We're dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's in the war front. We've filled out a bunch of paperwork with the realtors, a bunch of paperwork with the title company (which isn't that much, but I'm being poetic here), and the bunch of paperwork with the mortgage company (which is just a hair over an almost-literal mountain of paperwork). We're still not done with the mortgage stuff (Damn, who knew they'd scrutinize everything! And we learned yet again that the next time my parents want to purchase anything in my name, refuse and run away!) And later in the week, we'll end up signing a bunch of paperwork with the insurance company so we could get homeowner's insurance. Which, of course, got a bit more complicated since it was cheaper if we got auto insurance with them too. We're just surrounded by paper, and it's driving me nuts. I need a friggin' secretary to organize everything and keep things filed. It irks me to no end to have to turn the apartment upside down every time we need to find something.
We gave our 60-day notice to our apartment. Basically, we told them we're not renewing our lease. It's kinda funny. In California, I never had any problems getting out of a lease. But here, they were going to charge us a buttload of money to break it. And it seemed far easier just to pay rent until the end of our lease rather than break it a month early. But what's nice about that is that we have plenty of time to put our house in order and buy appliances and make some repairs before we have to move in. We're definitely going to have to do some tiling. I mean, 2 out of the 3 bathrooms have carpeting! And it's one thing to have a little carpet by the vanity or whatnot. But by the shower and toilet too? Did the house designer never have a toilet that overflowed, or stepped out of the shower to grab a new bar of soap while soaking wet?
Of course, all the toilets are low-flow, and with my monster-crap, we're probably gonna have issues.... Hmmmm... I wonder if we can get a standard 3.5 gallon one and designate that as my crapper-toilet.
Well, enough about my ass, please feel free to leave a comment!
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Hello everybody, this is the husband hijacking the Blog for a bit. So don't read this unless you have Delta Green clearance or better ;p
Money is a funny thing, in general you are pretty happy when you have extra money. But you really never think about money costing you anything. But yeah apparently we made just a little bit to much money last year, and because of that we can't get into this awesome mortgage program our bank offers for first time home buyers. Instead we have to go with a lame normal mortgage loan. What is superduper lame is because of this we are going to end up paying more per month for our mortgage, and we have to put more money down than the amount we are over the programs cap. So basically because we did well last year and had just a little bit to good of an income, we are going to end up paying more for a house. Sigh....
On top of this because of the sub-prime crisis mortgage interest rates are going up really fast. Yesterday we could have gotten %5.85 interest rate, today that jumped up to 6% at breakfast, and 6.125% by 4pm. And from what our mortgage lady told us today, it may go up to 6.5% or more tomorrow. Once things settle down we can likely refinance, but still things are kinda crazy in the home buying market right now. And the mortgage companies are freaked out because of it. Oh well its still all worth it, because at least we are paying off property, instead of paying somebody else for the privilege of living on their property. Plus the house is really pretty :)
Money is a funny thing, in general you are pretty happy when you have extra money. But you really never think about money costing you anything. But yeah apparently we made just a little bit to much money last year, and because of that we can't get into this awesome mortgage program our bank offers for first time home buyers. Instead we have to go with a lame normal mortgage loan. What is superduper lame is because of this we are going to end up paying more per month for our mortgage, and we have to put more money down than the amount we are over the programs cap. So basically because we did well last year and had just a little bit to good of an income, we are going to end up paying more for a house. Sigh....
On top of this because of the sub-prime crisis mortgage interest rates are going up really fast. Yesterday we could have gotten %5.85 interest rate, today that jumped up to 6% at breakfast, and 6.125% by 4pm. And from what our mortgage lady told us today, it may go up to 6.5% or more tomorrow. Once things settle down we can likely refinance, but still things are kinda crazy in the home buying market right now. And the mortgage companies are freaked out because of it. Oh well its still all worth it, because at least we are paying off property, instead of paying somebody else for the privilege of living on their property. Plus the house is really pretty :)
Thursday, February 14, 2008
We got a house!!!
Well, the story requires me to rewind a bit. Anyway, so we had found a nice 4-bedroom, 2-bathroom house (though, that 4th bedroom is meant to be an office, or a tiny room for your least favorite kid) within a subdivision that we really liked. It had a spacious living room and a formal dining room which we were going to use for a gaming room. (That's D&D for you non-gamer-geeks. What with the game getting as big as 7 people, all our books, pewter miniatures, the map grid, and all the snacks, we want to get a very large dining table to fit everyone.) However, the listing price was waaaay higher than it should be. It may be worth that much in a booming economy or a seller's market, but in this market, they set their asking price to be about ten grand more than the house is worth. (And remember, this is Texas, so houses of that size in that area are going for less than $150k, so ten grand is a big percentage of the house value.)
Anyway, we gave them a lowball offer in hopes that they'd come to their senses. They didn't. They lowered their asking price to about $5k more than we thought the house was worth. Our realtor suggested asking them to get the house appraised so they can put their money where their mouth was. That house was just not worth what they thought it was. And there's a reason why that house has been on the market for months.
As I've said before, they were comparing this house to another one that sold last summer, but that house didn't have holes in the walls, funky paint, smoke permeating the walls and carpet, and worst of all, tenants that didn't treat the house too carefully. Let that be a lesson to all home-sellers... if you have tenants, they will lower the value of your house. If you're lucky, you'll get non-smoking old people with no kids or pets who are obsessive-compulsive about cleaning. But chances are, you won't, and they'll just trash your house.
But the sellers were adamant that they won't go any lower. So then Whateley thought, what else is available for the asking price that these sellers were asking? So we searched again in that subdivision, and found a 3-bedroom, 2.5-bathroom house with two hundred more square feet!
So we checked it out, liked it, and said screw it to the previous house we bid on. Which, funny enough, then they lowered their absolute lowest price to be $2.5k lower than their previous absolute-lowest. All I can say is... too late! Good luck trying to sell that house with that kind of mindset.
Anyway, we made a bid on that bigger house, and we got a verbal acceptance! In the next few days, we should sign the contract and begin the house inspection and all that dealio. But we're very, very excited!!!
So in the coming weeks, I'll keep my faithful readers apprised of our situation. But here's a picture of the house:
Well, the story requires me to rewind a bit. Anyway, so we had found a nice 4-bedroom, 2-bathroom house (though, that 4th bedroom is meant to be an office, or a tiny room for your least favorite kid) within a subdivision that we really liked. It had a spacious living room and a formal dining room which we were going to use for a gaming room. (That's D&D for you non-gamer-geeks. What with the game getting as big as 7 people, all our books, pewter miniatures, the map grid, and all the snacks, we want to get a very large dining table to fit everyone.) However, the listing price was waaaay higher than it should be. It may be worth that much in a booming economy or a seller's market, but in this market, they set their asking price to be about ten grand more than the house is worth. (And remember, this is Texas, so houses of that size in that area are going for less than $150k, so ten grand is a big percentage of the house value.)
Anyway, we gave them a lowball offer in hopes that they'd come to their senses. They didn't. They lowered their asking price to about $5k more than we thought the house was worth. Our realtor suggested asking them to get the house appraised so they can put their money where their mouth was. That house was just not worth what they thought it was. And there's a reason why that house has been on the market for months.
As I've said before, they were comparing this house to another one that sold last summer, but that house didn't have holes in the walls, funky paint, smoke permeating the walls and carpet, and worst of all, tenants that didn't treat the house too carefully. Let that be a lesson to all home-sellers... if you have tenants, they will lower the value of your house. If you're lucky, you'll get non-smoking old people with no kids or pets who are obsessive-compulsive about cleaning. But chances are, you won't, and they'll just trash your house.
But the sellers were adamant that they won't go any lower. So then Whateley thought, what else is available for the asking price that these sellers were asking? So we searched again in that subdivision, and found a 3-bedroom, 2.5-bathroom house with two hundred more square feet!
So we checked it out, liked it, and said screw it to the previous house we bid on. Which, funny enough, then they lowered their absolute lowest price to be $2.5k lower than their previous absolute-lowest. All I can say is... too late! Good luck trying to sell that house with that kind of mindset.
Anyway, we made a bid on that bigger house, and we got a verbal acceptance! In the next few days, we should sign the contract and begin the house inspection and all that dealio. But we're very, very excited!!!
So in the coming weeks, I'll keep my faithful readers apprised of our situation. But here's a picture of the house:
Thursday, February 07, 2008
More news on the house front!
We found a house we liked in a nearby suburb that will address all our space needs for now as well as the future. I don't want to go too much into it since we just made a bid and haven't heard back from the seller yet. The house has been on the market for awhile now, as many houses seem to be nowadays, probably because it had tenants so it didn't show as well, and also because they priced it waaaay higher than comparable homes. So we made a really low offer so that will give us room to negotiate. Our realtors did a comparison of homes sold in the area and there was one house that was the exact same floor plan (though the photos look like it showed a lot better because the sellers had actually lived in there, and they did some nice landscaping and whatnot) and sold for more money than the buyers should have offered just before this whole sub-prime mortgage crisis really came to national attention.
Anyway, we'll have more news in the coming weeks.
Ever since we got on the house hunt, I've been watching a lot more HGTV. There are some interesting ones where they show how to fix up a home to raise the value of it. That was going to be the case with the house we bid on before. This one doesn't quite have a fixer-upper feel to it, other than repairing some light cosmetic damage. Anyway, those shows on HGTV are always painting an optimistic light and the price that the realtors say they would list the house for seems much higher than it would actually sell for. The shows which actually show a house being sold show them selling for a lot less than they list for. And many of them show that houses are on the market for a long time before they end up selling.
It's got me a little nervous. I know it's years away, but eventually, we will probably end up selling that house, either to upgrade to a bigger one, or to move closer to town, or if our kids are grown and have left the nest and we want to get a fancy condo downtown. And it's kinda scary to think of the prospect of selling a house. Though I may be worrying about nothing since this is a complete buyer's market and the economy is on its way to a recession. If we're smart, when we want to sell, it will be in a seller's market, or at least a more neutral market, and when the economy picks back up.
Anyway, wish us luck on this house. By the time our lease is up on our apartment, we may be well-and-moved in to our new house. Well, we were thinking of taking a month to move anyway. The last one we did just wiped us out from any more moving experiences. Though, to be fair, it was a move across three states. :)
Oh, and we're gonna have a guest bedroom and a nice living room with two couches. You know what that means... you have to come visit!
We found a house we liked in a nearby suburb that will address all our space needs for now as well as the future. I don't want to go too much into it since we just made a bid and haven't heard back from the seller yet. The house has been on the market for awhile now, as many houses seem to be nowadays, probably because it had tenants so it didn't show as well, and also because they priced it waaaay higher than comparable homes. So we made a really low offer so that will give us room to negotiate. Our realtors did a comparison of homes sold in the area and there was one house that was the exact same floor plan (though the photos look like it showed a lot better because the sellers had actually lived in there, and they did some nice landscaping and whatnot) and sold for more money than the buyers should have offered just before this whole sub-prime mortgage crisis really came to national attention.
Anyway, we'll have more news in the coming weeks.
Ever since we got on the house hunt, I've been watching a lot more HGTV. There are some interesting ones where they show how to fix up a home to raise the value of it. That was going to be the case with the house we bid on before. This one doesn't quite have a fixer-upper feel to it, other than repairing some light cosmetic damage. Anyway, those shows on HGTV are always painting an optimistic light and the price that the realtors say they would list the house for seems much higher than it would actually sell for. The shows which actually show a house being sold show them selling for a lot less than they list for. And many of them show that houses are on the market for a long time before they end up selling.
It's got me a little nervous. I know it's years away, but eventually, we will probably end up selling that house, either to upgrade to a bigger one, or to move closer to town, or if our kids are grown and have left the nest and we want to get a fancy condo downtown. And it's kinda scary to think of the prospect of selling a house. Though I may be worrying about nothing since this is a complete buyer's market and the economy is on its way to a recession. If we're smart, when we want to sell, it will be in a seller's market, or at least a more neutral market, and when the economy picks back up.
Anyway, wish us luck on this house. By the time our lease is up on our apartment, we may be well-and-moved in to our new house. Well, we were thinking of taking a month to move anyway. The last one we did just wiped us out from any more moving experiences. Though, to be fair, it was a move across three states. :)
Oh, and we're gonna have a guest bedroom and a nice living room with two couches. You know what that means... you have to come visit!
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