45 posts tagged “house hunting” (page 2)
Today, for the first time in months, I did some searching around for houses that Adam and I might be interested in... I know, I know, I JUST said that I was finally in a state of mind where I was OK living in our apartment - what can I say? This is how my mind works....
ANYWAY.... I noticed that the infamous developer we had problems with HASN'T SOLD ONE UNIT YET. HA! Even the unit that he claimed his son was moving in to hasn't sold yet. The listing price on ours is back up to the price we had under contract - but the two next it are both lower than they had been originally listed at. The 3 priced above our unit are still at their original listing prices. The carrying costs on this must be killing him!
Karma, baby, Karma!
Actually, I'm a little surprised that he hasn't sold any, because in many ways, the houses he build were much better thought out with the buyer in mind... oh yeah, except for that whole HVAC issue. nevermind.
STUPID {INSERT COMPANY NAME!} ^%&*()_&*()!!!!!!
Today, my company fixed its web filter... no more youtube, no more Sirius radio, and no more VOX!! SOoooooo.... since I do almost all of my blogging at work -- when I'm procrastinating -- I'm not sure if I will be as diligent going forward... I try not to use the computer any more than I have to when I am home.... I guess we'll just have to see how it goes...
In other news... I haven't been updating everyone on how our plants are doing... turns out I have the green thumb (or, because of dumb luck, I got the herbs that are easier to grow. Last night I bought a window sill box and some soil, and much to Adam's frustrations, I decided that tonight would be a perfect night to replace our herbs... i think the herbs may feel otherwise... let's just say the replant didn't go as well as planned. To my credit, it was really HARD! I gave them plenty of water and I will just have to wait and see how they survive. It's probably best that I did this before we leave for four days - my babies need a few days to grow on their own without me "helping" {or not}. Hopefully, they will be alive and well when we get back. Adam, that wimp, is waiting until we return to replant his little seedlings...
One last thing ---- I saw that house today that just went on the market and it SUCKED!!! It wasn't even NEW construction -- house was probably redone 10 years ago - BIG disappointment!!! This is the first house EVER that we didn't even bother seeing the second floor. That's how crappy the first floor was... So it goes I guess....
JAMAICA, HERE WE COME!!!!
House hunting it going at a considerably slower pace lately, and I can't say that I mind. We've seen everything there is to see in the Graduate Hospital Area, including houses that are almost 100K out of our price range. At this point, we are only seeing things that are newly listed. They trickle in one by one, with only a few new ones each week.
This afternoon I'm going to see two more townhouses. The first is the townhouse that Adam saw on 17th & Catherine, the one that was the best of the bunch from the last time he went out -- the price also got dropped $50K in the meantime.
The second house is one that our realtor emailed us yesterday. It's been on the market for less than a week. The address is great, 20th & Fitzwater -- more north (north is better) than everything we have seen so far. And it isn't listed at a ridiculous price, so it looks like it is priced to move. I've learned not to get my hopes up anymore, but this has some definite potential. There aren't any photos with the list, so its difficult to tell the caliber of work done in the house - that may be why this house isn't priced higher. What we do know is that its a 3BR, 3.5Bath, with a finished basement - house is a decent size at 2,125 sq feet. There's no mention about a roofdeck or backyard - that's of some concern.
Stay tuned!
Adam saw 6 hours without me on Tuesday. The one that he disliked the least was a 4Br/2.5 Bath on Christian. As he recalls, the house was pretty boring, with nothing glaringly wrong or out of the ordinary, but it lacked anything to make it really stand out in his mind, and it had small closet space. It isn't new construction in the same sense as we had been seeing. This house was remodelled a year or two ago and is currently being lived in.
We learned today that the selling price of the house has come down 50K - this is a place that's been on the market less than 3 weeks - what the heck is going on! Seems they are interested in getting this house sold quickly. Since this was the best of the bunch, we're talking about going back to see it again.
On Tuesday, I wrote this post (I finally remember how to weblink!), about a house that Adam was going to see that night that I had high hopes for.... you can assume by my lack of commenting that we aren't jumping up and down because we have found "the one". NEGATIVE GHOST RIDER!
This house suffers from what I have since dubbed "second floor syndrome" (similar to "scrolldown fugs -- www.fugyourself.com -- the outfit looks cute until you scroll down and see the bottom half/shoe choice). House looks great on the first floor, and usually the basement... then you get upstairs to where the bedrooms are, and you happiness vanishes - this is what happened to me at the Parrish house.(Weblink fun!).
My knowledge about why this house stunk is all second-hand from Adam. The kitchen was apparently fabulous and the family/dining room were nice, although they had slapped a lot of paint on the wainscoating instead of just putting up fresh wood. On the second floor they added a bathroom to one of the 2 bedrooms, which made the room really small, and lacking a closet. In the hall bathroom (which wasn't a full remodel), they decided to squeeze in a stacked washer dryer, but because it didn't fit, they had to actually cut off part of the bathtub!! So the washer/dryer in effect acted as the backsplash/wall of the tub -- that's just beyond strange. There was more stuff that made this a big "thumbs down", but that was the worst of it. When Adam saw this house they had just lowered the price by 100K and it was still about 50K over our range.... Unbelievable what some of these developers think will sell!
This feels like the never ending house hunt!!! We asked P, our new realtor for a list of houses that are a little above our price range.... For the places that have been on the market for some time, we can try to put in a bid that's more in our price range that the developer might go for, OR, (and I'm still working on convincing my dear husband of this one), we could borrow some funds from family to help us with the downpayment for a house that would have otherwise been out of our reach. In any case, we are considering slightly more expensive houses now.
Adam is going with P tonight to check out about 6 places. 4 of them she had sent us listing for, 2 of them were things I had stumbled across and thought we might consider. Should be interesting to see what the additional 30-50K gets us in quality/workmanship and location. The houses are all still much further south than I would have thought. I am so bummed that today is the day that I can't go househunting. Adam is going solo because it's earnings season - stupid earnings season!
Here are some photos of the one that I really have my eyes on - of course this is the one that the MOST out of our price range. It's been on the market for 90 days, so hopefully that means that we have some negotiating power. I wonder what it is about this place that has kept it from selling? The location is pretty decent, slightly more west than we wanted to be, but it is more north than most of the rest.... fingers crossed that this is the end of the search!!!
We went out on Monday and Wednesday after work this week to see houses. None of them were worth getting very excited about. We have seen so many houses by now (over 30) that I don't worry about remembering the specifics for houses we have seen, and immediately know we don't like.
On Monday, we visited three places in the Art Museum area. Adam really thought this we should reconsider this part of two -- this is where the Parrish House was. The three we saw all stunk! They were in a "progressive" area {translation: crappy and not close to improving soon} and way over-priced given the quality of the workmanship. So, that was all that was available in that part of town in our price range.
On Wednesday, we saw 6 houses in the Graduate Hospital area. Equally disappointing. One house had MOLD, another had big plumbing issues, and one had the jacuzzi in a separate room from the master bathroom with carpeting around it -- these were all new construction!!!! And, most of the ones we saw were on less-good blocks and most of what we had seen. We just can't believe that developers think these houses in bad areas, with crappy workmanship or worth what they are listed at - its insane! We saw the most fabulous kitchen in one house, but we hated the rest of the place, AND it was the one with plumbing problems -- you could see the water damage on the ceiling in the first floor.
So, we have seen EVERYTHING that is currently on the market in our price range. There was a house we were supposed to see that had just been listed a few days ago, but it got sold early in the week. We are at the point now where we will only see things that are new listings. Seems as if the good-stuff (fairly priced, decent workmanship) goes pretty quickly once it's listed. Yesterday, I asked our developer to show us some listings slightly above where we had been looking. We'd like to see what the quality difference is - we can always make a low bid and see if they take our offer. I have a feeling part of the reason we have even been taken to see some of this crap is because our realtor doesn't usually work at this price point, so she hasn't seen ANY of the houses in our price range and only knows the higher-priced stuff.
Oddly, our experience this week really made our Kimball developer look pretty good - his bathrooms, closets, layout, and other house choices are much better than anything we have seen since then -- bummer that he was such a knucklehead when it came to HVAC... let it go, Heike, let it go -- still working on that!
I snuck off from work today to see three townhouses that were all in the same area of GHo - all on 16th street. We couldn't get in to one, so I ended up seeing two. The first house is actually what prompted our visit as the listing price of this house just came down considerably and was now in our price range.
Townhouse 1: This one had a bit of an awkwardly shaped living room to make room for the staircase, the fireplace, the half-bath, and the coat closet -- similar to the Bamboo house. The kitchen setup wasn't ideal for me (partly because of this). I have never been fond of kitchens that has all of the stuff along each side wall. It seems like a waste of space. BUT, it had fabulous cabinets - plenty of drawers and a full length cabinet next to the fridge (I can't believe more people don't do that!), with very deep shelves. Perfect for things like the Food Processor, blender, and all that other stuff that you need close by, but don't use enough... and a lazy susan, perfect for food... there was a porch out the back, kind of small - half mulch and half cement - a little unusual. The townhouse also had an unfinished basement, but it has already been studded, so it would be an easy to finish -- a good "Man Room" and plenty of storage as well (something the Kimball House was missing in the basement). The bedrooms on the second floor were a little small, but again, lots of closet space. Unfortunately, the recessed lighting on the first floor did not continue to the second and third floors - crappy lights, ugh. Laundry on the second floor, closets in the hallway and in the bathroom.... third floor is the master bedroom. There wasn't a door on the third floor, something I know Adam isn't a big fan of. The bathroom was very nice, but I wish they had put in a jacuzzi tub. The master closet was phenomenal -- can you tell I value closet/storage space? No roof deck or porch off the bedroom, which was a bummer. The developer made great choices when it came to marble/granite/hardwood choices. Its not EVERYTHING we were looking for, but its a pretty good house - no way it was worth what they were originally listing it for though - no recessed lights throughout? What is that about???
Townhouse 2: I had high hopes for this place because the first floor had great wainscoating in the photos. The layout was straight-through on the first floor and felt larger/wider than the first place. Wasn't a big fan of the kitchen - some of the cabinets were in an unusual place that felt more like an afterthought. The basement was half finished, the front half seemed too small to do anything with, but there was lots of storage space in the back/unfinished half. The fun stopped here. The two bedrooms on the second floor had teeny tiny closets and had cheap carpeting (everything else was hardwood floors). When you walk up the steps there was this funny lost space without a window that was odd. On the third floor they again had a funny layout, with an office/seating area when you walk up the steps, but then a small area for the actual bedroom and the smallest master closet we have seen so far. The realtor and I both thought that the developer didn't do a good job making the best use of space. Why not take some of that lost space and make some decent bedroom closets???
The hunt continues....
When I was at the realtor's office yesterday, I saw that our townhouse had been relisted (makes sense). The house is being listed $10K BELOW where we had agreed to buy it. Our price was already $25K below the original list price. It's interesting that the housing market pullback began almost at the same time as when we signed the contract to buy the Kimball house. Wow!!! Another good reason that we didn't buy that house!
Now we have a chance to buy things that would have previously been out of our price range. Of course, who knows how much farther things will slide. We are going to proceed slowly (mainly because of Adam's very cautious approach). I am determined to keep looking though. I know "OUR" house is out there somewhere.
Yesterday, I met with a NEW realtor. She came highly recommened by a work friend of mine who just bought a house himself (during the time that we were battling with the developer). She has an exisiting relationship with one of the higher-ups in his department, so its a great referral. He also mentioned that she enjoyed haggling when it came to price, which makes me feel better about our realtor actually working for us!
I wasn't hugely impressed with her at first, as I thought she and I would spend a little time discussing in greater details things that Adam and I liked and disliked in houses. We had spoken briefly the day before and she had run a list of places that met my initial criteria. I was procrastinating at work earlier in the day and had a list of 5 places that have come to market in the last month that I thought were worthwhile. All 5 that I had selected were on her list, which I found encouraging. Three of them are located around 16th & Montrose, so we are going to look at them this afternoon. One of them recently had about 40K shaved off the price so it is no in our price range. My only grumble about this woman so far is that she likes walking to see the listings, which is annoying for me, because it is much harder to slip away from the office to house hunting if I have to tack on 20min each way to walk to the neighborhood where we are looking. Or, I have to wait for the bus, or pay for a cab. It was nice that our old realtor was always picking us up on the way to see houses.
Stay tuned!
