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.  

Broken Celebrations

I don't really have a housing post to make this week.  Tonight, I broke a bowl - which just adds to the list of glasses I've broken.  They are all Mike's dishes.  Do you think I'm subliminally trying to say something?  I'm really not.  Every time something breaks, I might be sad but the reality is... it's one less thing to move when Moving day comes :).

That's my tip - celebrate the broken things.

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.