The joys and frustrations of home buying...

[JediMAC]

This may not apply to everyone here, but I'm sure a number of you have been through the house (or condo) buying at least once now - perhaps some of the old farts like Brent and Dale are on their fifth abode by now...

Anyways, as some of you are already aware, the Mrs. and I have been diligently home shopping now for a solid three months (first time mind you), and let me tell you - IT SUCKS!  Especially here in L.A.  I'm obviously a nitpicky freak as most of you already know, and Patty's not much better, so we're a tough couple to satisfy.  Throw in the fact that her and I really like different things in a house and its location and it's a recipe for disaster.  She likes trees and hills and quaint little "fixer-upper" houses, and I like the big city with neon lights, shopping malls, movie theaters, etc., plus a nice, clean and new home works very well for my future place.  Oh yeah, and throw in the fact that we're not terribly rich (likely due to my obsessive SW collecting), and are searching in some rather affluent areas...  Needless to say, things ain't working out so well thus far...  

So around and around we go, where we wind up, nobody knows.  That's assuming we wind up anywhere!  The housing market is absolutely insane here.  Most of the places that we're interested in generally sell in a matter of hours after getting listed.  Yes, we're talking hours here.  Usually not even enough time to jam over and check the potential pad out.  Add to that the fact that the rich folks around here keep outbidding us by several grand, as most places wind up going for at least $10,000 over their original list price.  See where I'm going with this...?  

Plus, my mom is our real estate agent - I know, usually a bad move to involve the family, but considering it's going to save us almost $10,000 grand for her commision that we're not going to be charged with, and it's worth putting up with her incessant rambling, suggestions, criticism, and supposed insight (though my wife may disagree with that)...

So say it with me...  Mindnumbingly, annoyingly, absolutely freaking aggravating!  There, that should suffice for now.  Just wanted to get that off my chest and share with y'all!  More gripes to follow, as our quest continues...

So what about you folks?  How have your experiences been with the situation?  I know several of you are doing the same thing right now...  How goes it?  Hopefully better than our searching...

[Mikey D]

I'm not quite to that point yet, Matt.  The wife and I live in a suburb of Boston and have rented for years.  The real estate in Massachusetts is so bad (overpriced POS houses that I wouldn't even think of living in) that we've decided to move out of state to New Jersey (where I was born).  We are looking in South Jersey near Philadelphia and will probably make the move in September.  I'm lucky that my parents have offered to let us live with them for a few months while we settle into new jobs and look for a home of our own.

All I can say is keep with it and good luck to you and the Mrs.  

[DSJ™]

Hopefully next year I will have a house. This will be my first one too. I'm just saving enough for a real good down payment. Between collecting & saving money, I have to cut down on something.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm!  Let's see, I can sock away $1000. plus this month or get a nice vinty item for my collection.
Oh the heck with it, carded POTF Yak Face here I come.  

God, she would kill me.  

[Scott]

While the housing market here in the Twin Cities is bad it sounds nowhere near as bad as SoCal or Boston.  We just bought our first real house this past January after living in a townhouse which we bought new in 2000.  We paid $125,000 and sold for over $160,000 pretty nice return on two years huh?  That is the crazy thing, once you are in the door it gets easy because you have a lot more cash to put down on the next one...

Good luck to both of you guys, it will happen just a matter of time!

[Reconsgt]

Well Matt I can relate.

 We bought our home last Oct. Prior to that we had an extensive search. We looked at more homes than I ever thought we would. I also am a picky person when it comes to such things. Sue isn't any better.  We missed out on the one we thought we really wanted because she dragged her feet to long.  After that we sat down and talked about how we would proceed from there. I ended up finding the house we bought on realtor.com. I looked at it that night then Sue the next day. ( we work differnt shifts). Then we made the offer. We had a few bugs to work out but we got it. After we found out we beat another couple to it by an hour.

 Looking sucks, financing sucks, moving sucks but once it is all done it sure is nice to be in the house you wanted.
Mine is out of town totally surrounded by hardwoods and evergreens. As soon as I saw it I knew it was the one. And I even got my collection room I always wanted plus my workshop for my cars.

 Stick with it. It is a pain now but well worth it in the end.

[MisterPL]

I have an inspector checking out a place we're looking at tomorrow, along with a contractor to provide repair quotes and a... lumberjack, I guess, to tell us how much it will cost to have three huge pine trees removed. If all goes well, we're in. If not, it's back to square one.

I feel your pain, Matt. Hang in there.

[Morgbug]

WEll, I suppose I can relate.  I am on my first house which I've been in for 7 years, almost to the day.  We were more fortunate in that we bought when the market was slow, so the price was relatively low (130K vs market appraisal of 179K).  The drawback is we bought from an absolute prick and ended up taking him to court.  Twice.  Winning both times.  We probably should have been back more, but just got tired of the hassle and grief.  

We have a pool.  When we moved in, the liner was ripped.  He refused to pay.  Off to court.  

The heater for said pool was also not functioning, that was in the above court scenario.

Come spring (we bought in winter - duh) the roof leaked.  Off to court.  Grr.  

Lots of other crappy things with the house, so I would back your assessment of not buying a fixer upper Matt.  New, while lacking some of the charm and challenge, tends to be a whole lot less expensive, at least in the short term.  I need new siding, soffits, faschia.  We've removed so much crap vegetation from the property.  We had to finish the backyard.  Which brings me to an entertaining story.  

There is a raised garden in the back yard.  About 10 feet by 30 feet.  When we moved in, we thought we should do some work with the garden and found it to be a very, very heavy clay soil, so we got some sand and some peat to mix in.  Wanting to get it mixed thoroughly, I decided to dig out a bunch of the heavy soil (the garden is about two feet deep (or raised above the surrounding ground).  I started digging, got about a foot down and *CLANG* the shovel hits something hard.  Clear away the dirt and it's one of those interlocking bricks.  No idea why it's there, throw it on the lawn and go on digging.  *CLANG*  Again, another brick.  *CLANG*CLANG*CLANG*
Holy crap!  Some four hours later I'd pulled out almost three hundred bricks.  The moron had decided to raise the garden on the basis of 0.85 per interlocking bricks.
The bright side is I had enough bricks (still have some not used) to finish paving a section in front of the garden that was just mud.  

We are thinking of moving to the other side of the city.  It would save me 15 minutes of driving each day.  That's pretty considerable in terms of time and gas expenditure.  Just all the hassle that Matt's going through, lawyer fees, realtor fees, land transfer fees, taxes.  Blech.  You don't get much sympathy from me Matt, but you have it on this issue.  

[Scott]

All I know is that it can't be as bad as this one was for us last fall


++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Would You Ever Buy A House Where Someone Was Murdered?

My wife and I are house shopping, we are starting to outgrow our two bedroom townhome and need some storage space and I want my Star Wars room back dangnabbit.

So last Friday we found a wonderful house built in 1960, quiet nice neighborhood,  4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, the entire house had been remodled, top to bottom, new appliances, new hardwood floors, new carpet, new porch etc etc etc.  It is well within our price range but had been on the market for two months.  We went back tonight to look again when we read the statement from the seller stating that there was an arson in the house and some died.

Searching around the old Minneapolis newspaper archives, I come to find out some dude set fire to his still living wife in this beautiful house we are looking at and killed her to collect $378,000 in insurance.  Then dude leaves the state on bond has been on America's Most Wanted, Unsolved Mysteries etc. and is still at large

http://www2.amw.com/site/thisweek/20001216/weavergordondouglas20001216.html

My wife refuses to even think about living there, I wouldn't mind it because it really is a nice house, right where we want to live.  Kind of like Marge trying to sell the murder house to the Flanderereses, would you buy it knowing someone was still on the loose and he had murdered someone in the very place you were living???  

[Mikey D]

Is it just me or does Scott's arsonist kind of look like Steven Spielberg?

[dustrho]

Scott, that was a great story you brought to our attention.  This story involves you, right?

[dustrho]

My wife and I will be searching for our first home sometime next Spring.  We live in a 3 bedroom townhouse right now, but there's not enough room for my Star Wars collection.  Obviously that's not the main reason for moving, but it is one of the reasons.

I feel for you Matt... I really do.  Best of luck finding the perfect house for you two.

[Scott]

I still am kind of remorseful that we didn't get that house, it was gorgeous, our current one is very nice as well but this was the kind of house that you walked in and went wow.  Every room got better, the space and size were all prefect.  Nice quiet street...

Arsonist and Murderer, Still At Large...Not priceless

[Darth Broem]

I am getting married later this year.  We were all gung-ho about moving to the Phoenix, AZ area.  Then we got to thinking about it.  Heck it would take at least $2000 for us just to move our stuff there.  Then we would need to stay in an apartment to save money and throw in a deposit on top of it.  Then we'd waste money on a commute.  Plus we'll probably start a family shortly within 2 years.  That will take up all our disposable income as well.  
So, now we are thinking of just staying with our current jobs and saving our money for a downpayment on a home instead.  Of course we have to find a town that has city sewer around here.  She works in the health deparment and knows the horrors of folks who's septic tank breaks down and have to spend nearly $5000 to replace a thing that takes care of your poop.  No thanks!  
So, the search and decision making continues.  It should be an interesting year.  I would like to get a home relatively soon since the interest rates are very low.  The good news is I don't have to get rid of 80% of my Star Wars toys to move

[Morgbug]

Another advantage to living in the US.  The interest on your mortgage is tax deductible.  Mine is not

[JediMAC]

Thanks for all the well-wishes everybody!  And a big "good luck" to the rest of you currently on the house hunt as well!  Sounds like John's the closest to sealing the deal, as he's already to the inspection phase, which is much further along than we've made it yet...

My new gripe is that while my wife has found a couple new places that she's very interested in while searching around today, I can't even get out of the freaking office to go take a look at them myself!    They'll probably be sold by tonight.  Oh well...  

So how many of you look(ed) at your prospective new residences with the idea in mind that a given room therein would make for an excellent SW collection room?!  I sure have...    Hopefully I wind up with something cool, like a huge basement all to myself like Scott lucked out with (not that houses have basements here in SoCal)!   **fingers crossed**