Our house!

Just a quick update as we (our house) got featured in a local blog. Here is the link.

We're homeowners!

So, it's finally happened: we bought a house! We closed on October 17, but not without a few mishaps along the way. We didn't know until the afternoon before whether it would even happen. We had to rush through the process of finding insurance (no easy task in FL). It was very stressful. And since then it's been a whirlwind.

We cleaned, we painted, we got to know Home Depot and Linens 'n Things pretty well. The previous owners left the place in a disgusting condition, so it took us about a week to get it looking halfway decent. This past Sunday we moved all of our stuff over, with the help of some friends. Now we are just trying to figure out where everything will go and adjusting to the new surroundings.

We are the kind of people who like to unpack and get things done, so I anticipate that the house will be put together pretty quickly. Of course, there is already a list of projects for the future, including the back yard, the porch, the utility room, etc. All in good time....

So, I guess this blog comes to a close. We are no longer desperately seeking a house. We've found it!

Thanks for reading.

-- Yana and Pete

Closing day came and went...

So we were going to close on the 10th, right? The seller's bank wanted to do this quickly, so they suggested October 10th. Eh, not so much...

It seems as you may already guess that we (the buyers) are the only ones interested in closing this deal with any speed. And by speed I mean we began this in May of this year! I think the banks/agents etc. could let this drag on indefinitely, it's only money.

We finally got the go ahead to get our inspector in the home for Monday. We also had a "pest" guy inspect for infestations, wood rot etc. Everything went fine (a few minor things to watch for in the future), overall the house inspected really well. So we can still make it to closing on the 17th, right? We can close on Friday and spend the weekend cleaning and painting! Nope!

Funny thing about seeing the home mostly empty and almostly yours, you start adding up everything that you and only you will spend in the future! Apparently this house does not come with a landlord to call!

Our bank has completed their appraisal/survey and shipped it off. I will say that our bank has really been pushing to get all this done and has been a great help. The title company does not seem motivated enough to pluck a fax or or whatever it is that they do (or not)...

Moving forward

We have finally come to an agreement on the price with all parties. In theory, we are moving towards closing. Can I get a cautiously optimistic "yay"?

-- Yana

The world is coming to an end!

Our financial system is on the brink of collapse! OK, maybe the situation is not quite that drastic. At least not yet... But it does make one pause in one's house-buying process and wonder, how will this affect us? Will our bank still be able to lend us money? Will the current mortgage holders be more or less likely to want to get rid of the burden of this house?

In the meantime, we got a call from our realtor last night. The first bank offered the second bank $1000 in the contract. The second bank has decided that they need $2500. Frankly, when you're losing almost $30,000, I don't see how an extra $1500 is going to make any difference, but that's just me. So, the sellers' agent wanted to know if we would be willing to spend that to close the deal. But then what's to stop the first bank from coming back and asking for more money, too?

Our realtor recommended telling the sellers' agent to go back to the first bank to negotiate, which is what we're doing. If they are so keen on making this deal, they will work something out. And if that doesn't work, maybe the two real estate agents can take that $1500 out of their commissions. It would only be $750 from each!

My hope is that we are getting closer to the end. This really, really needs to work out because we need somewhere to live! We have begun packing, because in either case, we're going to have to move in 31 days, whether it's into this house or an apartment somewhere. Keeping my fingers crossed!

-- Yana

contracts

After October 10th (our closing date), we will have to either move into "our" house or find an apartment...

You know what makes good packing material? Shredded MLS home listings and contracts...

And did I mention stressful?

So, it's Wednesday. We were possibly supposed to hear from the second bank yesterday. But we didn't. Our agent called today with an update, which is good. At least he's communicating with us. But the update was that there was no update, which is bad. So, we are still waiting and trying not to plan or decorate in our heads lest anything go wrong and we don't get this house.

-- Yana

Buying a house is confusing

While we were on vacation in Oregon and actively not thinking about the housing situation, we got a call from our realtor. We were coming up on our deadline for the Finch contract. Apparently, the first bank approved our offer. The realtor was "very surprised" that the bank didn't counter, but in my opinion, the bank is smarter than our realtor. It has perhaps come to realize that the housing market is not improving anytime soon, and getting something for that house is better than getting nothing. The bank wants to close by October 10, which is very soon!

But here's the catch: the sellers have two loans out on this house, the major one and a smaller one for about $30,000. While the main bank has approved, we still need to wait for the other bank to do the same. In theory, the main bank will pressure the second bank to sign off on the deal. However, it's been a week, and we still haven't heard. On our end, everything is ready to go. We have our lender all lined up and ready to close ASAP. We have a landlord who is practically pushing us out the door. We are also VERY ready to leave this apartment. Coming home from vacation to find a house infested with ants will do that for you.

The last thing we heard was that we might hearing something by next Tuesday. I really hope so because living in limbo is very stressful.

-- Yana

The Orlando Sentinel has gotten to Mike Thomas

There are very few things worth reading in our "local paper", the Orlando Sentinel, except maybe Scott Maxwell and Mike Thomas. Today's column from Mike Thomas, whom I usually agree with, stated that NOW is the time to buy a house in Orlando! You can read the column here and look at the comments (142 as of 7pm). Perhaps the sun has gotten to Mike, but I usually trust his opinion, just not on this subject...


Mike Thomas column

A Finch update of sorts....

Finch finally shows "inactive" online. Which means the bank is either looking at our offer, or someone else's. There is no way of knowing.

Yana emailed our agent to push or just really to inquire about the status of our bid on the Finch house last Tuesday. Our agent finally got around to replying on Friday, after Yana resent the email. It said the the sellers' agent was out of office. Today is Tuesday, I am certain we will hear something any minute now....any minute now...any minute now...

Catalpa update

The price for the house discussed below has been lowered to $229,000. Which makes it better...But with the electrical, kitchen, and bathrooms to be replaced, it still seems like a long shot. I understand the kitchen/bathroom thing is "cosmetic", but the electrical is a must fix!

I also can not believe that we get the agent's sigh/shoulder shrug for wanting a house with updated/functional electrical in this market. Are we wrong to expect functionality in a $200,000 purchase?

Catalpa-dream house or nightmare?

The seller's agent for the house on Catalpa (read below) called our agent last week and countered their own counter offer(?) from $230,000 to $225,000. We asked an electrician to do a rough estimate on redoing the electrical. He quoted us $12,000. Which is about what we expected. We asked our agent to pass this along to the seller's agent to see if there were some middle ground to meet.

He replied that he would not discuss this as we did not have an offer put on the table so to speak! I will remind you that he contacted us!

The electrician also said that we don't have to rewire the entire house as long as we only plug certain things into certain parts of the house. A lamp here, a vacuum there, maybe not at the same time. It is safe to say, we will not be using this electrician!

I understand that we are looking at older houses that have more charm, in my opinion, but also inherent costs to maintain. Is it too much to ask for functional electrical for close to a quarter of a million dollars?

I suppose everyone in real estate (agents, electricians, etc.) have made enough money...

Some news...

And it's not good news. Our landlord is kicking us out. (That's the downside of not having a lease). He wants to remodel our place and rent it out for a lot more money than what we are paying. This means that we now have 2-4 months to find a new place to live. While this is a decent amount of time, you must remember that we've been looking at houses for about a year now. How we can settle on something so soon, especially considering the amount of crap that's on the market right now, is beyond me.

We are deeply upset by this development for a variety of reasons:

1. We have to accelerate our house search. If we don't find anything to buy, we'll have to find another place to rent, which means we'll be locked into a lease somewhere, which we don't want to do.

2. We wanted to be the ones to break the news to the landlord that we would be leaving. I think we would have found it quite satisfying. It's like your boyfriend/girlfriend breaking up with you before you can break up with him/her.

3. On a personal level, I will be very sad to leave our apartment. As much as I've complained about it over the years, the place contains so many of our memories and "firsts." It was our first apartment, the place where we adjusted to living as a couple, the place where we spent our wedding night, the place that kept us safe through the hurricanes, the place where we've come home to each other for the past 7 years. I'll miss the gay bar on the corner, the barbershop quartet, the various wacky neighbors who have caused me grief, and many other things about it.

4. We seriously need to find a place to live. And SOON!!!

Here's where we stand. We've put our offer back in on Finch, though we are not very hopeful of a positive outcome. The agent for Catalpa contacted us to let us know the sellers are re-countering with $225,000. (Their last counter was $230,000). Now that we know the state of the electrical system in that house, we still think that's too high. We're going to try to get an electrician to give us an estimate on how much it would cost to update the house and use that as a bargaining tool. So far, we haven't seen any other homes that are interesting or in our price range.

-- Yana

The last house was owned by a Master Sargent and his lovely war bride. I know this, because there was a plaque stating as much by the front door. In the walkway was Sarge's souvenir from his time in Germany, a cuckcoo clock.

The dungeon, I mean bathroom featured nifty hanging lamps and plastic shower doors from "the future" circa 1983...

The kitchen was to the left of the front door. I don't get these houses with kitchens in the front windows. The pantry as you'll see below is great for stocking canned goods, and only canned goods as it was 6 inches deep!

The house was maintained well enough, but it was outdated, expensive, and on a busy street. And it was a 2/2. It was listed for $219,000...

Next up on the list was a house listed for $243,000. It was a 3/2. It did not have central air conditioning! It had window units! In Orlando! Florida! In 2008! For $243,000!

When you walk into the house, you are immediately hit with "icy cold" air from your first window unit perched about 7 feet up. Kind of like those convenience stores with sliding doors. The crawlspace was taken out so that you had high ceilings, which is great, unless you plan on adding central air.

The kitchen featured cabinets that went 12 feet up with zero counter space. When I say zero, I mean the stove was free standing and there was an easy chair where the fridge would go (no fridge).

The bedroom/bathroom had a very unusual feature. The bedrooms were side by side with one very long closet between them. You could not close the closet door as that was where the window unit was located. I have included pictures from the screen located in the "master" to the closet. I can only think that this was used as a hidey-hole during police raids.










We could barely contain ourselves, considering the seller's agent showed this house with a straight face. This was just unbelievable. This house is the reason the housing market is tanking. I doubt we will have any more contact with the agent, but if anybody needs a grow house....

The Search Continues

Well, we did a speed tour of some newer listings today. The first place was well done. It had a great layout, most everything was renovated. Nice backyard, great kitchen. But it only had 1 bathroom. It has been said that one of the keys to a successful marriage is 2 bathrooms. I am sure this seems nit-picky, but the house is listed for $260,000. Considering what they paid for the house 4 years ago, I doubt they will come down enough to put it within our range.

So, on to the next house. We recently to a trip to Charleston, and we have found a historical replica here in Orlando! Join us for a trip to "colonial Orlando"...

This is what is known in the olden days as a kitchen
> >>>>>>>>



On the left is where Ye Olde TV went. On the right is housing for colonial re-enactors?



Now hold on to something; this house is listed for $264,000!

Back to Finch?

Our real estate agent called us over the weekend and told us that the house on Finch is "available". It seems that 3 months (of non payment) is just the right amount of time for a bank to reconsider your offer! I do not blame the sellers; they offered a short sale to the bank. Which to me should signal that the owners are in over their heads and want out.

The bank has decided that perhaps their one solid offer, us, might be worth looking into. We re-looked at the house last night. It's funny, you make one of the biggest purchases in your life based on 20-60 minutes worth of inspection. We looked a bit more critically at the house, windows, AC, electrical, etc.

You also have to curb your inner HG channel tendencies (we could knock down this wall and put in a waterfall/koi pond in the living room). Mostly because the house is not ours yet...

One thing we noticed on the second visit was that the AC duct work only goes to the middle of the house. This house was built in the fifties, tar and gravel roof, so no AC. The AC was added later to the bedrooms, bathrooms and the living room. The kitchen and and "bonus room" have no AC vents. This can be rectified by running a soffit across the living room. It will look like a beam. There are also 3 different fences in the backyard, neighbors on each side and directly in back. So that will cost us. Electrical seemed ok, not new but at least not antique.

So we decided to "re-put" in our offer with the stipulation that the bank makes a decision in less than 90 days! Our agent gritted his teeth, smiled and submitted the offer. We will see...

Back on the wagon, I think

We took last week off to recover from almost buying a money pit. It was a close one, but in the end, I'm glad we chose not to pursue the Catalpa house. We withdrew our offer and are waiting to get our escrow checks back from the realtor. It certainly takes a lot longer to get them returned that it did for him to deposit them. I'm beginning to think it's intentional.

Over the weekend, we looked at 3 houses. The first two were foreclosures. Let me tell you, they were both awful. That's the thing about foreclosures; I have yet to see one that isn't absolutely horrible. If they were at least priced right and could be repaired... The first house had an interesting feature: a fake 2-car garage. Just inside the garage door, there was a cinder block wall. I guess these crazy people had expanded the master, but that left nowhere to park. The second house was basically a tear-down. It was full of mold and incredibly disgusting!

The third house was in Audubon Park, one of our target neighborhoods. It was very cute, though a bit small. Its major drawback was that it was located on the corner of a busy street. Not only would you have to deal with the noise, but I imagine it would also be difficult to sell down the road. And it had no dishwasher! Now, that's just unheard of in 2008.

We'll keep looking.

-- Yana

My dad is a dream crusher

OK, he's not really. He just took the wind out of our sails this weekend about the Catalpa house. After the counter offer came through, we decided to take the advice of a friend and go see the house again. On Saturday, we spent nearly 45 minutes in the home, turning on lights, flushing the toilets, measuring windows, looking very carefully at the ceiling for water stains, etc.

One thing that we did not notice on our previous visit was that the electrical outlets in half the house were not grounded. They only had 2 holes. I immediately knew this was a bad sign and dreaded telling my dad. He's an electrical and general contractor, and we rely on his knowledge of what can be fixed and how much it might cost. Dad basically said that to fix something like that in this house would be nearly impossible without major time and money spent. Because the house has a flat roof and no attic access, the only way to get to the wiring would be to rip out the drywall, which is a messy and expensive process. Basically, a flat roof makes it difficult to fix anything.

So, the end result is that we are going to walk away from this negotiation and continue looking. I guess we'll have to add another criteria to our search: a shingle roof. This is slightly problematic given that many of the homes we are looking at were built in the 50s when built up (flat tar and gravel) roofs were popular.

We're disappointed. I was so depressed about this that I couldn't bring myself to write yesterday. And it's not even about this house in particular, which should probably tell me that it wasn't the right house for us, but just about this search in general. I swear, we are not that picky. We're cautious, as Pete's sister put it. We don't want to get stuck with a money pit. We want the right house for the right price in the right neighborhood. Too much to ask? Apparently.

-- Yana

Our first counter offer

So, we heard back from the seller today. Their counter was $230,000, and they are not willing to fix a few of the things we asked for, such as windows that don't open. We were really hoping for something a little bit more reasonable, but such is life, I guess.

At this point, I think our next course of action is to go back and look at the house again. We'll be able to look at it more critically this time, now that the initial excitement has faded a little bit. After that, we may counter them again.

-- Yana