Last night our mortgage broker came over to go over the plethora of forms for Matt to sign (not me, sadly, as I'm not on the loan. Bwahahaha!) It was mind-boggling, how much nit-picky information there was to go over. Our broker said it has gotten like this over the last couple of years due to so much fraud in the industry. Oh well. It sounds like everything will go through and now we just wait!
I'm thinking of taking a drive past our new house one of these days to see if they've started the work on the outside of it. The need to finish the siding and put up gutters, as well as add some vents to the roof.
I have been reading the West Seattle Blog quite a bit lately. It has really helped me to feel more connected to our new neighborhood! Through this blog I have learned that the playground down the street from our new house is going to be completely renovated. It should be done by the time we get back from our MI vacation! How exciting! They were looking for volunteers to help with it, but sadly we won't be here. That would have been a fantastic and fun way to give back to our new neighborhood! Also, they are putting in a skate park near our new house! Um, not for us to use, but they are so fun to check out and watch the skateboarders.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Day 28: Appraisal
Just got word that the appraisal went great! Everything appraised at it should, though ne noted that the gutters needed to added to the house on the north side. Yep. Good thing the sellers are fixing that!
As this process of buying the house moves along so is the process of transferring our lives over to our new neighborhood. I wrote about it on my personal blog (HERE), but we have found a new school for the girls already. An amazing, amazing new school. Sort of makes moving to the other side of this big city completely worth it!
As this process of buying the house moves along so is the process of transferring our lives over to our new neighborhood. I wrote about it on my personal blog (HERE), but we have found a new school for the girls already. An amazing, amazing new school. Sort of makes moving to the other side of this big city completely worth it!
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Day 24: Interesting
Today I was looking more online for crime stats and sex offender stats for our new neighborhood. Interestingly, where we currently live has crime stats were higher and more RSO within a one mile radius! I was shocked. I consider our where we are a safe neighborhood, safer, I thought, than where we were moving. Little did I know!
Monday, May 18, 2009
Day 23: Notice of Disapproval
Okay, I've calmed down a bit. Talked to all of the people who have good insight in to the situation about the work that needs to be done on the house and got to chat with our realtor today, too.
It sounds like the bottom line on the house is that for being close to 100 years old, it's in pretty decent shape. It could have been a whole lot worse and the good news is that none of the major stuff is wrong.
BUT there still is a laundry list of stuff that needs to be done! (by the way, where did the term laundry list come from?). We are submitting our notice of disapproval and have given them a good chunk of the work to do. There were a few things we kept out ourselves that were either fairly small, not that important, or stuff that is important enough for us to be done correctly that we don't want the seller to half-ass it together just to call it good.
However, after all of this, even if the seller fixes every single thing on our list, we'll have an entire basement that can't be slept in until we do some work on it. We will have to put egress windows in both of the rooms for starters, but the bigger issue is wanting to re-model the basement. If we do it before we move our stuff down there we have the benefit of having an empty space to deal with. Of course, we need money for that, which we don't have. Now we are questioning the sensibility of getting a loan to start these home improvements right away. On one hand, I am like "what the hell, ANOTHER loan?!?!" but then on the other hand I am like "it IS to make the bedrooms livable. It's not like we're going to spend the money to put in a marble tile throughout the house or something". So, Matt and I will have to hash that out.
But before any of that, there's the matter of waiting to hear what the seller says about doing this work. Some of it will simply have to be done in order for the seller to sell us the house (ie for us to get our FHA loan). For instance, they have to put gutters on it. If they don't, we won't get the loan and we are forced to walk away from the deal. It will be interesting to see how motivated the seller is because this is an investment property for him. Would he really basically back out at this point by not doing the work just to go through this all with another buyer? I'm not sure. I would like to think not!
We did want to get a sewer inspection scheduled but alas, we can't get it done before we have to give our notice of disapproval on the property to the sellers. We still can do the sewer inspection, but can't include it in the things we want them to fix or that we can walk away from the contract over. Of course our wiley realtor might find another way out of the deal, but for me, the bottom line is, do we do the inspection and live with the results, whatever they are, or do we save the money and not do the inspection and live with it not knowing what the problems are?
It sounds like the bottom line on the house is that for being close to 100 years old, it's in pretty decent shape. It could have been a whole lot worse and the good news is that none of the major stuff is wrong.
BUT there still is a laundry list of stuff that needs to be done! (by the way, where did the term laundry list come from?). We are submitting our notice of disapproval and have given them a good chunk of the work to do. There were a few things we kept out ourselves that were either fairly small, not that important, or stuff that is important enough for us to be done correctly that we don't want the seller to half-ass it together just to call it good.
However, after all of this, even if the seller fixes every single thing on our list, we'll have an entire basement that can't be slept in until we do some work on it. We will have to put egress windows in both of the rooms for starters, but the bigger issue is wanting to re-model the basement. If we do it before we move our stuff down there we have the benefit of having an empty space to deal with. Of course, we need money for that, which we don't have. Now we are questioning the sensibility of getting a loan to start these home improvements right away. On one hand, I am like "what the hell, ANOTHER loan?!?!" but then on the other hand I am like "it IS to make the bedrooms livable. It's not like we're going to spend the money to put in a marble tile throughout the house or something". So, Matt and I will have to hash that out.
But before any of that, there's the matter of waiting to hear what the seller says about doing this work. Some of it will simply have to be done in order for the seller to sell us the house (ie for us to get our FHA loan). For instance, they have to put gutters on it. If they don't, we won't get the loan and we are forced to walk away from the deal. It will be interesting to see how motivated the seller is because this is an investment property for him. Would he really basically back out at this point by not doing the work just to go through this all with another buyer? I'm not sure. I would like to think not!
We did want to get a sewer inspection scheduled but alas, we can't get it done before we have to give our notice of disapproval on the property to the sellers. We still can do the sewer inspection, but can't include it in the things we want them to fix or that we can walk away from the contract over. Of course our wiley realtor might find another way out of the deal, but for me, the bottom line is, do we do the inspection and live with the results, whatever they are, or do we save the money and not do the inspection and live with it not knowing what the problems are?
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Day 21: Terror.
We did the inspection today. It was truly eye-opening.
Let me tell you, all I heard was "blah blah is not up to code, blah blah needs to be fixed, this blah blah blah siding is a total hack-job" and on and on, ad nauseum. My brain was so full of information about what was wrong with the house that I could hardly hear when we were told that the electrical was in excellent shape, that the plumbing looked great and that the roof was pretty much solid. So all of things are huge. HUGE! Those are all of the things that you absolutely don't want to have wrong. I wasn't prepared for, however, all of the little nit-picky things that were.
My biggest concern is the basement "bedrooms". Clearly having bedrooms in the basement is not super-ideal, but you know, we don't mind that much since all we do is sleep in them. We had some big ideas on re-configuring some walls down there to have it all work exactly like we wanted. Little did we know that when we looked more closely at the bedrooms they weren't code-compliant. Neither had a source of egress (a way--besides the bedroom door-- to get out of the room should there be a fire). Um, yeah. So technically we only have a one bedroom house.
There were plenty of other things too. Well, a big thing is the half-assed job that they did on the siding. They pretty much stopped putting the wood shingles on about 7/8 of the way down and then chose a random mix of ways to deal with the exposed house on the bottom. Affixing plastic to it, hammering up some plywood, leaving it bare, all delightful options! We were told that the sellers were already planning on fixing it, though.
I got a little terrified with being faced with the realization that there is so much work involved in home buying--especially in our price range, I would think. Alot of work and, lets face the facts, not much money. I would be more than happy to do all the work in the world on this house (or any house!) but money is just going to be so tight for us.
Of course, we haven't sent our notice of disapproval to the sellers. We'll see how much they are willing to fix, though clearly it won't be every little thing that we found that needed to be. Of even more concern is, will we even be able to get an FHA loan for this house? Lots of what-ifs. Here I was under the very-mistaken impression that all of the questions would be answered with the inspection, but it only opened a whole host of new ones.
Anyways, the last word from our agent and inspector today was that it is a good house. When asked what he would measure it on a scaled of 1 to 10 the inspector said "7".
I also should add that while I came out of the inspection shell-shocked, Matt came out of it very excited. He thought the news on the house was very positive, considering all of the big stuff was golden.
Oops, one more add as a mention for Abby is that we talked to our agent and the inspector about getting a scope of the sewer lines and will likely be getting that done. Our agent said that isn't something he ever really sees buyers want to do but that if this process of getting one goes well he will likely start recommending them to other buyers! So yay Abby for the recommendation!
Let me tell you, all I heard was "blah blah is not up to code, blah blah needs to be fixed, this blah blah blah siding is a total hack-job" and on and on, ad nauseum. My brain was so full of information about what was wrong with the house that I could hardly hear when we were told that the electrical was in excellent shape, that the plumbing looked great and that the roof was pretty much solid. So all of things are huge. HUGE! Those are all of the things that you absolutely don't want to have wrong. I wasn't prepared for, however, all of the little nit-picky things that were.
My biggest concern is the basement "bedrooms". Clearly having bedrooms in the basement is not super-ideal, but you know, we don't mind that much since all we do is sleep in them. We had some big ideas on re-configuring some walls down there to have it all work exactly like we wanted. Little did we know that when we looked more closely at the bedrooms they weren't code-compliant. Neither had a source of egress (a way--besides the bedroom door-- to get out of the room should there be a fire). Um, yeah. So technically we only have a one bedroom house.
There were plenty of other things too. Well, a big thing is the half-assed job that they did on the siding. They pretty much stopped putting the wood shingles on about 7/8 of the way down and then chose a random mix of ways to deal with the exposed house on the bottom. Affixing plastic to it, hammering up some plywood, leaving it bare, all delightful options! We were told that the sellers were already planning on fixing it, though.
I got a little terrified with being faced with the realization that there is so much work involved in home buying--especially in our price range, I would think. Alot of work and, lets face the facts, not much money. I would be more than happy to do all the work in the world on this house (or any house!) but money is just going to be so tight for us.
Of course, we haven't sent our notice of disapproval to the sellers. We'll see how much they are willing to fix, though clearly it won't be every little thing that we found that needed to be. Of even more concern is, will we even be able to get an FHA loan for this house? Lots of what-ifs. Here I was under the very-mistaken impression that all of the questions would be answered with the inspection, but it only opened a whole host of new ones.
Anyways, the last word from our agent and inspector today was that it is a good house. When asked what he would measure it on a scaled of 1 to 10 the inspector said "7".
I also should add that while I came out of the inspection shell-shocked, Matt came out of it very excited. He thought the news on the house was very positive, considering all of the big stuff was golden.
Oops, one more add as a mention for Abby is that we talked to our agent and the inspector about getting a scope of the sewer lines and will likely be getting that done. Our agent said that isn't something he ever really sees buyers want to do but that if this process of getting one goes well he will likely start recommending them to other buyers! So yay Abby for the recommendation!
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Day 19: Um, whoa.
Well holy crap, I had NO idea how much was involved in this space between saying we're buying the house and actually buying it.
In the past two days I've had alot on my plate. Let's see. We scheduled the inspection for Saturday afternoon. It was all set and great. The inspector was all set to go, we got child care so Matt and I could go and give it our undivided attention, and our friend is coming with us to look at the basement for us and give his ideas on re-doing the space. We had planned the inspection closely around some time we were spending with family that afternoon, as well. Wouldn't you know it, I get a call from the realtor today saying that time will no longer work because the tenants are coming home (we thought they were going to be out of town) and that time doesn't work for them anymore. Um, excuse me? I want, really really want, to be empathetic to the fact that it sucks that they signed a lease on a house that was for sale and therefor are forced to deal with all of this crap, but OH MY GOD I was livid. I had Matt get on the phone and talk to our realtor to get the original time to work OR ELSE. Or else what, I don't know. Or else I'll cry, I guess.
The other "fun" thing I've been doing is trying to figure out the deal with home owner's insurance. Having never purchased it, I am not really sure what I'm doing, and am being asked tons of questions about the house I have no answers to as all I know about it is the 15 minutes we spent touring it last weekend (yes, we decided to plunk down $300,000 on a house we were only in for 15 mins). And then I call the realtor to explain how I don't know how to answer these questions about the house and he tells me to not answer anything, that they should be sending someone out to look at the house to get those answers themselves. So I'm like, well, no one is doing that, they're just asking me questions. And I am not even clear on what the lender even needs to have as proof of insurance. More phone calls to our realtor/lender commenced. Still no insurance but lots and lots of time lost on the phone.
What else? I dropped off a giant check for earnest money at the escrow company this morning. Eloise liked the "store" because they had a jar full of candy.
I have had to scan and email countless papers to our realtor. Fun times. Matt has had to initial/sign/date countless times, as well. I even had to forge his initials once. Oops.
In addition to house stuff I've been researching schools in our new neighborhood and have set up an appointment to go visit a school that looks really wonderful, so we're excited about that. Annoying to know that the hours and hours of time we spent researching schools on the north end was all for nothing, but you know, there was nothing else we could have done. We knew we would likely be moving, but didn't know where. We had hoped we could stay in our current 'hood, but alas, it wasn't in the stars.
It's all plugging along, though. Stressful, but good. Hopefully at the inspection on Saturday I'll get some good pictures of the house to post. The ones online don't really do the house justice, I think.
In the past two days I've had alot on my plate. Let's see. We scheduled the inspection for Saturday afternoon. It was all set and great. The inspector was all set to go, we got child care so Matt and I could go and give it our undivided attention, and our friend is coming with us to look at the basement for us and give his ideas on re-doing the space. We had planned the inspection closely around some time we were spending with family that afternoon, as well. Wouldn't you know it, I get a call from the realtor today saying that time will no longer work because the tenants are coming home (we thought they were going to be out of town) and that time doesn't work for them anymore. Um, excuse me? I want, really really want, to be empathetic to the fact that it sucks that they signed a lease on a house that was for sale and therefor are forced to deal with all of this crap, but OH MY GOD I was livid. I had Matt get on the phone and talk to our realtor to get the original time to work OR ELSE. Or else what, I don't know. Or else I'll cry, I guess.
The other "fun" thing I've been doing is trying to figure out the deal with home owner's insurance. Having never purchased it, I am not really sure what I'm doing, and am being asked tons of questions about the house I have no answers to as all I know about it is the 15 minutes we spent touring it last weekend (yes, we decided to plunk down $300,000 on a house we were only in for 15 mins). And then I call the realtor to explain how I don't know how to answer these questions about the house and he tells me to not answer anything, that they should be sending someone out to look at the house to get those answers themselves. So I'm like, well, no one is doing that, they're just asking me questions. And I am not even clear on what the lender even needs to have as proof of insurance. More phone calls to our realtor/lender commenced. Still no insurance but lots and lots of time lost on the phone.
What else? I dropped off a giant check for earnest money at the escrow company this morning. Eloise liked the "store" because they had a jar full of candy.
I have had to scan and email countless papers to our realtor. Fun times. Matt has had to initial/sign/date countless times, as well. I even had to forge his initials once. Oops.
In addition to house stuff I've been researching schools in our new neighborhood and have set up an appointment to go visit a school that looks really wonderful, so we're excited about that. Annoying to know that the hours and hours of time we spent researching schools on the north end was all for nothing, but you know, there was nothing else we could have done. We knew we would likely be moving, but didn't know where. We had hoped we could stay in our current 'hood, but alas, it wasn't in the stars.
It's all plugging along, though. Stressful, but good. Hopefully at the inspection on Saturday I'll get some good pictures of the house to post. The ones online don't really do the house justice, I think.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Day 17: Offer Accepted!
Holy crap! It's really all happening!
Here's OUR new house:
They accepted our offer almost exactly as written, only changing a few very minor things like pushing the closing date out three days to June 19th. We close the day after Iris's 5th birthday, which is also her and Eloise's last day of school. This is only ELEVEN days before we leave on our three week vacation. Wowzers. It CAN be done! Right?
It's all too exciting. We'll be doing the inspection by the end of the week and that's definitely the next big hurdle to get over. Cross your fingers that the foundation isn't crumbling and the roof isn't about to blow off!
I am going to ask a friend who does carpentry work if he can come during the inspection to look at some walls we want to move around in the basement and give us an idea on cost, etc. We also want to put in a bathroom in the basement-- and a laundry room!-- but with our budget, we'll just start with the walls. There already are existing walls, but we're not big fans of the way it's all arranged and thought that if we're going to move walls, doing it before we move in would be the best way to go :)
Day 17: Twiddling Thumbs
In case you didn't know, the technical term for what we are in the middle of right now is "thumb twiddling time". Yep. We put in our offer last night and the sellers have until 9:00 pm tonight to respond. We are waiting, rather impatiently, waiting and waiting!
It was amazing how much work it was to put an offer in on this house. Our realtor spent many hours on Sunday-- Mother's Day-- putting together a CMA (comparative market analysis) and then was up until almost midnight explaining it to me over the phone. Matt and I spoke on Monday morning about what kind of offer we wanted to make and then did a conference call with our realtor that afternoon to let him know. Knowing what our offer would be, our realtor spent several more hours preparing the paperwork for the offer he would present to the sellers. Then he emailed it all to me and we spent another hour on the phone so he could explain it all. I had to print off all of the forms and have Matt initial/date them all. I then scanned them all in to the computer and emailed them back. This took me an insanely long time as I'm not nearly as computer savvy as I wish I was!
Our realtor called at 10:00 last night to let me know the offer was submitted and Matt and I just needed cross our fingers and twiddle our thumbs at this point until we got a response.
I got a call again today from our realtor letting us know that the seller's agent was trying to pick apart things like our closing date, etc etc, but I think we'll come out with what we need in the end.
Be waiting for the final update later tonight!
It was amazing how much work it was to put an offer in on this house. Our realtor spent many hours on Sunday-- Mother's Day-- putting together a CMA (comparative market analysis) and then was up until almost midnight explaining it to me over the phone. Matt and I spoke on Monday morning about what kind of offer we wanted to make and then did a conference call with our realtor that afternoon to let him know. Knowing what our offer would be, our realtor spent several more hours preparing the paperwork for the offer he would present to the sellers. Then he emailed it all to me and we spent another hour on the phone so he could explain it all. I had to print off all of the forms and have Matt initial/date them all. I then scanned them all in to the computer and emailed them back. This took me an insanely long time as I'm not nearly as computer savvy as I wish I was!
Our realtor called at 10:00 last night to let me know the offer was submitted and Matt and I just needed cross our fingers and twiddle our thumbs at this point until we got a response.
I got a call again today from our realtor letting us know that the seller's agent was trying to pick apart things like our closing date, etc etc, but I think we'll come out with what we need in the end.
Be waiting for the final update later tonight!
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Day 15: Time for an OFFER!
We're putting in an offer on a house today. YOU READ THAT RIGHT! Maybe this will be a short-lived blog?
We set up appointments to see three properties in West Seattle this afternoon. The first was the winner! So of course, I'll tell you about the other two, first. Suspenseful!
The second house was a total NO. I was excited to see it because it had a big lot, but it was basically in the middle of a flood zone. We would have had to finish the basement to make the total space livable, but since the basement was about 3/4 above ground, I didn't think that would have been so bad. Anyways, it was bad. The house had flooded in the past and Matt thought it had bad mojo.
The third house was fantastic. It was a lovely, solid 1940's house and had a ROCKIN' view. You probably can't tell in this picture, but the Olympic Mountain Range is on the horizon.
We're pretty excited about it but also cautious, too. We know not to get our hopes up until the house closes. There are renters in the house right now which could be a HUGE pain. The renters are upset about this whole process of this house being sold and don't want to move out. We're worried that they will make this deal pretty hard and/or do something to the house out of spite. We'll see.
So our realtor is working on the CMA as I write this and we'll work out an offer! Wheee!!!!
We set up appointments to see three properties in West Seattle this afternoon. The first was the winner! So of course, I'll tell you about the other two, first. Suspenseful!
The second house was a total NO. I was excited to see it because it had a big lot, but it was basically in the middle of a flood zone. We would have had to finish the basement to make the total space livable, but since the basement was about 3/4 above ground, I didn't think that would have been so bad. Anyways, it was bad. The house had flooded in the past and Matt thought it had bad mojo.
The third house was fantastic. It was a lovely, solid 1940's house and had a ROCKIN' view. You probably can't tell in this picture, but the Olympic Mountain Range is on the horizon.
The problem with this one? The owner of the house divided up the property so that they could build a nice tall house-- taking away the view from this one-- right next door. So, once a house went up all you would have is a view of their living room. I would be pissed off every single day I lived in that house with a ruined view!
We're pretty excited about it but also cautious, too. We know not to get our hopes up until the house closes. There are renters in the house right now which could be a HUGE pain. The renters are upset about this whole process of this house being sold and don't want to move out. We're worried that they will make this deal pretty hard and/or do something to the house out of spite. We'll see.
So our realtor is working on the CMA as I write this and we'll work out an offer! Wheee!!!!
Friday, May 8, 2009
Day 13: Pretty much unlucky
Matt got home from Orlando late last night and took the day off of work so that we would have the chance to go and look at houses together. I asked to see six different properties and for various reasons, we only got to see two. Our realtor said the response he was getting from people whose homes we wanted to see was "frustrating" and yeah, that pretty much summed up the way we felt about it, too.
We did see two, though. Won't be buying either of them. The first one was actually pretty nice, though. We mostly liked everything about it, except for the big negative: it backed up to a freeway. I personally didn't think it would be THAT big of a deal but our realtor put on his, well, realtor hat, and said we would have as hard of a time selling the house as the current sellers are. The house has been on the market like two years. Ah, well.
The next house I wanted to see purely for location. You know what they say: location, location, location! It didn't look too pretty from the outside, and wow, not from the inside AT ALL. In addition to the foundation pretty much falling apart.
We will be seeing the West Seattle houses either tomorrow or Sunday, though. Those are the ones I'm most excited about as I am psyching myself up for the neighborhood over there and a great alternative school that is super, super close to where these houses are.
This week has carried with it a boat-load of frustration over un-met expectations of how this process would go. Luckily we had a great chat with our realtor and I think we're all headed in the right direction, though I am sure some more stuff will come up that we'll have to work out.
We did see two, though. Won't be buying either of them. The first one was actually pretty nice, though. We mostly liked everything about it, except for the big negative: it backed up to a freeway. I personally didn't think it would be THAT big of a deal but our realtor put on his, well, realtor hat, and said we would have as hard of a time selling the house as the current sellers are. The house has been on the market like two years. Ah, well.
The next house I wanted to see purely for location. You know what they say: location, location, location! It didn't look too pretty from the outside, and wow, not from the inside AT ALL. In addition to the foundation pretty much falling apart.
We will be seeing the West Seattle houses either tomorrow or Sunday, though. Those are the ones I'm most excited about as I am psyching myself up for the neighborhood over there and a great alternative school that is super, super close to where these houses are.
This week has carried with it a boat-load of frustration over un-met expectations of how this process would go. Luckily we had a great chat with our realtor and I think we're all headed in the right direction, though I am sure some more stuff will come up that we'll have to work out.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Back and Forth
If you lived inside my head, you would be dizzy with all of the choices I've made in the last 24 hours. None that have stuck, mind you, just lots and lots of anger, sadness, excitement, elation, interest and disinterest that have caused me to say yes, then no, then yes again to a million decisions about this whole house search.
As I pointed out by FAR the most houses in our price range are on the South or Southwest side of the city. I am so paralyzed by my fear of the higher crime in these two parts of town that it's hard for me to see past it and realize that there are so many good points to these areas.
This morning I decided to load the girls up and get in the car and go for a drive to explore some more areas. Unfortunately my handy dandy map (see my last post) wouldn't load on my G1 (my phone) so I only stuck close to one little area that I knew of three houses in. They are all on the Northeast side of West Seattle in a sweet little area very close to where Matt and I were married. Interestingly, as I was complaining about the school choices in West Seattle to my friend at school, she pointed out that there is a great one called Pathfinder that is a K-8 alternative school. When I looked the school up I was pleased with what I found out about it. THEN I looked up the address and it was less than a mile from where these three houses are that we are interested in. Hmmmm. Maybe things are looking up? Of course, that doesn't solve the issue with getting Eloise back and forth to school on the north side of Queen Anne (which, by contrast, is six miles away and across a freeway that the city will be tearing down one of these millenia). BUT, it's still good. Still progress. I am hoping we can see these homes when Matt gets back from Orlando!
So I'm feeling better. After being next to tears last night over the lack of desirable options, things are looking up. At least a little bit.
As I pointed out by FAR the most houses in our price range are on the South or Southwest side of the city. I am so paralyzed by my fear of the higher crime in these two parts of town that it's hard for me to see past it and realize that there are so many good points to these areas.
This morning I decided to load the girls up and get in the car and go for a drive to explore some more areas. Unfortunately my handy dandy map (see my last post) wouldn't load on my G1 (my phone) so I only stuck close to one little area that I knew of three houses in. They are all on the Northeast side of West Seattle in a sweet little area very close to where Matt and I were married. Interestingly, as I was complaining about the school choices in West Seattle to my friend at school, she pointed out that there is a great one called Pathfinder that is a K-8 alternative school. When I looked the school up I was pleased with what I found out about it. THEN I looked up the address and it was less than a mile from where these three houses are that we are interested in. Hmmmm. Maybe things are looking up? Of course, that doesn't solve the issue with getting Eloise back and forth to school on the north side of Queen Anne (which, by contrast, is six miles away and across a freeway that the city will be tearing down one of these millenia). BUT, it's still good. Still progress. I am hoping we can see these homes when Matt gets back from Orlando!
So I'm feeling better. After being next to tears last night over the lack of desirable options, things are looking up. At least a little bit.
Monday, May 4, 2009
Because Home-Buying Has Made Me OCD
I made this, which is a map of every listing in Seattle that meets our criteria for a house. I did leave out a few houses that we checked on already.
View Untitled in a larger map
You have to zoom way, way in to see the individual markers or click on the link below the map to see it bigger.
We live on the NW side of the city. As you can see, there are no markers there. Almost 100% of the homes are in fairly undesirable (to us) neighborhoods. I just spent far too much time reading about the crime on the West Seattle blog, and um, yeah. I know there is crime everywhere, but this was truly a case of the more you know, the worse it is.
View Untitled in a larger map
You have to zoom way, way in to see the individual markers or click on the link below the map to see it bigger.
We live on the NW side of the city. As you can see, there are no markers there. Almost 100% of the homes are in fairly undesirable (to us) neighborhoods. I just spent far too much time reading about the crime on the West Seattle blog, and um, yeah. I know there is crime everywhere, but this was truly a case of the more you know, the worse it is.
Day Nine: Oh Blech
Went to look at the first house today. The pictures online were WAY deceiving. Our realtor thought there was some sketchy stuff going on in the house and wasn't terribly impressed. I soooo wanted to like it. The yard was the best part, but even that was "eh". There was a gigantic pond in the yard, about 6 ft by 3 ft by 3 ft deep. No way in hell I would let me kids play around that! We won't be buying it, though it was a nice first house to see, I suppose.
Last night I asked our realtor to investigate six different homes in West Seattle and by this morning only one was still on the market. Whew! Things move fast! There are three others, though, that I hope to see. Our realtor is right to gently steer us away from that neighborhood since it is so removed from the city that it can be a pain to get in and out of at rush hour, but it's worth it to see the houses, I think.
Onward and upward!
Last night I asked our realtor to investigate six different homes in West Seattle and by this morning only one was still on the market. Whew! Things move fast! There are three others, though, that I hope to see. Our realtor is right to gently steer us away from that neighborhood since it is so removed from the city that it can be a pain to get in and out of at rush hour, but it's worth it to see the houses, I think.
Onward and upward!
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Day Eight: Scoping Out a Potential New 'Hood
Today the girls and I took a little trek back up to Lake City (which is one of the most Northeastern neighborhoods in Seattle) to drive around a bit, see where the farmer's market is held and visit the playground. We met a super nice little girl and her nanny. When I asked the nanny if she liked the neighborhood she said "I love it, except for the car prowlers that have broken in to my 21 year old Honda three times." Ouch. To be fair, we've had our car vandalized in our neighborhood, so nowhere is safe from that sort of stuff, but it made more aware. 
Fabulous, no? Seriously, this house looks like a palace compared to some of the houses we saw. My mom thinks is terribly over-priced but she also has never looked at real estate in Seattle.
I wanted to show you something fun about Seattle real estate. I will be totally honest and tell you that our budget for buying our first house is $320,000. This is lower than the average home's selling price in this county. Right before the mortgage crisis, this amount of money would have barely bought you a shack next to a crack dealer, but now we have more options.
Here is a home in a less-desirable (though not UNdesirable) neighborhood just north of where our apartment is:
Hopefully you can tell that this house barely looks like it is able to stand on it's own. Now when you drive by it there is a large piece of plywood blocking the front door. Want to guess on the price? It's $250,000. No shit. I wish there were pics of the inside!
Here is the house we like:
Fabulous, no? Seriously, this house looks like a palace compared to some of the houses we saw. My mom thinks is terribly over-priced but she also has never looked at real estate in Seattle.
I am excited to go have a look at it tomorrow!
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Day Seven (again): Sniffing out the New 'Hood
Tonight I decided to take a few of our favorite properties that we had found on the MLS and look them up on the registered sex offenders web site. I used the one on the Seattle.gov site HERE. The frustrating thing, I discovered, was that I don't know what to make of the information I have gathered. It turns out, for instance, that where we live now has nine registered sex offenders within a one mile radius. Our favorite house we saw today has 19. I don't know what that means, though. As a mother I think even ONE is too many, but what about 19? 19 that we could potentially walk past on a daily basis while out on our walks, on the way to the park, on our way to the library. But does that make this location more dangerous?
If you have any insight in to this, I'd love to hear it.
Oh, and on a side note, I forgot to add that yesterday our realtor told us that the average first time home buyer was 37 years old. I was really surprised, but that means we're ahead of the average! It sure hasn't felt like it, but it's a fun fact, nonetheless!
If you have any insight in to this, I'd love to hear it.
Oh, and on a side note, I forgot to add that yesterday our realtor told us that the average first time home buyer was 37 years old. I was really surprised, but that means we're ahead of the average! It sure hasn't felt like it, but it's a fun fact, nonetheless!
Day Seven: Lowering Expectations
Last night our realtor emailed us about 250 listings that matched our criteria. I didn't LOVE any of them. I do, however, have a list of about 10-12 that I liked and want to see. It's so frustrating to be absolutely in love with the neighborhood that we rent in but just can't afford to buy in. There is one lone house about four blocks away from our apartment that I want to see, but it's been on the market for over a year, which is a red flag. An affordable home in this 'hood is unheard of, let alone one that's been sitting around for that long. I am interested to see what is wrong with it (or maybe the house was just waiting for us to come along and buy it? ha ha).
Even though Matt has to get ready for a business trip, I am dragging the whole family out to do some window shopping on the houses that I put on my short list. Some are in the North/Northeast part of Seattle and a few are in the Southwest part. There are many, many great houses in the South end of the city, but that just isn't where we want to live. Well, I should say, where I don't want to live. It's fine with Matt, but I am not excited about the schools or the higher crime rates in most of the neighborhoods in the South end. I just wouldn't feel as safe. Which is interesting, before I had children I would have balked at anyone who said Seattle had "bad neighborhoods" but now that I'm a mom? I even find the mini-mart three blocks from our apartment too sketchy. Ah, the perspective!
Anyways, will report back later!
Even though Matt has to get ready for a business trip, I am dragging the whole family out to do some window shopping on the houses that I put on my short list. Some are in the North/Northeast part of Seattle and a few are in the Southwest part. There are many, many great houses in the South end of the city, but that just isn't where we want to live. Well, I should say, where I don't want to live. It's fine with Matt, but I am not excited about the schools or the higher crime rates in most of the neighborhoods in the South end. I just wouldn't feel as safe. Which is interesting, before I had children I would have balked at anyone who said Seattle had "bad neighborhoods" but now that I'm a mom? I even find the mini-mart three blocks from our apartment too sketchy. Ah, the perspective!
Anyways, will report back later!
Friday, May 1, 2009
Day Six: Planning Session
Today we finally met with our realtor. I had met him last year at the home buying seminar and I really liked him, but Matt had never met him before. I had a feeling Matt would really like him and I was so glad that he did.
Our meeting was supposed to last 45 minutes but we were there for an hour and 40. We certainly could have stayed longer! I feel like I could talk about houses and home buying constantly. The whole process really fascinates me.
Tonight we mostly went over the process of buying the house, learned about exactly what our realtor would do for us and signed our contract. Loving that WA state still requires the seller to pay our realtor's fees instead of us, the buyer. Tee Hee. Seems like that part is totally backwards, but hey, it saves us money!
We should be getting a list of properties very soon that are on the MLS that fit our criteria of price, location, number of bedrooms and number of bathrooms. It will then be our job to go through the list and find five or six that we want to see in person. I can't wait!
Our meeting was supposed to last 45 minutes but we were there for an hour and 40. We certainly could have stayed longer! I feel like I could talk about houses and home buying constantly. The whole process really fascinates me.
Tonight we mostly went over the process of buying the house, learned about exactly what our realtor would do for us and signed our contract. Loving that WA state still requires the seller to pay our realtor's fees instead of us, the buyer. Tee Hee. Seems like that part is totally backwards, but hey, it saves us money!
We should be getting a list of properties very soon that are on the MLS that fit our criteria of price, location, number of bedrooms and number of bathrooms. It will then be our job to go through the list and find five or six that we want to see in person. I can't wait!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)