Offline for a Few Days

We're moving today, and won't be online until Monday at the earliest. Have a great weekend!

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Sheldon Has a Thing for Yarn

Many years ago, I bought two burgundy cardigans, in two different sizes. One fit correctly and was worn with skirts and slacks. The other was too big and was worn around the house for warmth. I've never been a great housekeeper, but I was frequently confused when I came home from work to find my too-big sweater on the floor, nowhere near the chair I'd hung it on. I'd shake my head, confused, then pick it up and lay it over the back of the chair again.

Then one day, I caught a glimpse of something interesting: my cat Sheldon, who was around three years old at the time, dragging the sweater off the chair, clutching a bit of it between his teeth, and walking away. He loved on that sweater, if you catch my drift, and it immediately became Sheldon's sweater. For a couple of years, that sweater was his best friend. We brought it with us when we moved, and he continued to love that sweater. Finally, it had to be washed. And he lost all interest in it.

All this meant was that he no longer limited himself to loving the one sweater. He started adopting any garment of mine he could pull out of the hamper, and added a new trick: hollering while he dragged whatever he'd snagged throughout the house. When John came, he got a whole new wardrobe to love. If we are home, but not in the bedroom, it begins, and goes until he's hoarse. (He no longer looooves the garments; they're more like security blanket relationships now; he just carries them around, the excess material dragging behind him, yowling through the cloth in his mouth.) Once, he dragged a heavy, full-size blanket off the bed and brought it halfway down the stairs.

Well, recently, he''s decided that clothes are okay, but yarn... now yarn is where it's at. This is not okay with me, as he's dragged brand new, somewhat expensive balls of yarn out of my knitting bag/basket if I'm careless enough to leave them out in the open while I dare to use the bathroom or run downstairs to check my email. He leaves my knitting projects alone, unless they're attached to a ball of yarn. He doesn't chew on it, or damage it in any way, although there have been tangles. I learned pretty quickly that yarn could not be left out anywhere.

Finally, I gave him his own skein, some cheap acrylic that he pulled out of a basket. I took the loose piece from the outside and wrapped it several times, then tied it off, so there are no loose ends to chew on. We finally captured a picture of him doing his routine. Getting a video would be tough, because he doesn't usually let us see him (if he can see us, he's not upset).

Once we move, I plan on getting something else on video: Cass (behind Shel in this picture) likes to be spanked. It's the one of the funniest things I've ever seen!

Other news
We close in two days (Thursday) and move Saturday. We are nowhere near packed, and we are both ill (bronchitis). At least we don't have to move everything.

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Observation

Packing sucks.

Countdown begins: we're moving one week from today.

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Status Report, etc.

The house thing is still on, but the move is being delayed until sometime in December. We'd tried to get the closing scheduled early, but it's not happening. I understand that they can turn around and ask us to do it early, but they'll keep on wishing. All it really means is that we have longer to pack, will possibly be moving in the snow, and won't be able to entertain for Christmas. I was kind of hoping to do that, because it appears that I'll actually be in the spirit this year. Not the end of the world, just a disappointment.

Snip snip snip
All that hair is gone! Pictures to follow.

File under WTF:


Notice that this guy is actually starting to sit down when the judge calls his name, so he stands back up. (He most certainly took his time at the beginning, for local political reasons, but was being seated when the judge flipped out.) He's in jail now, for 93 days (3 counts of contempt of court b/c the judge said "sit down" 3 times, plus 3 days for the original violation). Talk about an abuse of power.

The whole thing is over a couch that the guy's tenants had in their yard. He's kind of an abrasive ass sometimes (I've listened to his podcast), but geez. (A spectator also had his very dangerous wallet confiscated on the way in, and it was empty of a large sum of cash when he got it back. But, oh. He videotaped it all, and when that was revealed, the $3,000 was "found" a few minutes later.)

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Going out on a limb...

...and announcing that we have a house! I posted some pics in this new Flickr set; these are ones that John took during a tour.

We're pretty lucky. There is not a lot that must be done immediately. A couple of small things on the inspection report and some obvious cosmetic fixes, but nothing major. So, if anyone is free the last weekend in November (right after Thanksgiving), and wants to help, let me know! (We'll be packing and making small trips all week, too.)

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The Old Recipe Box

My old recipe box isn't this cool-looking. Actually, I used to have one like this - wood, no lid - but somewhere along the way the cards were transferred to a hideous blue plastic box, also without a lid.

In it were some treasured family recipes, only a few of which I'd managed to type up and save on my computer. I say "were," because it disappeared some time ago. This was devastating to me. I knew it had to be around somewhere, but resigned myself to losing some of the recipes forever.

A couple of weeks ago, John was cleaning off a shelf in the computer room and found the box. There was nothing missing, not really, but there were recipes I'd imagined having that I really didn't. But there were some treasured old friends there as well, and I set about typing them up on Google Docs, figuring that if something happened to the box AND I had another hard-drive crash, I wouldn't survive.

I've managed to upload 27 files, only two of which have multiple recipes. I have recipes for my paternal grandmother's pumpkin bread, potato dumplings & potato pancakes. I have some of my mom's recipes: "six-week raisin bran muffins," taco salad, and Millionaire Pie. I even have what I believe is my maternal grandmother's biscuit recipe. There is no name on the card, but there is a space for one which has been cut away. Sounds like something I'd do.

This is good timing, since we had an offer on a house accepted. A house with a large kitchen! I haven't baked in years, and I can't wait! The inspection is Monday, and we expect it to pass without any surprises, since it had already gone through all that with another potential buyer whose financing fell through. If all goes well, we'll be moving around Thanksgiving. I'm not quite sure how we're going to manage that, but we'll figure it out.

The house is newish (less than 10 years old), biggish (~1900 square feet = big for us), and awfully rectangular. However, it has fabulous windows, a fireplace, a media room, two full bathrooms and a steel-reinforced basement. Ah. The basement. That was interesting. We finally figured out what it was used for, but our imaginations ran wild when we saw the black walls, sound-proofed ceiling and light rails/brackets everywhere. What we missed was the faux brick wall and the satellite uplink on the roof. Wayne's World, anyone?

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House Hunting Follow-up Post, plus some related Politics

I thought it was hysterical that John Stossel did a story on 20/20 Friday night called "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Politics," and touched on several points that I'd made in my entry yesterday morning. Hysterical because I didn't see it until last night. The show was, in my opinion, absolutely frelling brilliant. You can catch it on YouTube: part one (of 6) starts here.

Interesting follow-up: I got a comment on my other post from a friend who has friends - in another state - in the same boat, except that they offered the asking price and the bank countered with an even higher amount. (Not a bidding war, either.) Now that's just insane. But, at the same time, not a big surprise. I've never heard of this! You list the house for the amount you want, and if someone offers that amount, you take it. If they offer less, you can negotiate or turn them down flat. Gah! (Later, the house was removed from the market, probably to be re-listed at a higher price.)

You might want to look away now
This will be my only political statement this year. I'm so disgusted by the behavior of some people, especially online,* that I've been steering clear from any public discussion, and it's been working well for me. I will admit to not reading any emails that have what looks like political taglines in the subject or first line (visible in my reader) and skipping blog posts on the topic as well. (So I won't blame anyone for sliding right by this entry!) Back to cats & knitting and stuff tomorrow!

I don't talk about politics much because I don't see the point. You aren't going to convince me to vote for your guy, and I don't have a candidate to argue for (the Libertarian candidate this time around is a joke too). There isn't one candidate running right now that doesn't turn my stomach, and I'm sick of trying to choose the "lesser evil," so I'm not voting.

It's a popularity contest, with promises being made that can't be kept, not unlike the High School class president who promises longer lunch breaks, shorter classes, better food, and less homework. Then he gets elected and, of course, doesn't deliver, because he never could, and everyone who believed him should have known better. If they were honest, they'd admit that they voted for the new class prez because he was cute, was a smooth talker, had cool hair, was on the football team, whatever. The candidates for the presidency of the United States are making promises they can't keep, because that's what they do. They're counting on their popularity to carry them.

Some people don't even know their candidate's issues. I heard about this through other sources, because I am SO not a fan, but this clip from a recent Howard Stern show is interesting. This example is, sadly, too one-sided and was obviously done by a pro-McCain person. Someone needs to get out there and do the same thing to people wearing McCain badges/shirts and see if they know HIS issues. I'd bet not.

Please note the lack of a comment button on this entry. That's because I'm not entering into a debate. I'm not telling anyone else what to do, simply sharing my plans. That's the beauty part about being Libertarian: you can think or do whatever you want, and I don't mind, as long as it doesn't touch me or my liberty.

*Oy. I've cut down on my Ravelry time for many reasons, but a bonus is that I don't have to look at the downright hateful avatars that some people are using. One group made a collection of them mocking the "Community Organizer" avatars, and replace the pictures with images of Manson, Hitler, etc. (after a lot of public outcry, I think most of those folks removed the avatars on their own). One person even issued a death threat against a candidate, and when someone suggested that she was joking, responded privately with a direct message saying she wasn't joking, not even a little, that if that candidate was elected, she would do something about it. (It is my understanding that the recipient of the PM contacted the Secret Service, but I don't know anything beyond that.)

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More on Househunting

As of Thursday, we had two offers in on two different properties. We were allowed to do this because we were dealing with banks, not people, because the banks are notoriously slow. The first offer is several weeks old, and we've still heard nothing. The second offer was, surprisingly, responded to within a week, but the response was laughable, so we're back to waiting on the first house. Unfortunately, it's a short sale, and there is at least one other offer. In cases like that, you don't get into negotiations or bidding wars; the highest offer on the table (if the short sale is approved) wins, period. (Except for the first image, all images are of the property with the laughable counter offer, and were taken from an online real estate listing.)

Short sales happen in cases where the banks agree to let the owners sell the house for less than they owe rather than foreclose. It can be a good deal for the seller, but everything we've heard about banks being motivated to sell and get some of these properties off their books? Patently untrue.

Because I bought this house 11+ years ago, with a reasonable down payment, borrowed well within my means, and have a flat mortgage with a reasonable interest rate, I've been oblivious to the whole state of affairs for the last several years. (As it is, I'll be lucky to get out of here with what I owe.) Here are some things I've learned about the state of the economy - as it pertains to the housing market - and the housing market as well. This explanation is not coming from a real estate or banking professional, just someone who's been trying to buy a house for several months. An insider's view, if you will.

I heard a statistic that 55% of the houses on the market right now are bank-owned. In our price range, and in the area we're looking, I think that percentage is higher. Everyone tells us that because we're paying cash (an inheritance from my father, not a lucky windfall), we have it made. We're determined not to borrow, so we are limited, but have heard the "oh, cash, just offer 'em $50k and they'll take it" many, many times. Banks, they tell us, will agree to any offer we make just to get the houses off their books and get some return on the money they loaned. Not even a little true. Cash has made zero difference (we aren't making the ridiculous low-ball offers, either). Banks don't appear to be any more motivated to sell with the huge volume of vacant properties on their books.

Banks don't appear to be motivated to sell, period. The laughable counter offer I referred to earlier is a good example, and it led me to some more understanding about how "we" - as a state and/or nation - got into this boat. John and I bid on a house that might be worth what their counter offer is (even in a good market) IF it was on more land AND was in better shape. Even if we had the extra $40k they wanted, the house wouldn't be worth it, in any circumstances (we could, literally, buy a big piece of land and put the exact same house on it for less than their counter offer).

It's on just over an acre, which is nice, but in Wayne county. It's a modular home, fairly new, but was treated badly by the departing owners (more on that later). The floors are down to the sub-flooring in every room. Entire sections of wall are missing. There is no water heater, and all of the doors & trim are plastic. There are no appliances, the cupboards were removed from the kitchen walls (but are still in the house), oh, and some kind of mold on the floors in a couple of rooms (we were going to rely on our brilliant inspector to tell us if it was surface or deeper). But the bank loaned these people over $200,000.00 and they want as much of their money back as they can get. Too bad they loaned far more than the house was worth to begin with. The original asking price was over $200k. It's lower than that now, but we offered even less - what we could afford - which coincided with what the place is actually, probably, worth. They countered, we laughed, and they're back to owning a property that's been vacant for two years and not worth even close to what they want.

There was this climate back a few years ago, where banks were um, "encouraged" (=forced), by the gov't to loan, loan, loan. Get people into houses at any cost. We'll bail you out. So the banks approved people for more than they could comfortably borrow, and the people took it, frequently with adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs), believing the banks with all their charts showing them they could afford it, and figuring things would improve financially and they could afford higher payments later. Some builders smelled money and charged more than the going rate because the market bore it. They got paid.(Those that managed to sell before the artificially inflated market started falling.) The banks got their pat on the head from Uncle Sam, and if the people couldn't pay for the house later, they - the banks - were still covered. This was happening up until a couple of years ago.

So, Jack & Jill buy a house. They're approved for X and start shopping at that mark, rather than below it. (Anyone watch HGTV? People NEVER pick the house that's below their budget.) They find a house, maybe working with a builder, and fall in love. But, cringe, it's right there at the top of their budget. And things never cost what you think they will (they cost more). They start paying their interest-only loan, barely squeaking by, but things will be okay because Jill's up for a raise, and Jack's got guaranteed hours at the plant and all the overtime he wants. Then Jill's company announces that they're freezing wages for a while, and Jack's company announces that overtime is going to be limited or maybe not allowed at all. Maybe they close his plant. Maybe one of them gets sick and has to take a week (or more) off work.

Now Jack and Jill have a house with zero equity (because they were assured that a down payment wasn't necessary (0% down!!!!)), that is worth less than they owe, AND they can't afford the payments. At some point, after trying to sell it for what they owe, they are evicted or maybe just walk. But damn, they're pissed. And they take it out on the house as they go.

At least 80% of the houses we've seen were trashed in some way. I say "we," but John has actually done all of the leg work, driving out to see properties from at least the outside before asking our Realtor to see the inside. A vast majority of possibilities are deleted before that second step is made. Even more are cut when they get inside. John went to one house that had a homeless person living in it, using one of the bedroom floors as a toilet. Another had several squatters living in it, with piles of clothes and mattresses on the floor, but nothing else except some stolen electricity. Apparently, the listing agents take these properties on, hand over fist, and don't drive by and check on them (the volume is too great). Our Realtors won't consider listing houses like this, which is another reason we like them.

Some houses that look great from the outside are nightmares inside. John saw one a couple of weeks ago, with the Realtor, a cute Cape Cod that was perfectly lovely from the outside. Then they walked in, and it turns out that the foreclosed owners had turned on every faucet on their way out. The house was sinking and there was mold climbing the walls. The house was listed at over $120k. It is not, under any circumstances, livable, not with the foundation cracked down the center and mold down to the studs and up to the roof.

Most of the time, people seem content with knocking a few holes in the walls, but some are smarter and strip out anything of value: appliances, pipes, ventilation ducts, doors, door jambs, trim, cabinets, faucets, etc. I don't blame them for this, but of course the banks still want X for their house, and the buyer would have to invest a big chunk of money to get it in a livable state. I think my favorite is the older mobile home that had been put up on a foundation, had holes knocked in almost every wall, some substance smeared onto the walls and poured into the carpet, an old foundation broken up and piled in front of the new one, and an acre of weeds and trash. They only wanted $113,000 for it.

As one of our Realtors explained, the banks are so overwhelmed by all of these foreclosed homes that they can't keep up. They hire temps to process paperwork, but these people don't know the business and certainly aren't motivated to process things too quickly. The banks' reps also make little to zero effort to make the houses appealing. As in, they don't bother having someone sweep the floors, let alone pay someone $100 to wipe down the counters and clean the tub, etc. They have to know the houses are unlivable, but they still have them listed for the amount of the outstanding loan.

The banks are going to be bailed out of their losses, eventually, as Uncle Sam promised, so maybe they'll get a little more reasonable. But right now? They don't much care about selling. And our cash means nothing to them. Yes, some people are having a hard time getting a loan right now, but not everyone. They're still as happy to sell the house to someone with a mortgage as they are to someone with cash. It's all the same to them. The very nice person that bought my dad's house is a great example. Just a few months ago, he not only financed 100% of the purchase price, but he also borrowed several thousand more for closing costs and other expenses. So now he owns a house where he owes more than he actually paid for it. At least it was in tip-top shape, and because of the falling market, we'd had to drop the asking price something like $50k. So if the market improves, he could find himself with some equity.

Anyway. It turns out that, unless we're willing to buy a newish, cookie cutter place on a postage stamp-size piece of grass, in a development (and one of those places would take every bit of cash we have, and not be worth it, not really), we're kind of at the mercy of the banks who own the majority of the property here. And they aren't all that interested in moving property off their books.

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What I'll be doing for a little while

Released this week, and purchased for me, by my husband:


I have been waiting for this for, oh, FOREVER.

Oh, and we put in an offer on a house.

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A week?

It has NOT been a week since I posted! Has it? Crap. Better than a month, I guess.

So, what's happening? Househunting. We have a short list of one right now. It's well within our budget, but a little smaller (slightly larger footprint, but no second story (this house has a half story)). Upside: 2 acres of mostly oak trees. We found a house we liked better, with a larger but less cool lot and decided to place an offer. Turns out they can't sell it right now -- they didn't record the easement (long-ass driveway). It's been on the market since July and they just figured out they can't sell it the way it is. Sigh. There are also two other offers pending.

We have a new real estate agent team. The two people we're working with (our main guy's wife is having a crisis in her pregnancy so another teammate helps out) both know the con-artist we were working with on the last house. The main guy won't let the con even show his houses, and won't show any of the con's listings, period. Okay with us -- we already decided that we won't consider any house that Keller Williams lists. This one guy could potentially pull down the entire agency. In our case, they only lost the possibility of a sale, but I guess there have been tons of complaints filed about the guy. It's been a very interesting week.

Meanwhile, our deposit check still hasn't turned up. The agent actually told me that it had been mailed on Sept. 6th. Funny, since we didn't give them the full amount until the 7th, and our offer wasn't rejected until the 11th. Guy lies like it's breathing. Now they won't tell us when it was mailed.

Get this: our new real estate agents will actually show us houses that they didn't list! Amazing!! (The first team, in the body of the female agent, would only show us houses that they had listed. Every house we asked to see that wasn't on their books was not available or had miraculously sold that morning. We were stuck in limbo while we waited for the sale to either go through or fall through, and then we ran in the opposite direction.)

Arrr!
Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. I uploaded a new avatar on Ravelry just for this purpose. If you load an avatar today with the word pirate in the title, a little parrot gets added to it. Mine landed in an interesting position -- absolutely unintentional.

Knitting Update

1. I need either a crochet lesson or someone who can help me add a half-double edge to 3 children's hats.
   
2. I'm finally finishing the second pair of socks. We had words, first sock and I, and it sat in my bag for over a month. We made up, and now I'm in the gusset of sock #2. I quite like the yarn -- there's nothing wrong with it at all -- I just had to work out a better way to carry my knitting so when I reach into my tote for it, it doesn't come half off the needles! Now I have a smaller canvas tote inside the bigger one, which is helping a lot.
   
3. I'm now the proud owner a skein of Wollmeise, which is, apparently, a hot property in the knitting world right now. Another Raveler got sick of all they hype surrounding it and said the first person who PMd her could have it. It's chocolate colored, but the thinnest yarn I've ever seen. I'm a little scared.
   
4. I'm working on a destash listing/page. I have 2 pair of Sox Stix, a stack of magazines and some books set aside to sell. Then I'll attack the yarn. Watch for it this weekend!

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11755 Tuttlehill: Fail

We decided to make a low offer on the house, essentially what we could afford if the repairs cost at least $30k. We figured the bank would reject it, and were correct. What I was surprised about is that they didn't try to find a way to keep our deposit. They'd wanted $2k more, for a total of $3k, which our lawyer informed us was 6x the average amount. However, they've already released the funds and a check is on its way back. So, it cost us $600 (and a lot of time) to dodge a pretty hefty bullet. If we'd had a less thorough inspector, we could be the proud owners of a money pit we couldn't afford to fix or live in, and would have spent most of my inheritance to boot. We're dealing with some disappointment, of course, but with a mixture of relief as well.

Edited to add: John is convinced that the (female) agent we were working with on this project is afraid of me. Interesting.

At the bottom of this post are images of the inspection report. I'm including it here, with the address, in case another potential buyer does a search on the address. (click "Read More" if viewing in the blog -- I apologize to those reading this via a feed.) You should be able to click the smaller images to see it at a larger size. I'm not quite ready to post the name of the real estate agency that we dealt with, but interested, local parties who want to avoid a negative experience can send me an email and I'll share.

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Should Have Known Better

I knew I started posting about the house too soon! Things are not looking good, people. I'm operating on about 4½ hours of sleep. This is going to be a long day!

Some things I've learned since the last time I was in the market:

1. Buying or selling, I've come to the conclusion that you need a (competent) real estate agent. A buyer's agent is not just there to find you houses; they are also going to be the person on your side when it comes time to negotiate. That probably sounds like a "Duh" to many people, but I honestly thought for years that they just weren't worth it -- if you could find the property on your own, you didn't need one. Wrong! Edited to add: Some agents are just sleazy. If the agents we're working with now were on our side, we wouldn't want them on our side. John has a friend who has told us wild horror stories. So, don't work with one you don't feel comfortable with.
   
2. It's worth it to pay a lawyer for a couple of hours to review purchase agreements. We don't know how much we have to pay ours, because he's my brother's coworker and we never discussed money, but he saved us some serious hassles since we didn't do #1, above, and the seller's agents have a) lied to us at every turn, and b) tried to slip little changes into the documents between versions. (Example of a lie: the listing agent, a contractor himself, swore to us that the sump pump was new and operational. It's ancient and grody and not plugged in, because the floater is broken. There is a supplementary pump for the cellar entrance that is newer, but that's not what we asked him about.)
   
3. It's VERY worth it to hire a nop-notch inspector. We watched this show a couple of weeks ago, and one of the participants mentioned the National Association of Home Inspectors (NAHI). First, we tried getting a recommendation. My rep (work) just bought a bank-owned house in the spring, and highly recommended her very thorough inspector; however, he isn't licensed in the county the house is in. So, we turned back to NAHI (we'd already looked him up there).
   
   Dontcha know, the inspector John hired is, like, the god of home inspectors. He founded NAHI. Probably the single most thorough inspector, ever, and even then couldn't inspect everything (during the seven hour orderal) because of the problems with the house. He was more expensive than some others, but worth every dime. He must have royally pissed off the listing agent, because she kept commenting on how long it was taking (she was of the opinion - shared with me - that inspections should take no longer than two hours). Near the end, he kicked her out because she was hovering and he wanted to talk to John without her. He revealed to John that they (the seller's agents) had lied to him from the get-go.
   

This entire deal is probably off. Based on Pat's inspection, we are either walking today or making a really low-ball offer. He estimates that it would cost $20k - $30k to get the house in great shape, or at least $15k to get it in livable condition. Right now, even if little things like the ventilation and the walls were complete, it's highly unsafe. It's not worth close to the price we negotiated.

What's right:

• He raved about the floors. The dining, living and maybe all the other rooms besides the bathroom and kitchen are 3" oak, beautifully done.
• The ceilings are original plaster and in the best shape he's ever seen in a house from that time (built in the 60s).
• The cabinetry is absolute top-of-the-line.
  
• Roof and attic are in good shape, although it needs more insulation.
• He actually thought the not-yet-completed first floor laundry room was a good idea and pretty well done.
  
• If we do get it for our next offer, and invest the ~$30k (probably more, b/c isn't that the way it goes?), the house will immediately double in value: double the combined cost of the house and the repairs.
  
• What amazed me is that he didn't say "RUN!" He thinks it's doable, and a nice house, just not worth remotely what they're asking, or what we were going to pay.
  

What's wrong:

• The only thing the previous owner* did right was the floors. The electrical wiring, while all new, is very badly done. Some of the wiring is backwards, not grounded, etc.. There is actually a live (hot) wire hanging down from the ceiling in one room; if someone touched it, they'd be dead. (Pat flipped that circuit off and noted it in the report.) There is an outlet by the front door (exterior) that is neither grounded nor waterproof.
  
• There is not only not a new well, as the agents informed Pat**, there isn't an official, legal well at all. There is a shallow, "bubba" well, probably hand-dug when the home was built, but no water supply to the house, not really. Getting a new well is the biggest part of the estimated cost.*** All the other stuff is smallish, but adds up.
  
• Weird little things like: wall tile on the floor of the bathroom. Pretty and shiny, but guaranteed to cause a slip and fall.

There is more, but that's all I can remember right now. If we make an offer and they reject it (probable, because we'll be dropping our offer by about $25k) or we walk, we'll be printing up a couple dozen copies of the report (with our personal info. removed) and giving them to the next door neighbor. Then I'll be posting the address here, so a Google search might bring it up, and offering copies of the report to any interested buyers. I'll even consider driving over there once in a while to stick copies of it around the property.

The offer will be in the form of an email with a number and the attached inspection. Nothing more.

This will be my last update about this or any house until we're done.

*A little detective work by our intrepid inspector turned up details about the previous owner. He bought it for him and his girlfriend, and did the work himself, but she dumped him and he abandoned the whole shebang. He is probably NOT the one that removed things like the water filter.

**They told him that they hadn't been able to locate the documents, but assured him that there was, indeed, a new well. Nope.

***We really like that Pat said he would not consider bidding on the job, because he felt it would be a conflict of interest. (I agree, just didn't expect to hear that. After all, the listing agent is foaming at the mouth to bid on it.)

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Progress: Offer Accepted

If these guys haven't already found a new place to live, they're going to have to soon. (They were living inside the back porch the first time we checked out the house.)

So. Our offer was accepted. We have next week to get the house inspected and have the lawyer review the paperwork again, and turn over the payment the following week. Yikes! The bank countered our first offer, and we countered in turn. They accepted that offer. Funny thing? It was the amount we'd originally planned on starting with before they started jacking around.

The place needs a lot of work, so we won't be moving right away, but will probably be in by late October.

1. Please let me know if you'll need a change of address from us. I think I have most addresses I need, but I'm not sure how accurate it is.
   
   
2. Want to help paint? We won't say no.

Click below to see a few pics.






One this is closed in, it will probably be my favorite place in the world.


Basement entrance. This has already been all cleared out. We will, of course, replace the door for a sturdier one. One concern (that the inspector can answer for us) is the drain there at the bottom of the stairs.

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Updates - Red Scarf Project and House Hunt

First, the pretty. Last night, I passed the 2/3 mark by joining the third skein of 1824 Wool (Mission Falls). This has turned into a delightful, squishy scarf that, unlike the cashmere blends, will hopefully not pill. Squishy = good, pilly = ick. I need to take another picture in better light!

Pattern: Mistake Rib. I love these 1-row patterns. If you cast on the right number, there is no guesswork as to which row you're on. For Mistake Rib, you cast on a multiple of 4 stitches, minus 1 (I cast on 27 stitches for this scarf), and work a 2x2 ribbing, always starting with 2 knit stitches, ending with 1 purl.

Another cool 1-row pattern is the Yarn Harlot's One Row Handspun Scarf (obviously, handspun yarn is optional). This looks fabulous with yarn that is heathered or has multiple colors.

My So-called Scarf is a two-row pattern that results in a cool stitch.

Just a reminder: You can start mailing scarves any time, starting Saturday or thereabouts (they shouldn't arrive before the 2nd). Scarves that arrive after Oct. 31st will be sent to other worthy charities. I plan on mailing as soon as I finish washing the scarf and getting some gift cards together.

House Hunt Update
We decided to give the house another go, but this time with representation. The agent who handled the sale of my dad's house agreed to represent us, even though he doesn't usually work in that area. It would be a quick commission for him, and we do trust him. However, the listing agents flat-out refused to work with him. I guess once you go in w/o an agent, you're not allowed to add one partway in?

We got tons of advice, from him, my brother-the-CPA and his coworker-the-lawyer, and told the listing agent that they have one chance to get this right. We gave them a list of requirements for things that had to be on the offer papers AND lowered the offer. (Not a lot, just enough to make a point.) Suddenly, they're behaving professionally. We told them that if they screw this up, we're walking.

They don't know this yet, but we will not be using them as a buyer's agent for any other viewings. The other realtor is going to get us someone from his company in the area.

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WTF? House-hunting woes

Briefly...
Last Wednesday, we made an offer on the house we liked. Since then, I've had a bad feeling in my stomach, based purely on instinct. Not about the house, but about the agency we dealt with. As of about an hour ago, we're out of that first offer. Here's a timeline:

Friday, 15 August: We meet a rep from the listing agency to see the inside of the house (we'd already run all over the exterior). Because we had a hard time getting agents to return our emails/calls, we planned on working with this lady to look at all the houses. On those, she'd be our agent (we saw 3 others that day). On this house, however, she was a seller's agent.

Tuesday, 19 August: John sees another house with her and asks to see the inside of "our" house again to take pictures. He tells her that we'll very likely be placing an offer on Friday.

Wednesday, 20 August: Agent calls and says that they have another offer coming in that evening and suggests we place our offer prior to that. Since we're paying cash (assuming the offer is accepted), we would have a better shot. Since we don't have to have proof of the inheritance with us, and the closing of dad's house is 99.9999% sure, we go ahead.

However, one of the listings mentioned an auction and 5% premium, so we asked that they confirm or deny that little number. They couldn't, so we dropped our offer by a few thousand to make up for it. We're told during the meeting that the auction was closed and that our requests for both attorney approval and contractor inspection contingencies were no problem.

Many times during this meeting with the agent and the listing agent/agency owner, we were addressed as if we were complete buffoons. They frequently expressed amazement that we'd done some homework and asked intelligent questions. The agency owner is also a contractor and would love if we'd hire him to do the inspection (hahahahaha) and the needed repairs (rotflmao).

Monday, 25 August: Agent calls. Oh, auction is still on, so they had to submit our offer (which was to a bank, not an auction house) to the auction house, who had accepted it, conditionally. The price was okay, but we had to remove the contingencies: no attorney approval and no inspection. As if.

After some discussions with our CPA/CFA (my brother) and his attorney coworker, we have the wording to return to them with: "no." ;-) The agent kept going on about how we could lose it (we know). We had to keep pointing out discrepancies in the paperwork and her statements.

As it stands, there is no offer, and our check is being returned. Supposedly, the auction is "really" over tomorrow, and we can start again. We like the house, but don't like or trust the listing agency. We will have a buyer's agent with us next time, if there is a next time. The offer amount will NOT change, but a couple of other things will. Like the seller's name will not just be "bank" and the contingency for the inspection won't expire 30 days PRIOR* to the offer date.

*Their bait 'n switch, our bad for not catching it. There were 2 sets of documents. We reviewed the first while the second was reprinting, marked it up w/ questions, etc., but didn't compare every line between the 2 copies. The lawyer said that it's an invalid contract based solely on that, but it makes the agent either a manipulative liar or a moron.

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Fail: The House We're NOT Getting

John has wanted to see this house for months. He's watched the price drop and the description get more desperate; he also thought it was marvelously quirky (from the tiny bit you could see on the listings). We drove past it on our way to see the house we DO like, and I agreed that we should tour it when we met with an agent. When he set up our appointment on Friday, he asked that this be included, and the agent was able to make it happen. (It was the only house that was occupied.)

Words can't accurately describe, and pictures can't show you how truly bizarre this property was. I couldn't take pictures of how disorienting and claustrophobic the second floor was, or how scared we all were on the stairs.

Aside: Last Friday I went to an Uppercase Living* party at Jdub's. A few of us got to to talking about buying/selling houses and the subject of setting/staging the house came up. Someone said they'd heard (on a TV show) that emptying the house and removing all of your personality was essential (paraphrasing). I said that we'd done that with my dad's house and the real estate agent told us that we needed to move furniture back in so people could visualize better.

Well, this house taught me that there must be a happy medium. I understand that the owners are still living there, but even if the stairs hadn't been dodgy, and the roof hadn't been sagging, and the second floor hadn't been claustrophobic, there was just no way I could envision this as our home, largely because of the decor. When a wall is a boring white, maybe you can imagine it as a stony gray/green. But when it's a vibrant royal blue or a shocking sunshine yellow, it's much harder.

I didn't photograph the pole barn in the back. I'd been excited about the second floor (ooh, studio), but the entire thing was rough -- crushed asphalt on the ground (downstairs), and no finishing upstairs. The entire thing, top-to-bottom was full of stuff (think Sanford and Son).

Going left to right, row by row:

1. What's not in this pic: the moat/pond that's under that deck approaching the door. and all the bizarre statuary.
   
   What you can't see in any picture: how uneven the deck/ramp is.
   
   What you can see: the roof sagging, ever so slightly. It appears that the entire house was built out of salvaged materials.
   
2. The back of the house. Pretty good indicator of what was to come. (We went straight out to the back to check it out.)
   
   What you can't see: the deck made with too-thin wood and too-widely-spaced supports.
   
3. Quirky little details all over the place. Lots of strings of fake flowers. These may be attached to a string of lights (I don't remember).
   
4. Always look up. I totally missed this little detail, but John caught it. The ceiling of the hallway leading to the bathroom was white pegboard, with translucent pushpins, a la Lite-Brite. (For fun, here's an online version.)
   
5. More of the hallway
   
6. What you can't see: the wood stairs are only ½" thick (there's a closet underneath) and are not uniformly shaped.
   
   What you can't feel: the linoleum-over-carpet squishiness, the disorientation of the oddly-shaped stairs.
   
7. The hanging object to the right (on the cherub's left) is a string of reflective dart "feathers."
   
8. Took this for Heather. There were odd collections of things all over the house, but this and the big burro on the stair-wall were my favorites.
   

*The party was lovely! (Jdub was, as always, the hostess with the mostess.) I found several items I'd like for our new home - after we move; however, word of advice to home party sales people: don't distance (there's a better word, but I'm blanking) your customers by announcing that you would never use a particular line of your own products! In this case, it was the Halloween-themed items. I'd immediately honed in on several that I wanted, or I thought would make cute gifts, and the sales rep announced that she didn't celebrate Halloween, and that she'd never use any of these because she'd offend everyone that entered her home. Better to say nothing at all, sweetie. Talk all you want about your favorites, but keep your trap shut about the things you don't approve of. (Unless you don't mind not selling any.)

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