Sex Offender Registry and Your Decision

I Googled the town of the Estate House to see what would come up.  The first link was for "sex offenders".  Well, that is good information to know.  It turns out there are 4 in the town.  One lives about 3 blocks away from the house.  I then decided to Google other towns and see how many sex offenders there were.  In the town we currently have Mike's condo - the ratio to citizens is 1 in 850.  In the town of the Estate House, 1 in 1250.  In another town I really like, there are 18 registered sex offenders, 1 in 2500.  When I looked at the list of offenses, all but one of the 18 were for child sex crimes!  As someone who works in the field of helping children who are exploited and abused, it's appalling that there were so many child sex abusers in that town.  It made me sad to think about the society we live in today where it is so common.  It's more prevalent than we think.  If anyone you know is committing these crimes or a victim of these crimes, please get help!  The cybertipline at cybertipline.com is a great resource.  You can make reports there, anonymous if needed, about what you have observed and give the information you have.  Please report it.  Don't be a bystander that doesn't make a step.  Recent news stories have shown that you are culpable if you don't step in to help a child when you see them being abused.  DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN TO ANYONE AROUND YOU.  It's sad (an inadequate word) and my heart goes out to every child who has a life wrecked and innocence lost at too early of an age.

To tie this back into house hunting:  Do your due diligence and make sure your potential future house is NOT next door to a sex offender.  I wouldn't live next to them, even if they have "done their time".  There are studies that show the offenders are prosecuted for 1-2 victims but in reality have hundreds of victims they are never prosecuted for.  Make sure you are comfortable with the town and neighborhood you are looking at living in.
Sex offender registries are available through many online sources.  The source I used was, City-Data.

7 Ways to Precycle, Upcycle, and DIY Your Way to (Almost) Never Recycling Again

TLC wrote an article about ways you can upcycle your home.  I thought there were some great tips in this blog, "7 Ways to Precycle, Upcycle, and DIY Your Way to (Almost) Never Recycling Again".
1.  Buy in Bulk - this tip suggests that going to the Big Box stores like the one Mike calls my favorite store aka Costco, help with recycling because you have less packaging.  I never thought about it that way.  We live in a small one-bedroom condo until we find our house.  It's hard for us to buy things in bulk.  I've added baskets to go above the kitchen cupboards, allowing us to hide all the extra things we have.  We also have a plethora of paper towels because we bought them on sale and in bulk.
2. Ditch Disposables - this is about subsitituting single-use items with cloth and other items that are washable.  I'm guilty of using these items.  When I babysat my 5 nieces and nephews last week, I had them use disposable cups, plates, bowls and utensils.  If we hadn't, we would have run the dishwasher 2+ times each day.  I seriously wonder if the amount of water we saved from washing the real dishes would equal the cost of the disposable items.  This is where the being green comes in.  We didn't reduce our carbon footprint by using these items.  I'm still curious about the water usage vs. the cost of the items we used. Any thoughts?
3. Upcycle - this is my favorite tip. It's the whole purpose for this blog.  I love finding new ways to use things.  I love watching Pinterest for ideas on upcycling and making things look like they are from fancy stores.  For example, I love the toilet paper rolls being used for wall decor. I never would have guessed they could become so fancy looking.
4. Think Outside the Kitchen - this is a tip similar to #1 - it's making us consider buying items that use less packaging.
5.  Stop getting junk mail.
6. Read your magazines & newspapers online. Another tip I'm guilty of ignoring.  I love magazines. A few years ago, when I moved to the northwest,  I was so excited to have a permanent home for more than one year that I finally allowed myself to buy magazines. I have boxes of magazines now!  I am convinced that I will use the magazines and organize the tips and ideas by topic and of course UpCycle some crafts out of all the ads that are in the magazines.  Of course, this is a someday project.  The space that my magazines take up might not be worth the keeping of them?  
7.Make your own - this is a tip I want to work on.  I've got a running list of diy soap, medicine, detergents, cleaning solutions that use natural products.  I really think this would be healthier and hopefully cheaper.  This is something I've put off doing until we live in something bigger than our 1 bedroom condo.  Someday soon, I HOPE!


Well, Mike and I are celebrating our 8th month of marriage today.  Mike made me a steak dinner and we're heading out to a movie in a few minutes.  Have a great weekend y'all.  Check out the full article on TLC here.

Drivebys and my Domineering Husband

Today, we drove by 5 houses that are for sale.  Here are our thoughts:

House 1: The 4 Acre House.  We went back to the one I saw in the dark on Wednesday night.  It'd be a great house but we really do strongly dislike the town it is in.  The town is super trafficky!  It's just claustrophobia.  For the house, is it worth it to live in a town you despise?  I don't know that it is.  As we drove onto the road of the house, a car coming the other direction motioned for us to roll down our window.  She asked if we lived there and then she realized we were coming to look at the house too.  There were 2 people walking around the house and looking at it.  It really looked like a great house and is kind of in it's own world.  BUT - can we live in that town and drive through it to get "home"?  Would "home" be "home"  when we hate the ride there and away?  Mike said, "I hate the house the farther I drive away from the house."

House 2: Freeway House.  This house, in description and shape, is exactly the craftsman type house I would love.  It's 2400+ Square feet and on an acre.  Sounds perfect right?  Well, it was on the corner of a freeway and a state highway.  The house was right up to the road.  If it was back into the acre of land, maybe it would have been better.  I was hoping we could look past the fact it was on a busy road, but driving by the house, there were gang symbols painted on the front porch and it really was in a horrible location!

House 3: Dead Street House.  This house is in the same town as the Freeway house.  When we drove up to it, I noticed it was 1 block away from a tractor store.  Nothing against tractors, I just don't want to live that close to a store.  The biggest thing we noticed was the fact that the house across the street and 3 other houses were for sale or vacant.  Why did everyone want to move from that street?  Well, we didn't want to live there.  It backs up to the freeway that ran by house #2.  Not really the type of place I'd like to live.

House 4: Estate House.  I added this house to the list because it was on the way home. I hadn't written down the address but I remembered it was close to city hall, a park and a senior living center. We changed the direction into our TomTom GPS (called Homer because Mike downloaded Homer Simpson's voice) as city hall of the town and then started wandering around.  We found the house!  It was bigger than Mike was expecting and it was by far our favorite of the night.  It goes to the possible list.  The story with this house is it's an estate sale.  The floors are old but I know that it's had some updating like a new roof in the 90s.  They do mention that it might not qualify for regular financing due to crawl space issues.  I'm not sure what that means.  I'm hoping it does qualify for a conventional loan.  Knowing that the inside style hasn't been updated, means we have the potential to cosmetically update it.  Also, it has 400 square feet of attic space that could be finished into liveable space.  That would make this house a 1700 square foot house with a 2 car garage, shop space and 2 carport spaces.  It was on a quiet street but close to everything.  It's about 8 minutes farther away from family than we live now, otherwise, it's an option.

House 5: The Illusive House.  This house is in the town we currently live in, actually, it's about 3 miles north of where we live (therefore closer to family).  I searched houses today and this one showed up as being added to the MLS today.  It was super cheap and just sounds like it would be perfect.  It doesn't make sense that it would be so cheap.  There were no pictures of the house online yet.  I went to google maps and saw that from the street it has large trees in front of it's property so you still can't see what the house looks like.  It was getting dark but we drove over.  as soon as we were 1 mile away and turned to go into the neighborhood, Mike says, this is not a good area.  We drive by the house and we still can't see it.  But Mike goes, "NO, this is like the RB area (there have been two shootings since we looked at a house in the RB area).  Your domineering husband is saying no to that house."  So, there you have it.  My husband, who is the furthest from domineering, said no.  I have to listen to him (this time).

Creative Financing

We found out that our financing option is no longer an option.  So we are needing to get creative.  We are looking at other options for how we can buy the house that will work for us and start this adventure of UpCycling. I had emailed Sarah, our realtor to find out if we could walk through a house.  She called our Mortgage guy and then emailed me yesterday that it's best not to fall in love with a house until we have financing ready.  If we fall in love with a house and then can't pay for it, then we'll forever compare the "lost house" to the ones we're looking at when we do have financing.  I'll keep you posted on when we're back on track to buying a house.

Upcycle - top 10 projects for a Cereal Box

I'm taking a break from house hunting to watch 5 of my brother's kids in Oregon. It's been an adventure! The ages range from 16 to 3 - so we've got all kinds of interests. I'm taking the easy route this weekend. We had cereal for breakfast (and I think they've eaten it for snacks and post-dinner and all times of the day). We've gone through 3+ boxes of cereal since Friday. I think we'll make it until the parents come home tomorrow. So, I thought I'd look for some great things you can do with cereal boxes. Here is the top 10 of what I'd like to try:

• 3-D Cardboard Star.  I love stars and Americana.  My first real home post-college was decorated in red-white-and-blue.  There is also a great tutorial on BrandysCrafts.blogspot.com

• DIY Cereal Box Organizer.  This is found on Organizingmadefun.blogspot.com - It's part of 31 days to {cheaply} organize your home.  I like creating ways to organize, my problem is I end up with so many ways to organize I forget my method of choice.  But this is fun and can be really cute on a desk.  

• Hanging Paper organizer.  I think I'd like to use this on my fridge for mail.  The directions are found on "There's A Hole in my Bucket".  It looks even more simple than the Cereal Box Organizer above.  Also, if you've seen the suggested up cycle idea to use the clips from clothing store plastic hangers, there might be a way to turn the clips into magnets.  Any thoughts on that?  

• Paper city outlines.  I think this would make a great backdrop for a nativity scene - I know, past the season for 2011 but we can always plan ahead for 2012 right?!  This is from a great site - Minico.co.uk.  I really like her ideas.  

• Cereal Box Sunburst Mirror.  This is one of my favorite ideas.  I love it!  I would even go one step farther and spray paint it white.  Or you could dip it in paper mache to make it look like pottery.  I'm not sure where the directions are on this.  You can look up www.bystephanielynn.com. She lists a bunch of options for sunburst mirrors that would be really fun in the house.  

• Cereal Box Journal: This is from the Long thread.  You use the inside for the outside.  It is a great blank canvas for all kinds of art.  It requires a sewing machine (I never would have guessed by looking at the picture) but sounds great!

• Embossing plates - diy:  This is from MelStampz.blogspot.com.  If you have a cuttlebug, than this sounds like a great way to make your own embossing plates.   

 

• Antique-y looking lantern.  This doesn't look like a cereal box to me at all.  I love the antique looking lanterns and think it would be fun to have a bunch of these lit for a party.  Choose to Thrive copied Ballard Designs catalog

• Thread Organizer.  The tops/ends of the cereal boxes are the perfect size for organizing thread.  You can cut them off about 2+ inches from the end and recover or paint.  

• Bins.  If you buy the bulk size cereal from Costco, just cut off the top to the height you want and recover with fabric.  

What ideas do you have?  Post a link to what you've done with cereal boxes.  Hopefully, I'll have a house bigger than 500 square feet in the next few months and can start these projects.  

Clutter vs Hoarding

Do you ever watch the shows Hoarding or Hoarders?  I'm intrigued but also find myself a little apprehensive that I might be watching a show about my future.  This is a book about CLUTTER that I found.  Mimi Tanner is an email columnist who wrote a book that speaks right to my fears.  Mike and I are currently in a weird situation - he has a one-bedroom condo in Washington and I have an 1800 square foot town house in Oregon.  We're trying to sell both so that we can get a house that works for both of us.  In the process of staging Mike's condo, we rented a small storage unit.  He also has a storage area off of his deck/outside patio.  We've filled up both.  I try to live with Mike but Oregon remains my permanent residence until I sell my place.  My house is full!  To top that off, I continue to visit Estate Sales, yard sales and auctions.  Mimi mentions, "I struggled with mountains of clutter for literally years"  When I look at all the things we have, it's really just STUFF.  Especially after cleaning out the houses of my Grandpa (my dad's side) and my Grandma (mom's side) the last couple years, I fear that I've become a collector of stuff.  I need to do these steps that Mimi talks about.  


One of my favorite things she said that hit home is, "Big Secret #1: It takes MUCH less time to declutter than it does to look at piles of clutter and feel bad day after day after day."  So, I'm recommitting myself to start today. I talked about evaluating the items I bring into my home, but I need to start evaluating the items I have in our homes.  Do we really need them? 


Are you a hoarder?  Do you struggle with clutter?  What's your secret?  How do you evaluate what you have?  I'd love your ideas and tips! 

Look where you've "X'd"

Last week, when we met with the Realtor, we told her we didn't want to live in a specific town.  The reasons?  Last year, when we house hunted, we hated the traffic, we got turned around in the town and it just seemed really far away from the center of our comfort zone.

Today, I searched for best neighborhoods to live in within a certain city in Washington.  It completely nixed areas that we had already excluded but because of the prices, sometimes were tempting... but it mentioned this nearby town as a great option.

Out of curiosity, I did a search for houses under 100k in that area and a great under-construction remodel house showed up.  It is even on 4 acres!  When Mike called me, I jokingly told him that I found a house in that town and that we could add the golf driving range to the house because of how much property it is on :).  We'll see if that ever happens but still...  he emailed the Realtor, Sarah, today and we'll see what she tells us.  I'm almost tempted to go for this house more than the other red house.  The reason?  The houses in this neighborhood sell at this depressed time for 200k.  Of course, that means this house might become a subject of a bidding war since it's now under 100k and will probably attract investors.

Cross your fingers with us that we'll make the best decision for the house that will have the best equity and be the best option for us.

How badly do I want this house?

I spent most of last night half-sleeping and thinking about our budget.  How is it going to work money-wise in buying a house that possibly needs a lot of work? The reality is, we should be putting more money into savings than we have been the last few months.  So, I've got a new resolve to save more and spend less. Everyday, I get sucked in by the "deals" with all the emails I get about groupons, living social deals and daily coupon alerts.  The reality is, I have to ask myself before I buy something - the following:

• if I didn't need it last week, do I need it this week? 
• How badly do I want a house vs whatever the item is?

What questions do you ask yourself?  How do you keep yourself from impulse buying?

Drivebys from today

These are the houses we went through today and what our thoughts were - would you eliminate them?  Add them to the maybe list?  What would you do?

The PAC House1: This is the first house we saw.  It's on a main-ish road but in a town that is smaller.  The house is brand-new inside.  Because it was only 5 minutes from our Realtor's office, we were able to go see this house.  The garage, if it ever had one, is the master bedroom.  The master bath is also the laundry room.  The selling points for this house: Huge yard, clean, new, location is near safe park and nicer area for the era; off-street parking. Nothing needs fixing. The negatives: No garage.  No instant equity since it's already been fixed up.  

 the Food Bank House: This house was in a not-so-great area.  I would be scared to walk outside at all hours of the day. It's right next to a nice park but I don't think great things happen at the park.  Also, one block away was the town's foodbank and community center.  I'm not ready to live in the ghetto.  This is what this house sadly is.  It's nixed from the list.
The other houses we nixed from the list:

the Corner House: this house was in an okay neighborhood. It's on the corner.  The driveway beside it doesn't belong to the house.  It belongs to the nicer, bigger house behind it.The Hoarder House: this house shared the driveway of the house beside it (they had 3 cars parked there) and it was also next to a hoarder's house.  Mike drove by this one and nixed it very quickly.

The Bad Parking House: this one was in a neighborhood of ALL run-down homes.  My biggest complaint was cars were parked all along the road in all diferent directions. It just was sad and I would not like coming home to it.  Nothing looked good there.  I believe it to be rundown and don't want to live there.

  The TV Tower House:  this house is towered over by a tv tower and next to fast food stores.  It sounded ideal otherwise.  it had over 2400 square feet.  The sizing would be great.  The location is what killed it... but also what made it hit our price range.  it's a catch22!

houses still to see:

I did drive by the red house.  It's in a great neighborhood. The whole neighborhood is cul-de-sacs. It's the cheapest house in the whole neighborhood of almost no foreclosures.  Because of it's condition, they would appreciate an all-cash offer and we might have a chance with this one.  We're going to find out more about this house.  It technically has an offer that has fallen through but the buyer has refused to remove their contract on it.  What an odd world of real estate we have!  The white house below is in a town that we were robbed in - in our 2nd month of marriage. Because of that, we've avoided looking but because this is in the north end of it's town, we still need to drive by it and see if we'd consider it.  We'll do that later this weekend.  

 These houses are almost nixed.  If we're just purely going for the investment and not getting emotional about the decision, then they might be okay.  The top one is in an area that could be considered a great commuter location. It's next to a huge field and playground.  I don't know if it's too close to the ghetto and will have to have Mike drive back by it with me.

this house's backyard looks at the Walgreens and Chevron across the street.  While I like both establishments, I don't know that I want to be that close to a busy street and shopping centers.  I don't need to see them everyday. I doubt the owners of those companies live near their own company stores.  Why should I?

Lesson Learned:

• A house without carpet and appliances doesn't usually qualify for an FHA Loan.  Cash would be a great way to go with these houses.  But you're competing with investors when you fall into that bracket.  

Marriage Under Construction

Have you seen the show on HGTV, "Marriage Under Construction"?  A new season just started with a young Canadian couple who want to buy a house and remodel it.  Everything in this house needs to be fixed.

"Marriage Under Construction follows all the stress and drama as newlyweds purchase, renovate and decorate their first home. It's more than just a home renovation — it's a personal, physical and mental journey to building a relationship and a home, one nail at a time." (HGTV.com).

Find out more about the show on HGTV.  The couple featured in the online video is not who is on HGTV-HD's current series. I just have to vent for a minute - the couple on the current series is dumb!  The girl, Jill, doesn't know (or want to know) how to construct/deconstruct anything.  If she's not willing to get her hands dirty  -than why embark on this adventure.  For an example, the designer had the girl add mosaic tiles to the top of the bathroom mirror.  She freaked out and didn't like it right away.  She didn't feel comfortable doing anything at all.  They ended up with a surplus of $1800 from what they had budgeted in fixing the house - what do they want to do (keep in mind, they haven't reno'd anything else in the house yet) and what does the husband, Ed, want to do?  He wants to go play the slots.  I don't think he was joking either.
Dumb people make me mad...

Something Fishy...

Our Realtor talked with the house's realtor this morning.  He said that he didn't have a key and that he thinks someone made an offer on it yesterday.  Our Realtor, Sarah, thinks something is fishy about that house.

Why is this fishy?
1.  If you are the listing agent, you don't "think" there was an offer yesterday.  You KNOW.
2.  This house has been on and off the market a lot in the past 3 years.  It also is the lowest price house in the whole 5 mile radius.  This house should sell quickly - if they really want to.

So - the homeowners are probably not really wanting to sell this house.  They might be in a divorce or bankruptsy situation that they need to hold up the appearance of  "trying to sell" the house.

So, I'm sad to report that we won't be seeing the houses this morning.  We are going to talk with the Realtor to discuss the buying SS and Foreclosure process and figure out all the ducks we need to have in a row anyway.  I have a list of other houses to drive by but I have to say that I'm kinda bummed.

Find Your Needle in a ...stack of needles

I saw this sign on one of the real estate search sites that I frequent:

But just this week, Modern Family used the phrase, "finding your needle in a stack of needles"

It's exactly what we're trying to do.  How do we find our needle in a haystack?  Our hidden gem?  If this house tomorrow turns out to be a great option, how do we know if we'll have competition in the short sale process? It's all unknown at this point.  But I thought I would describe the process we've used to look for houses.  Most of my research, after asking friends for general vicinity recommendations, has been online.  I save the houses under a gmail category of "houses to watch" - If I'm really interested in learning more about a house, I'll open the the house in one browser.  I will then open additional tabs with the following info:
1. House tab from the real estate site that I found it at (let's say estately.com).
2. Zillow.com - this is a great site for learning the history of the site and the estimated current value.  You can also look at the values of the houses in the neighborhood.
3. Redfin.com - owned by Zillow.  This is a real estate site that is great for giving additional information.
4. Google Maps - I do a virtual walk-through of the neighborhood. I look at the house from street level. I travel the road in front, I look at the houses next store, across the street and behind.  You can learn a lot and save a lot on drive time.

Why the virtual walk-through?
Besides saving us driving time, hHere's an example of why I do this. I looked up a house near a popular shopping area that we were told to look at.  It sounds perfect.  It's got some updates and is on a side street.  BUT - when I looked at the house, I found out that the house to the right of it has turned into a business "Dentures sold here".  I don't think that would be so great.  I did end up driving by the house and found that it really didn't have a yard, it was right next to the dentures house (no space) and we would not be comfortable there.

Another very cheap SMALL house was on the corner of an alley.  For the right price, maybe we could do TINY.  I drove by it.  The house made me laugh.  The yard was super tiny.  The house was super tiny.  And the house next to it towered over the yard of the for sale house.  There would be no privacy.  It was pitiful.

The first house we're excited about

Last week, a brand new Shortsale emerged.  It's listed for under 100k.  It's 1400 square feet. It has a detached garage (one car but looks like it has storage space to the side).  It doesn't have too big of a yard and in the Northwest, with the rain, we don't really need that.  Most importantly, it's in a neighborhood that is amazing!  The house across the street is almost new.  You drive around the corner about 10 blocks, a state of the art elementary school is there.  This area has the best schools. It would be incredible to live in that area.  I also think that this house might have the best potential for re-sale in 10+ years.  Most importantly, we'd be able to afford the payments for this house and still hopefully update it and bring it to the 21st century.

This house is a cape-cod-ish bungalow.  There are no pictures of the inside.  The plan is to walk through on Friday.  We'll let you know how it goes.  I'm expecting a "fixer" but it will be interesting to find out what that means.

How would you update the outside of this house?  I need ideas.

The rejects

I've watched the housing listings for months.  We've driven around neighborhoods and asked friends and co-workers for advice multiple times.  Our favorite disaster house that we rejected was one that couldn't be closer to the I-5 freeway.  Literally, the wall for blocking sound is next to it and then it's an overpass above the freeway.  It would be a scary house to live in.  So, needless to say, we rejected that house.  It was the only one under 100k that was in an area our family and friends won't get mad at us for choosing.  Unfortunately, it doesn't work.  I think we're headed further south.