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.  

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.  

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).

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.