Archive for the ‘ Housing ’ Category

Todo list for weekend – Saturday

I’ve decided to post up my todo list for the weekend, to help motivate me to get it done:

  1. Mow and Edge Lawn
  2. Pull out more crabgrass weeds where needed
  3. Reset linoleum floor — Damn thing unset again, have to pull a baseboard now to fix it. Swiftlock flooring seems to have this problem, also problem with edges meeting and odd gaps forming on some boards.
  4. Cut&nail baseboards for behind fridge area
  5. Cut&nail quarter-molding around oven (two sets)
  6. Patch holes in drywall around sliding-glass-door
  7. Trim side door (remove old and install new)
  8. Baseboards behind Dishwasher area
  9. Baseboards around eating area
  10. Quarter-molding around cabinets + dishwasher area
  11. Cut door for bathroom
  12. Seal hole in subfloor in bathroom with something
  13. Remove shelves from wall in garage
  14. Wash Car
  15. Setup Gazeebo thing in backyard patio
  16. Lubricate the joints in the garage door so I don’t have to keep fighting it to get it to go down at night/morning

That list is pretty long, but I think its doable. I need to do some things beforehand though:

  1. Stain/Seal quarter-round molding
  2. Order windows for Innocence’s Room and Bathroom (Going with Jeld-Wen vinyl, they don’t look like crappy other vinyls and have held up well as demos in the Home Depot
  3. Get up early and start at 8am

Big projects left to do:

  1. Window, paint, carpet, redo door in Innocence’s room
  2. Change oil and lubricate chain on motorcycle
  3. Bathroom remodel (down to studs!)
  4. Floors for house, what to do…
  5. Do something nice with front walkway and xeriscaping (no water pipes!)
  6. Get rid of some of the trees in the backyard, plant shade trees, start gardening fruits, veggies, and herbs.
  7. Learn Chinese

  8. Replace windows in rest of house
  9. Replace side door and side garage door

Oh crap.

So I know that my kitchen floors contain asbestos, I’m calling to get those removed professionally. But what is really troublesome is that after tearing up my bathroom, I’ve found a lot of mold and some dry rot in some bad places. I’ve decided to stop and call in the experts on this problem too. I’m just watching my bank accounts get some use :( . I really wonder though, should I have left some cover on it to keep it somewhat contained? I covered the door with a plastic sheet, not taped off completely (dark, stale air causes mold to grow). Some air can get through where the toilet is supposed to be.. I’m definitely not sleeping here tonight. I wonder if there is something I can put on it to kill the surface mold. I’ve read bleach will work, but I don’t know how to use that on floors (the articles i’m reading seem to only think mold grows on hard non-porous surfaces.
Pictures:
mold01
mold02

Quick 5 minute Housing Update

RealtyTrac is rather lame. A lot of the information is out of date or just not correct. A lot of problems with some property that have no data and no additional information. It looks like a lot of things disappear quickly.

REOs are hard to buy occasionally, especially if the bank is greedy (which they are) and doesn't know what they're doing (which they don't). I bid on a property, rather low ($100k less than the bank got it for) but it needed some serious work before it would be considered move-in ready. A very similar house sold a few houses down for 20k more than I offered for this property a few months ago and it didn't really need any work at all! Its also been on the market for 60+ days!

Housing Update

I'm still in the process of getting a house, so I thought I'd provide some insight into how I see the market since I'm in the thick of it. I'd like to start by saying that what the news says is false, with a little bit of truth. It is true that the housing prices have dropped a lot, which is mainly due to the amount of foreclosed homes on the market. But homes in the low range (<400k) are selling like mad, especially in Ventura County (California). So the market is still moving, except house prices have dropped. In my mind it is a good thing that the price of homes has dropped, as it allows more people to move into homes they can afford. The market the past couple of years has been insane with homes in the 500k+ range, even for small homes. Thats a half-million dollar home. How can someone who makes even 100k a year afford that type of home? Well you finance it at a low rate, with nothing down, which will adjust at some point to a higher rate. Thats why the market crashed, the high price of homes that was out of proportion to incomes in California, it couldn't go on forever. Now we're here.

There are a few problems that we've encountered while looking for a home. One is that there are now a lot of sharks in the market. We've seen people out looking for an investment property since houses are much cheaper now. When we submit an offer there are usually multiple offers, some of them cash offers. It makes it hard for us to get something within our price range and it just plain sucks. But these people have been doing this even in the higher-priced market, so its expected. Another problem we've hit is pre-approvals. I have preapproval from americorp financing, but apparently that isn't enough. We're bidding on foreclosed homes, owned by banks. So what do they want us to do? Get pre-approved through them! On the outside they want preapproval so they can ensure the property will close escrow, so if your financing goes through you have them to finance through. But I have another theory. The big one I've had trouble with is Countrywide, the leader in foreclosed homes. So much so that they have their own marketplace set up to sell their newly acquired assets. Plus they want you to get approval through them… so you might end up getting a loan from them… so they keep the property under their title (or lien, or whatever) and let you rent. If you're lucky and you pay off your loan, they get income from the interest on the loan. If you don't, they repocess the property, still getting something from the interest and resell to another chum. Sounds like a profitable business. But thats just a theory. More updates when they happen.