Driving around

I created a table of houses.  I've listed the following:
1.  Picture of the house
2.  MLS #
3. Address/location
4. Foreclosure price - the price the bank bought the house back for
5. Price the house was first listed at and date
6.  Notes/ history and information that i can gather from zillow/redfin
7 The current price
8. Status: This could be that it's "active"/Pending or I've used it to add numbers to help me sort the houses by particular orders.

This table is just in Word but was very helpful in helping me track the houses.  As their status changed to "pending" I would just sort the table and move those houses to a different page.  I am still tracking the houses we made offers on.  If anything, I want to know what they sold for.  Maybe it's trying to rub salt into an open wound but ultimately, I still believe we will end up with the best house at the right time.  So far, it hasn't been any of the other houses.  It's okay.  It really is.  I still got depressed after losing out on the last house and I really feel like the pickings/options have slimmed down tremendously.  In fact, I'm starting to see houses that sold for $80,000 in November or January re-listed at $180,000.  It's crazy to me that there really is still a housing market out there but only for those investors with the money and the means to jump in as soon as a house is listed.  We move a little slower.

So, Saturday we drove around several houses.  I included houses in our budget that were in neighborhoods we had already x'd out.  I think a part of me wanted to see if the houses were in weird awesome pockets and they should be ones we jump on.

We compiled the following list of houses we wanted to see.
1.  The Fire House - This house foreclosed in December and then there was a fire recently.  They listed this house at $80,000.  I walked around the house - the ceiling and roof would need to be replaced in the whole house.  In fact, it was probably a total gut job.  BUT for $80,000 in the town that it was in?  The property was over .5 acres.  The more we thought about it, we could even store everything in the garage and go rent something really cheap while we slowly fixed up that house for the price it was listed.  I even looked at cheap trailers to live in or ways to build garages with a flat above for cheap.
2.  The 1/2 price house - this house was listed at 114k.  It was pending and then 3 days later, it's listed for $64,5000.
3.  The drop house - this house is listed at $156k but it's been at that price for one month.  Therefore, based on it's current schedule, it should drop 10-20k in the next 7 days.
4. The hidden Garage Harp house - this house was surprising.  It's listed as a 2 bedroom 1 bath house - 1380 square feet.  The neighborhood was great!  From the street, you can see the Port of Tacoma.  There is lots of privacy for the house even though it's a corner house.  There was a garage sale across the street.  The lady was selling a harp; my mom has always wanted a harp.  Mike told me to go talk with her.  So, I found out the harp was handmade by her son and she was selling it for $10.  I don't know if it's a good harp, it's pretty.  It needs a little work but for $10 - Mike wouldn't let me walk away without buying it.  He didn't want to hear me say 5 minutes later, "I should have bought it for $10...."
Anyway, I talked with the lady over the sale and asked her about the house.  She said a man lived there by himself for years.  He was finally moved to an Alzheimer's unit and now the house was for sale so he must have died.  She said the neighborhood was great - that the houses on either side of her were recently bought and updated/fixed-up.  As we drove around, the street has new and old houses on it.  It seems like a good neighborhood.

So that's our list for the Realtor...  We'll see what happens Monday night.  

The last couple roller coasters

Well, we chose that house with the view of the sound.  We offered asking price + $8 on the house #3.  10 days later, we found out that we didn't get the house.  It was a long depressing roller-coaster.  I know we were the first ones to offer but we offered on a Friday.  They had the weekend to get more offers.  THEN... on the Wednesday after we sent our offer, they had us sign a document acknowledging the fact that we know there are multiple offers.  5 days later - so 10 days after we submitted our offer - we lost out.  I don't know how much that house sold for but I'm sure it is a lot more than we offered.  We offered our max.  In fact, we went $20,000 OVER our budget for that house.  The irony is that if we had offered asking price on the other 2 houses, we would have won those houses.  In fact, one house has closed and I found out that it sold for $600 more than we offered.  That's how much we missed out on the Fishbowl house.

That depressed me for a little bit but at the time, we offered the max we were comfortable with for that house.  And who knows...  all the wiring and plumbing had to be fixed on that house and it was in a fishbowl.

So, waiting 10 days for the result of that latest house and traveling for work...  we haven't looked at houses for a long time.  We have a time scheduled for next Monday night with our Realtor.  I'm slowly x'ing the houses off my chart because they are changing to Pending before we can even go see them...  oh the joys of the hunt!

Drivebys and the Green Rambler & MCM houses

I drove by about 10 houses tonight.  It's always interesting to do drive bys.  You learn a lot about the neighborhood.  My poor dog, Charlie, was super patient and didn't budge from his curled up ball on the seat for hours.  I have a great and patient Golden Retriever that can't live with us until we get a house.  I actually kept about 6+ houses on my list, although a few were out of our price range.  I can hope that the bank would take less right?  Our Realtor said the average house is going for 3% less.  I'm shooting for about 10%+ less at this point.

There is a house that I'm really excited (the Green Rambler) about but unfortunately, it is set back a bit from the road and people were standing in the driveway.  I decided I liked the neighborhood.  The house is on a street that dead-ends into a cul-de-sac.  We both grew up on cul-de-sacs and we're big fans.  I decided it could wait until Saturday to see the actual house in person.  I did do a lot of satellite stalking and Google Maps stalking.  Also, that house is technically 15,000 over our budget but there's always a slim bit of hope right?  I was driving by all these houses and would see additional ones that didn't show up on my searches.  I wrote down the addresses for several houses but after researching, I see that they are all about 100,000 out of my price range and the bulk of those were Short Sales.  We have decided that Short Sales do not work with our schedule and financing situation, so we're sticking with bank-owned and owner sellers.

There are a lot of questions of this house.  Our Realtor knows the listing agent and he said the bank was going back and forth with a buyer but we could go see it on Saturday.  He did tell her that there was some water damage and that is why this house was on the market for such an extreme difference of the other houses.

You can see in the picture of the bedroom that there are lot so of holes in the wall, I think it might have had copper wiring and pipes - so someone went through the house and stole those elements to sell.



These are the other houses I drove by:

This one is the Gardener's Delight (all dead now of course)This house, I saw in the dark so it was okay.  It obviously had a huge ornamental garden at one point.  Even the garage is turned into a green house.  It might be too big of a project for one (me) who really only wants a low maintenance yard.  

This house is MCM - meaning Mid-Century Modern.  It was built in 1956 and it "needs tlc"  When I drove by, I think it's pretty good.  It's in a good neighborhood on the street that it's on.  Houses on it's street are going for about double what we'd want to get this house for.  My one complaint was that people drove by me on the street going really fast.  It's not necessarily a dead-end street but it just goes into neighborhood so I was surprised by how fast they were driving.  

This is a HUD home in an area that we'd love to live in.  There have been 3 foreclosures in our price range in the last 6 months - that is a good thing!  It makes the competition stiff, so while this house looks odd and is smaller than we like, it's in an area we really like.  I didn't drive by it because it was completely the opposite direction for everything else I was looking at.  So, it's on the list and we'll see if we can go see it on Saturday with the Realtor.  

I eliminated this blue house.  I wrote "Cars".  Literally, there were about 10 cars per house - people were parked on the yard, driveways, sidewalks and side of roads.  It's claustrophobia to me and I don't like it.  So, this house is off the list.  

This house has no pictures of the inside.  I've kept it on the list.  Unfortunately, it was after driving through this super great neighborhood so I think it looks worst than it would have if I had come directly from the blue house above instead of the nice house below.  

This house was great!  It was on a cul-de-sac.  It had a path to a park from the circle.  I'd love this house but the reality is, it's currently listed at 50k more than our max budget.  There is no way it will come down to our budget.  

This Red Farmhouse is only 1000 square feet.  There is an unfinished basement, but it seriously was in a rural area and would be a pain to get to for any visitors and family.

TIP: Evaluate how important family is to you.  We currently live 30-45 minutes away from our family. Most of the houses on the list are even farther away.  We really have to figure out the balance of this with what we do everyday.  

So just based on the pictures and the little I've said to describe the neighborhoods - which one would you go for?  I'm excited to finally go see the houses on Saturday so we can move forward to making a decision.  

Sadness and Madness

Today, we heard back from the Realtor - it's never a good sign when she can't get a hold of the listing agent.  At least, that is what I've decided.  The house that we wanted to bid on (and we were going to low ball offer on in hopes we'd end up at our max) had multiple offers and the bank accepted one on Monday.  So, we missed out.  I'm mad - I had already started making lists in my head and figuring out steps of things to do when we got the house.  It's disheartening.  I'm thinking this might be a regular cycle for the next couple months as we try to find a house and get a steal of a deal...  please pray for us, cross your fingers and send up thoughts of hope.  We're back on the hunt...
Lesson learned: Jump when you find the house and be ready to be disappointed.  

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.

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).

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.

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.