The Money Pit

Monday, October 27, 2008

We won’t be getting the house. I’m OK with that. And I believe that our house hunt is on hold indefinitely while we work to improve our financial situation. Beau may not agree with me on this, but I’m sure we’ll discuss it at length.

Mentally, emotionally, and physically I’m done with the hunt. I can’t do it anymore. I just can’t.

There are other things that I want and need to be doing with my weekends. There are other things that Beau can be doing with his time as well.

We are done.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

1. Still no word on the house. We had to counter offer - best and final - we assume because the other offer was the same as ours. So we upped our offer by $6K thinking that the other folks will have upped by $5K.

[UPDATE 4:00pm]: Beau called our realtor. Our realtor had called the seller/bank and was told that a decision would be made late today or early tomorrow AM. He got the impression from the conversation that the two offers were very close, but that maybe we edged them out. But we’ll find out when we find out either way.

2. It is so aggravating that Gmail access here is so spotty. I can get in with no problems at random times during the day and not at all other times.

3. It turns out that Verizon FIOS users can’t get to my blog lately. I’m working on a solution with my host, but since I can’t get into my email the process has halted because I don’t have the link to the trouble ticket handy. The technician talked about migrating to a new server location, which means the blog will be down for the time that takes.

[UPDATE 4:00pm]: The lovely tech person helping me with the FIOS issue, which I believe must be a DC area thing only, will be migrating my blog to a new server overnight. Who knows how long it will take to resolve, but let it be known that your access may be spotting for a bit.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Beau found a house that was just listed over the weekend. We went to look at it yesterday afternoon and we’re meeting with our realtor to make an offer sometime today. It’s a cute little colonial that is listed as a 6 bed/3 bath, but it’s really a 4 bed/4 bath with two rooms on the main floor that could be bedrooms. The 4 full baths are cool, although I’d really be happier with a half bath on the main floor. We talked about maybe reverting it back to a half bath at some point. The kitchen is quite large, but lacks cabinets/counters. However, there is great potential for a large island or peninsula and we think we’ll break into a side wall to make the back “bedroom” a connecting dining room. Or we’ll make that a study/den for Beau and break into the wall that separates the living room from the front “bedroom” to make that a larger space. There is a good sized laundry room on the main floor. No basement. Upstairs are the 4 bedrooms and 3 full baths. The master has it’s own bathroom. Across the hall from that room is the room we’ll make into the nursery. Next to that room is a bedroom with bathroom that we’ll make into a guest room/Jen’s office and I’ll probably use that bathroom. Then across from the guest room is Jesse’s room. The bedrooms aren’t tiny, but they aren’t huge either. They’re workable. What’s great is that it is pretty much move in ready - just needs some light cleaning and paint. We will need to buy a washer/dryer and maybe a new frig, but everything else looks great. There’s a nice shed in the side/backyard that will be great for storage and maybe a work room for Beau. There’s not much backyard, instead it has two large side yards because it is a corner lot and the house is placed facing the corner rather than one side. It does have a front porch. There is plenty of room to add a garage if we want to at some point, but none of the other houses on the street have garages, so I’m not sure we would want to do that. Plus, we don’t plan to be in this house for more than 5 years anyway. Beau took a good picture that I’ll post as soon as we download it from the camera. [UPDATE 2:30pm]: Docs are all signed and getting sent to the seller by our realtor. Beau will email the house pic if Jesse goes down for an afternoon nap.

Monday, October 06, 2008

1. More house hunting yesterday. I’ll sum it up this way - three great houses, but not an offer submitted. It’s a long story with which I won’t bore you.

2. Bizarro pregnancy dreams continue. I had two this weekend that really boggled my mind. I’ll just share the weirdest one.

Friday night. Beau and I decided to adopt a baby girl even though I am pregnant with a baby girl (in the dream I was at about 6 months along). So Lando Calrissian took us to some city in the clouds over Italy in the Millinian Falcon where we waited with other adoptive couples for our baby. When the first one arrived, I booted people out of the way at the door to get to the baby first. It was cold, so the infant carrier was covered. I unzipped it to find a lovely red-haired little girl and I scooped her to me mine. As for the Lando appearance, I can only attribute it to my recent watching of Return of the Jedi on cable. There’s no other explanation because I much prefer Han Solo over any other male in the Star Wars universe.

3. Useless One complained to me about how busy she is and to warn me that medical bills will be coming to me late. And then she proceeded to complain about how our boss told her she had to step up to the plate to take on more in her job. How dare he! Yadda, yadda, yadda. I told her we’ve all had to step up to take on extra at times and that it’s just the way it is when we can’t add the admin staff that we need. She then tried to blame that on the management, but I defended them because I know for a fact that our management constantly asks for more admins and repeatedly gets told no by HQ. We are the red-headed step child of federal agencies - we just don’t get the funding that others get.

4. Jesse is a generous little boy. He takes great delight in sharing food with Beau and I. He loves to feed Daddy grapes or pasta or Froot Loops, opening his mouth as wide as it will go and holding out the piece of food for Daddy to take from his little fingers. I had the pleasure of getting fed Froot Loops yesterday and his happy face made me tear up - or maybe that was the pregnancy hormones.

He has also perfected the zerbert. He loves to tickle, although his tickles are really pinches. But he showed his mastery of the zerbert yesterday when I heard this noise from Beau’s direction. We were watching the Redskins game (hail!) in the bedroom after a long morning of looking at houses. Jesse was wrestling with us on the bed when I heard the noise. “Did Jesse press on your belly hard enough to make you toot?” I asked Beau.

“No, Jesse did that,” Beau said, laughing.

I looked over to see Jesse press his mouth to Beau’s belly and he let out this beautiful zerbert. I cracked up, laughing so hard I had tears streaming. Jesse thought this was great and continued to zerbert. Then he zerberted me, too. And tickled/pinched. So much fun.

5. Oh, and the Redskins started winning when Beau put Jesse into his Redskins shirt. The boy will be wearing that shirt on all game days for the rest of the season.

Monday, September 29, 2008

We had a successful house hunting weekend and found a home that we put an offer on yesterday. It is an older home (40+ years) that has been renovated to make it much larger. It’s a 4 bedroom, 2.5 bathroom split foyer style. Not my favorite, but I can live in this house easily. The kitchen needs a complete overhaul and there are some other cosmetic changes we’ll make in time, but of the many foreclosure homes we have looked at it is in the best shape. It is essentially move-in ready, which is a huge plus.

So I spent a long time on the phone with my bank to start the loan process and also with Countrywide (a Countrywide pre-approval is required, but we don’t have to get our loan with them).

And now we wait to see if our offer is accepted. There are other offers on the house, so we’re nervous but also excited!

[UPDATE (4:50pm)]: We didn’t get it. The bank accepted the other offer before we got our loan approval in. I’m ticked because it was a frustrating process with Countrywide, who demanded that we do the application online. Unfortunately, our network was super slow and bogged down this morning and it took forever for each page to load. It probably took twice as long to complete as a result. *sigh*

Thursday, September 25, 2008

I love fall and it’s helping with my morning sickness, I think. Now that it’s cooler I am feeling much better. Of course, that could be because I’m nearing the end of the 1st trimester, but maybe it’s both.

I’m happy today to be wearing my favorite maternity shirt. I’m also happy that most of my maternity clothes will work for this pregnancy since I’ll be at my heaviest in the winter and early spring. There are some sweaters that I got for my pregnancy with Jesse that I never got to wear because of my bed rest. I’m thrilled to be able to wear them this time.

Facebook is way too addicting and such a time waster. But I love that I’ve been able to reconnect with some friends with whom I had lost touch.

The house hunt on Saturday was disappointing. Foreclosed homes are in such rough shape. One had real potential until we discovered the mold in the basement. So we press on in the hopes of finding something sooner rather than later.

I’m not happy about this bailout thing. As a taxpayer, the thought of $1T added to the national debt makes me cringe. However, I do believe the economists who say that long term this will be a lot less worse than it could have been otherwise. But it still rankles.

I believe the debate should go forth tomorrow night. That said, I also believe that it is important for the Senators to be on the Hill to tend to do their jobs. But then they can hop their campaign planes for the debate in the south.

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

1. Beau’s Sis - I got your phone message last night. I appreciate your comforting words and prayer!

2. Regarding Annie - thanks for all of the sweet comments about her death. Beau has already started to de-dog the house, which will help some, I think. For both os us, for different reasons.

3. I spent the weekend watching a House marathon on cable. I had seen a couple episodes, but never got into a regular viewing habit. That will change with this season, I think. Love that show.

4. I know that the new TV season starts this week. I have no idea what new shows I will be watching. I know that I’m happy that Life is coming back. Other than that, I really have no clue about any of it since I’ve been laid up.

5. I’ve missed a lot of church in the past few months. I miss it. Our small group starts back up tomorrow and I’m going to miss a lot of that in the next few months I think, too. Makes me sad.

6. Beau found a townhouse in the neighboring county that is in our price range so we’re going to try to look at it soon. The taxes will be slightly higher, but the commute would be shorter by 10 minutes. That may not sound like much, but when it takes 90 minutes on some days to get to work, that’s huge for me. And there’s a pool in the neighborhood, which is a huge bonus.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Still no word on the promotion. The Chief has not made an appearance in the office yet. *sigh*

Beau’s mp3 player died yesterday. We tried to troubleshoot last night - the player won’t turn on, but seems to receive data. We reformated the thing and I was able to transfer a book to it, but it will not turn on. It is not a battery problem - it had a new battery in it and Beau did switch for a new one, too. It’s a stumper and a bummer. So he said that if I get the promotion that I can buy the one that I want for myself. I found it at Walmart for significantly cheaper than anywhere else, so I’m anxious to get an answer on the job for a couple of reasons now.

I’m not sure if we’ll be able to look at houses this weekend. We have a BBQ for small group leaders on Saturday afternoon and then church that evening. So if we go out to look, it’ll have to be Sunday, which neither of us wants to do. And it will depend on our realtor’s availability. If we don’t then we won’t see anything until after we get back from California. Man, we leave in a week for California already. I need to mail that package of Jesse stuff to Beau’s uncle no later than tomorrow so that it arrives on time.

We go to the Glenn Beck simulcast tonight and I’m very excited. He was talking yesterday about the special “The Twenty” pre-show thing that they’ve done for the theaters hosting the simulcast. Apparently, they were able to convince the theater chains to run his version for his show. So we have to get there at least 20 minutes early because I want to see that, too.

It’s a very nerve-wracking day. But in a totally good way.

Monday, July 07, 2008

We went to look at a few houses this afternoon. All three in are in the same general neighborhood. All three are single family homes.

The first was a disaster. It was the cheapest listing, but needs to most work. More work than I’m willing to put up with for the price of the home. It would take us a very long time to get it in shape because we wouldn’t have the cash available for a long time. So that one got a quick pass.

The second one is in much better shape. It needs work and it is priced higher, but none of the work is needed to make the place liveable. It has great curb appeal and a lovely fully fenced back yard with a nice sized deck. Oh, and a garage with storage space above it.

The third one is slightly less than the second one and in the best shape. The owners were there when we walked through. It’s a short sale, so there’s no telling how long we’d have to wait for the process or even if it would be worth the wait. It’s on a corner lot, so the yard is huge. Nice back deck. Tiny kitchen. Garage. And the price is about $10K more than we pre-qualified for, but I think we could get that amount if I get the promotion/raise. So our realtor is going to talk to their realtor to get the story, crunch numbers, and get back to us. We may put an offer in anyway, if our realtor thinks we can do it, knowing that short sales take forever to complete. We’ve got time and we can continue looking at other houses while we wait.

We have a different realtor - our previous one went to a different agency. This new one seems much better just from the brief time we spent with him this afternoon.

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

1. My resume and other appropriate documentation is submitted for the promotion opportunity. From my reading of the requirements, it seemed slightly tailored to my skills. There’s one skillset that neither of my competition have exactly - the budgeting portion. There was one small item that I don’t have actual experience, although I’m aware of how to do that particular task and it’s relatively minor in the grand scheme. So now we wait and pray. I’m hoping that a decision is made before we leave for California.

2. I want Petrozza to win Hell’s Kitchen. I like Christina, too. But I think Petrozza has more experience and the maturity to take on Ramsey’s restaurant. Plus, I just like him. I’d love to cook with him and have a good conversation about food. Of all of the HK contestants, he is the most interesting and likeable.

3. We’re probably going to start looking at houses again in the next week or so. And I’m also starting to think about how I’d like to decorate our new house - color schemes, styles, etc. The easiest thing to start with is paint, so I’m already starting to think about colors I want in particular rooms. And I’m starting to think about how to redo Jesse’s little boy room since he’ll be ready to transition out of the crib - I’m leaning toward bypassing the character room idea and go straight into a slightly older scheme, but include fun toddler-ish elements that can be removed later as he gets older.

4. We’re able to leave early tomorrow, so that will be nice. I’m happy for the long weekend, although it is packed. We have a birthday party on Friday afternoon/evening. I’m on worship team this weekend, so we’ll have practice Saturday afternoon before the service and then I’ll be there Sunday morning. But I’m excited to sing again - I’ve started to miss it.

Monday, May 12, 2008

So knowing there’s always a chance that Beau will get the job that would involve a move to the Dallas area, I checked home listings in that area on Realtor.com.

They have several lovely single family homes in our price range.

I could definitely live in this house.

Or this one.

Or many of these, really.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

House hunting is exhausting and way too stressful. After a week of pouring over listings, we narrowed down the hunt to about a dozen houses before we met with our realtor yesterday. She then eliminated about half of those listings because they’re short sales. She said short sales are a waste of a buyer’s time since they can take several months to sort out. So a buyer could put in an offer on a house in short sale, but the seller/bank won’t even touch your paperwork until the short sale is completed. The buyers wait and may lose out on a better house they could have found in the meantime.

That left us with about 6 or 7 houses to look at yesterday. But we only actually looked at 3 because the listing realtors weren’t answering their phones and we couldn’t get the codes to get in to look. That’s a shame, because a couple of them we were really interested in.

Of the three we walked through, there was one that was in excellent condition and ready for immediate move in. However, this is one that is nearing the end of the short sale process, so it could still take some time to complete. And it doesn’t meet all of our requirements in space needs. But it is lovely and definitely moved into the top slot for the day.

The second one is vacant and in pretty good shape, but the kitchen is in need of remodeling and there was an inspection notice by the front door that showed two inspection ratings in the past several months of “poor.” We’re curious what that means. And it’s in a location that would add at least 30 minutes to my already long commute.

The third one I didn’t like at all.

The really disappointing thing is that all of the houses with realty signs in our neighborhood that are in our price range already have contracts on them, including the house next door. Oh, we did look at that one and it’s a disaster. It’s actually in worse shape than the super cheap house we looked at the other night (which has a contact pending already). Beau is very bummed that we lost out on the super cheap house.

On the cute single family house I wanted to look at - we got some intel from a long time resident of our town that that neighborhood isn’t the best. So we didn’t even go look at it or any other houses in that area.

Our realtor has sent a bunch of new listings to look at and I have taken a deeper look at the ones that I ruled out because of their location (mostly because of they would lengthen my commute, not because I didn’t like the house/neighborhood). We’ll see about taking a look at them later this week.

Friday, May 09, 2008

We were supposed to go look at that single family home last night. But our realtor called to beg off because she had a migraine, so we’ll go look at it first thing tomorrow instead. We’re scheduled to look at houses with her between 9am and 2pm. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

She emailed a lengthy packet of listings, most of which were in the neighborhoods that we ruled out in our drive about town the other day. We whittled it down to about 8 of her listings, plus 3 of our own findings. I found 3 new ones on Realtor.com this morning that hadn’t shown up before, too. Of the 14 total listings, only 2 are single family homes and they were listings I found online. She didn’t send a single SFH listing and I asked her about that in my email to her this morning. She also didn’t have any of the houses in our neighborhood in the mix and I asked about that as well. I can’t imagine why she wouldn’t have included them unless they all have contracts on them already, which I doubt.

Beau and I need to prioritize the listings so that we look at our top choices first. I’m positive we won’t be able to look at all 11-14 houses in that block of time.

Then the next question is whether or not to attempt church tomorrow night followed by dinner out with my parents for a small Mother’s Day observation (since we’re still trying to plan a big Mother’s Day thing with the three moms while we’re at Disney). The real question is will Jesse make it without a nap until after 2pm? How will we ensure he gets lunch while we’re out?

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

We managed to rule out about a dozen houses today just by driving all over town. Do you know how exhausting that is?

We are going to look at the cute 5 bedroom house tomorrow night. We did drive by it and peeked in the windows. It is vacant and needs some painting and minor cosmetic work from what we could see of the main floor. The outside is as cute as in the picture. The back yard is quite large and there’s a great storage shed in the back that looks like a rustic barn. And I don’t mean rustic in the run down sense - it looks rather new. There is definitely a bedroom and full bath on the main floor, so that means 4 bedrooms and 3 baths upstairs. The kitchen is on the small side, but open and renovated.

There is only one other house, a townhouse, that is still in consideration. The neighborhood is on the other side of town, which means a slightly longer commute for me. But it’s a newer community and it has a pool and a playground area just behind the row of houses.

Then who knows what listings our realtor will come up with that aren’t available online. Those are for Saturday though. For now, I’m mentally done.

I got home yesterday and chaos ruled until about 8:30pm or so. Jesse needed feeding, Beau and I got into an argument (my fault), we didn’t know what to do about getting dinner for ourselves.

We were waiting for our realtor to call about going to look at a newly reduced, bank owned house in our neighborhood. She was out and about all day, working on another house, and her cell phone had died so she didn’t call until about 6:45pm. Turns out she could meet us at that house at about 7:15pm, so we put Jesse in the stroller and walked down there to meet her. In all of the chaos, I forgot to get my camera - so no pictures of this house.

It has been vacant for about a year and the bank just reduced the price yesterday by about $70K. It is definitely an “as is” buy, but the seller is offering $2500 towards closing costs, too. It’s a steal.

The details are behind the link for those who care to read them.