as we would like them to. Plus very few had a lot as large as the one we're at now.

We looked at a few more houses on our own, and our hope of finding a house with a large lot in the lower range of our budget was restored. Amazingly we did! We even found one that had a lot of potential, and a decent commute. So we made an offer on it. Our first offer. If the 3% good faith deposit doesn't scare you off, the waiting might. In hindsight, if we ever make an offer again, we're giving a much shorter response timeline! The waiting almost killed us! As it was they let our offer expire. (Probably to wait for a higher offer, as ours was quite low, although very reasonable, due to the fact amongst other things the bathroom had to be completely re-done before it was usable! --water damage, leaking toilet, and missing tiles) We both liked the house, it was a decent size and had room in the garage for our cars, the lot had potential, and the commute would have been great, but onward and upward. I'll be curious to see what the house actually sells for.

--Update, Saturday, Jan 26th
Tim just left for the house tour. His last comment was--I'm glad it's raining so much, maybe the house will be flooded! That will be good for us.

He's hilarious.

Potential in podunk?

The house hunting continues this weekend. I'm sometimes sad we'll be leaving our the place we're at but at the same time am looking forward to having a place to call home. The dilemma is finding a house in our budget, in a nice neighborhood, that isn't miles away from work.

I've fallen in love with a house already, it has a pool and potential, and is in what appears to be a stellar neighborhood. It is overpriced and at the top of our budget, is built on a slab, and needs work to boot, so probably not the best house to fall for.

Tim has his eyes set on a short sale. It is built on a standard foundation, and needs a lot of work but is much cheaper. The house has potential, the front yard is concrete and it was a bit dark to tell how the interior of the house looked, so we're going back this weekend to see it in the daylight. Both homes are further south than we're used to, which means more of a commute for me. So we'll see... We're meeting with a realtor Saturday to look at a few more houses (In addition to the ones I've scoped out.) so maybe we'll find something even better out there.

He arrived!

Well, flat Spencer arrived yesterday! He's rather cute for a blue faced little boy. We have taken a few photos of him with the local attractions while we've been out and about.

He arrived after I had my first acupuncture session, so he didn't get to go along for that. My new Dr isn't as nice as the one I used to go to, but she's on the list of approved IVF doctors. This one used a Moxa stick to warm up my stagnant qi. It looked like a hand wrapped cigar. She lit it and hovered the burning "cigar" about 1/2" over my body. It smelled good while burning, but afterwords I reeked of moxa--Chinese Mugwort or wormwood--which smelled a lot like weed to me. Tim said I smelled like a stoner--at least I didn't get the munchies!

Since it was sunny and nice this weekend we decided to look at houses to see what's out there. (we also took down the exterior Christmas decorations) I met with a Realtor that works with our company last week, which was interesting. When I told her what we were willing to spend, she asked "So is that to be the deposit?" Ouch. I told her it would be a challenge--I guess she didn't realize how much of one it would be. I did some searching prior to my meeting with the high-end Realtor, and found plenty of houses in our price range. We looked at many of the houses this weekend, unfortunately many of the houses were at poor locations. However we found a few with potential, so our hope was restored a bit. We'll see how it goes.

Flat Spencer

California to many people sound glamorous... beaches, gorgeous tan people, palm trees, constant sun... most of these images of California are from the southern portion of the state and of course movies that show all of the beautiful people--not the pasty white programmers of Silicon Valley. In reality, Northern California is quite different, and often overlooked.

Today I received a call from the Midwest with a request for us to "host" a Flat "Spencer" for a kindergarten project. We were chosen out of an extended network of relatives because we live in California. I'm looking forward to taking our Flat "Spencer" around with us, and hopefully we won't disappoint the real Spencer by the fact we live in Northern California... At least photos won't show how cold it is here--a 50 degree beach is still pretty awesome, especially when you're under 10" of snow and ice. I'm really looking forward to introducing Flat "Spencer" to Northern CA.

Soggy

The rains are here with a vengeance. Our parking garage at work was flooded, and my shoes, socks, and pants were soggy all day. It chills you to the bone!

Now at home I have thick socks, yoga pants, and a warm sweater and I'm still cold! I'm sure part of it is the reduced calories in our new diet, but I'm not breaking!

I'm very grateful to have a warm house and power! (Especially since we have our litter box in the fireplace for ventilation purposes.) I suppose renting isn't so bad. The stray likes the fact that we're here! Especially on days like today!

House Junkie

I am a HGTV junkie. I admit it. I love watching home flips, remodels, design shows, home sale shows, whatever works! I think it's the line of work I'm in, I enjoy construction and home design. It is this love that is probably driving the desire to buy a home--a place I can our own--put up crown moulding, change out door hardware, upgrade plumbing fixtures, get a soaking tub... the list of options is endless!

We spoke to our landlady about buying the home we're in, but they're not interested in selling anytime soon, so we're back to square one.

It's probably for the best as we really need a house with more space: a driveway that doesn't scrape the nose of the cars every time you leave, a house where you don't have to go outside to get to the laundry room in the garage, a large kitchen with a pantry and a dishwasher, a bath-tub that works, a garage with a workshop and space to store our garden supplies, and a yard with sun to grow tomatoes and our favorite veggies...

In order to get that out here, we'll more than likely have to get a tear-down, and hope it doesn't fall in on us while we slowly remodel it. So I guess the shows may be worthwhile after all.