Super Price Reduction

Last year we went to look at this house, which was quite a lot more expensive. I think it was 199,000 and we saw it when it had been marked down to 189,000. Now it is a Fannie Mae home and they just alerted me that it is 89,900.

http://www.redfin.com/MD/Baltimore/4007-Belvieu-Ave-21215/home/10881146

It's sad. I'm seeing quite a few of these homes that have been for sale for more than a year and are now in foreclosure.

The house I finally bought had been on the market for a very long time and had been reduced by more than a third in price. I love it and it was well worth the wait.

Nice Deal for Someone

Here's a Fannie Mae foreclosure in Reservoir Hill that's a great bargain for someone. Seven bedrooms, three baths, renovated. There's a lovely circular staircase.

http://www.redfin.com/MD/Baltimore/2218-Eutaw-Pl-21217/home/10146792

Although Redfin has the house for 280,000 it's actually 255,000, just marked down. I'm still on the Fannie Mae mailing list, which is how I know about it.

Final Walkthrough

Today was the day for the final walkthrough for the new house. We met the current owner, who lived there for 45 years and learned some interesting things about the history of the house, like that her aunt lived there 75 years ago. We also discovered that the maple parquet floors, which are gorgeous, continue on in some other rooms of the house, hidden away under soundproof subfloors that she installed because her mother isn't a quiet walker.

She also showed us some arches that have been covered up to help convert the house to give certain parts of it more privacy. Cullen has his eye on one and I won't be shocked to wake up one morning to find him dismantling the wall...

The gardens of the house are even more beautiful than last time we were there, with many flowers blooming. The owner says it's nothing as beautiful as it used to be and that her gardens were written up in the Baltimore Sun when they were in their heyday. I think they're amazing as is and can only hope I manage to take care of them properly. She said some random dude stopped by the house a few years ago and offered her five thousand dollars for the Japanese Maple in front of the house! There's also a Japanese Dogwood in the back, which she says is the latest blooming of all the dogwoods.

The best news is that the house was nice and cool, despite no air conditioning. By contrast our current place is 88 degrees (air conditioning broken, not much chance of landlord fixing before we move) and stifling. There are window units at the new house but hopefully we'll be able to keep our electric use down and only use them somewhat.

I will be so glad when we're all moved. It's been a long haul but I'm super pleased with the new house, which is old and eccentric like me.

Let's Try This One More Time

Sunday we decided to put an offer on a house that is a foreclosure and needs some work. I was going to offer about fifteen percent less than the bank wanted for it and I signed the contract but then my Realtor realized we were missing a page so she couldn't submit. As I was waiting for her to fax them over to us a house I'd liked before that was too expensive suddenly relisted.

This is a house that has been steadily dropping in price for the past year and a half and was now 2o thousand less than two weeks ago, when it went off the market. So we went to see it last night and it's a bit mad, like me. The three car garage has been converted into an office or clubhouse and the house itself could be used as one house, two units or even three, depending on what you do with the doors. There are actually four separate entrance/exits to the home, not counting the fifth to the ex-garage in the back. The landscaping is fabulous, with pink cherry blossoms at the height of perfection in front of the house.

I signed another contract today and we'll see. There is something in the basement that could be mold, or maybe not. If it's not then everything will be groovy and we should be able to move around the beginning of June, which works well as school gets out at the end of May.

And then? A wonderful summer!

Still Sick as a Dog

I took a vacation day today and got NOTHING done as I was too sick. I don't think looking for houses is helping my stupid sinuses as so many of these homes are filled with mold. Looked at two houses yesterday and had a severe headache today. It's discouraging.

It's especially annoying when these homes are described as in excellent shape. I hardly thing giant cracks in the foundation and mold climbing the walls is excellent shape. Sigh.

Do what?

We went to see a house today that is owned and rehabbed by this guy. http://www.citypaper.com/news/story.asp?id=7339

I'm sure it will be no surprise that the house wasn't in good shape. Weirdest feature - giant lightbulb in place of the banister finial.

Stop it!

The bank that owns this house that I am obsessed over marked it down again. this time by nearly twenty thousand dollars.

http://www.redfin.com/MD/Baltimore/2240-Eutaw-Pl-21217/home/10146879

Of course it doesn't matter if they were giving it away, I still wouldn't be able to afford it. I've read that restorations on historic properties can cost up to 400 dollars a square foot. Since this home clocks in at nearly 5000 square feet that's a cost of up to two million to restore it. Sure it would be amazing and probably worth it if you had the money, but I sure don't.

Cam and I took a drive up to see it a couple of weeks ago and wow, it's in even worse shape than the pictures make it look. It didn't seem to have come through the five feet plus of snow we got this winter very well.

Like all addicts I try not to think about this house and then bam, something reminds me of it or the owners try and tempt me by dropping the price! Away with thee foul pushers!

Interesting/Crazy things from last few days

Video and a terrific letter from Annie Oakley, one of my childhood heroes.

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2010/03/fifty-lady-sharpshooters-await.html

Article with suggestions sent to the Pentagon. Made me miss the days when I knew the diagnoses of the people writing in to me.

http://www.military.com/news/article/could-airborne-bears-catch-bin-laden.html

Wonderful post by Carrie Ryan about some of the thought process behind her amazing zombie books. I've had similar conversations with a friend of mine from Europe who marvels at how all of the knowledge the Romans had was lost and wonders if something similar could happen today.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/03/16/the-big-idea-carrie-ryan-2/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Divorce rate blamed on one boy...

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29919?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

And a couple of tweets about house hunting today.

http://twitter.com/georgianalee/status/10702321574

http://twitter.com/georgianalee/status/10702360197

Crazy bathrooms

The layout of this particular bathroom is odd. You're bound to bang the hell out of your hip as you try to get the toilet, then once you're there you're right in front of the window. If you're a dude you're going to be showing off to the entire neighborhood...

Two houses I particularly like

I like a wide variety of housing styles, most of them a bit older. Here are two house that are super cute and charming in the Arts and Crafts style.

http://www.redfin.com/MD/Baltimore/5703-Berkeley-Ave-21215/home/10412586

That one looks like it could be a Candy-striper.

http://www.redfin.com/MD/Baltimore/3015-Iona-Ter-21214/home/10365751

That one is in yummy shades of olive and avocado with a beautiful porch.

Entering year two of my house hunt

It's boggling but true - I'm now entering year two of my search for a house. In February of 2009 I wrote to a local housing counseling agency and asked them sign me up for their next counseling class. It took until September to finish the class. By November I was trying contract number two - which of course didn't work out due to extensive mold issues and cracks in the foundation of the house.

Now here it is March and I'm still really nowhere, without even any prospects in sight. I looked at two houses a week ago. One was very cute but a thousand square feet smaller than the listing said, and was still snapped up two days later, the other, which I loved, turned out to be in the middle of a short sale, even though the listing said not a short sale and vacant and ready for move in. It's depressing.

Today I found this post and am wondering if I should look at more expensive homes and offer the range I'm looking in now. It's true many homes are still way overpriced, the tiny home's price dropped fifty thousand just before we looked at it and then it sold right away, after sitting for months at a 2008 price.

It's all crazy and hard to figure out.

I'm amused by this listing

And I quote:

This gorgeous historic home, known for a wagon wheel embedded in one of the walls, has enormous character and charm

That must have been one hell of an accident for a wagon wheel to embed itself in a wall.

http://www.redfin.com/MD/Baltimore/2541-Pickwick-Rd-21207/home/10455836

Super Busy

So this house that I've been trying to buy for the last couple of months - the deal is off. After like five weeks of waiting to hear if the seller was going to fix the mold in the basement and then repair the basement, they said there was a giant hole in the foundation, with water coming in. The foundation needs to be redone, the tree in front needs to be taken down and there is no way of knowing when the repairs will done. Plus still no commitment regarding the mold repairs. Possibly three months of fixing, but maybe more, depending on weather.

I'm back to square one.

In other news we're all working on college stuff. It's time for Cam to apply so he's working on that. I'm doing taxes and Cullen is working on his FAFSA. Then Cam has to do his FAFSA. Busy, busy, busy.

We got some nice snow yesterday but we weren't prepared for it and it meant we had to cancel a house showing.

This whole next week is expected to be insanely busy.

Dental visits

Cullen and I were at the dentist again today. He was getting work done and I was taking a nap. Obviously I got the better end of that deal. We go back again tomorrow morning. We're trying to get his work done before he goes back to school next week. Chris comes to town and goes to the dentist on Friday. We're definitely doing our share to enrich her child's college fund.

I'm super busy trying to watch a bunch of movies before I cast my SAG Awards vote tomorrow. I watched both An Education and Julie and Julia today. I think I've got one left to go; Up in the Air, which I hear good things about. It will have to be amazing to beat Precious, which is a powerhouse that engaged just about every emotion known to man.

Then I'll have time to dive back into M.T. Anderson's Thirst, which is engrossing and hilarious.

Still no word on the house. Waiting to hear if the seller is going to fix the mold in the basement AND put the basement back together after.

Houses like this make me sad

http://www.redfin.com/MD/Baltimore/2240-Eutaw-Pl-21217/home/10146879

Golly I like this house

http://www.redfin.com/MD/Baltimore/910-Maiden-Choice-Ln-21229/home/12536333

Too bad it's a short sale and too expensive. There are so many fun things that could be done with this home. Just imagine what Halloween would be like.

So annoying

The house we put a contract on turned out to have shit tons of mold in the basement. After weeks of dithering around the sellers have said they will pay to have the mold abated, but not to replace the carpets or paneling that needs to be taken up to get rid of the mold. So we can move in with no walls or carpet or we can walk away.

Since the house was advertised as "move in ready" and needed four pages of repairs I'm not exactly happy.

I'm also not exactly happy about starting the search over again. Sigh.

The Prisoner

I'm still watching the original Prisoner, trying to get through a couple of episodes a day to get them all seen before they vanish from On Demand. I'm currently watching Hammer Into Anvil, which is brilliant in its cat and mouse ways.

Psychological warfare of a sort is a popular motif in entertainment and it's easy to get it wrong. I did the play Angel Street years ago, which the movie Gaslight is based on, and that was kind of uneven, if fun.

This is just diabolical. I wouldn't want to mess with Number Six. I also wouldn't want to be anyone Number Six speaks to in this episode as they're all endangered.

In other news I signed a disclosure today for the house we've put an offer on. I guess the seller needs that before they can even look at our offer. How do they know where to send the disclosure if they can't look at the offer? I don't know. The world of real property is bursting with paradoxes.

Not a good sign

We went to look at houses again this weekend. We were meant to look at seven but one went under contract and one had scary dogs so we didn't go in. They were wearing muzzles, which I actually found more disconcerting than if they hadn't been. To me if a dog needs to be muzzled there's a problem I don't want to deal with. Plus I don't even want the responsibility of the possibility the dogs would get out while we were coming in and out of the house. The owners have had the house on the market for more than 180 days. I wonder if they wonder why the house won't sell. Hint - people should be able to come inside and take a look around.

Then we saw one that was nice but kind of small and reeked of cigarettes. Cullen was coughing by the time we left so that was a bit of a drawback. The fireplace was nice though and so was the deck.

Then we saw one that was very nice with a huge deck and gorgeous landscaping but up some very steep, slick concrete steps with no banister, which was a bit problematic. Not problematic enough to mark it of our list but something to think about. And no real basement, just a sort of dugout space that was very hard to access, which was a pain because that's where the circuit breakers are. I can't imagine going out in the yard, unlocking the coffinlike doors, dragging them up and open, going down into the spooky low ceilinged dank cellar every time you blow a circuit. It would be annoying as hell. On the plus side there were all new appliances and paint.

Then we saw one I was very interested in after seeing it online. It's similar to the one we put an offer in on and lost but in better shape, also thirty five grand more expensive. It was very nice but with crazy carpets, wood paneling and the kitchen looked like the appliances were left over from the forties when the house was built. Also there's a basketball court that takes up kind of a lot of the back yard, which is kind of weird.

Then we saw a house that was in horrible shape. It was filthy and reeked of animals. I mean filthy. I've seen crack houses when I worked on shows like the Corner and they were in better shape than this place! We didn't even go upstairs because the downstairs was so awful and we could see that the walls had been smashed in up there. I'm wondering if someone had a "we're being evicted so let's trash the house" party or if bears and rhinos had moved in.

The next one had a gas leak, the second house like this we've been to see, and was also in horrible shape with broken windows, ruined hardwood floors, etc. It's depressing to see these houses that used to be nice in such terrible shape. There's no way you could get regular FHA funding for these homes as they're not insurable. I guess you'd have to have cash and then get to work rehabbing them. Replacing the drywall isn't even that hard but man, the smell in some of these places is just overwhelming.

So that was our weekend. How was yours?

Wowzers

Check out this auction. http://realestate.alexcooper.com/sold-real-estate/featured-details/557/

You had to put down 1500 bucks deposit so if you were the lucky winner all you had to do was go to the ATM and bam said the lady!