Posted in House stuff

The wife and I have decided it's time to buy a house. We both agreed that since we're not planning on moving again anytime soon, we're ready to jump into home ownership. So, to educate ourselves on the home buying process, we headed off to Barnes and Noble and picked up Home Buying for Dummies and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Buying and Selling a Home. Looked at a few books in the store, and decided on these ones. I figure in about a year and a half or two, once we've paid down some of our credit card debt and saved up for a down payment, we'll finally have our own home somewhere.

I'm looking forward to it.

According to one of the maintenance guys for the apartment complex I live in, it might be getting turned into condominiums sometime in the near future. So that means either we'll be moving again sooner than planned, or we'll be buying sooner than planned.

It seems to be a growing trend around here (and probably elsewhere) for apartment complexes to turn into condos. An apartment complex down the road from us turned into condos earlier in the summer.

I suppose if the price is reasonable, then buying is definitely something to consider. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Well, it's official now. The new owners of our apartment complex bought this place to turn them all into condos. According to the letter found on my door this evening, we should be getting an official letter soon about the conversion process. I'm just hoping that the prices will be reasonable so we'll be able to scrape together enough dough to buy our unit so we don't have to move again. I'm sure this will be an interesting process. Hopefully not a painful one.

I'm stuck here at work while the wife deals with a bit of a crisis with leaking water. Just as I was about to call her to pick me up from work, she calls and says there's water leaking into our place from the apartment above us. So she's trying to contain the dripping in buckets while the maintenance guys come over to see about damage control.

And we're supposed to be buying this place sometime in the future. Maybe we will be moving after all...

Update: Well, the apartment's a bit of a mess mostly from having to pick everything up off the floor and everything from the kitchen closet being out on the balcony or on the couches and tables. The apartment itself is reasonably ok. A few more water stains on the walls, and rugs were a little bit damp. A couple of the light fixtures need to be emptied out.

On the plus side, parts of the carpet did get a good steam cleaning and deodorizing.

On the down side, the kitchen is a bit of a mess, so our Christmas cookie baking is probably over for the year. And we probably won't be getting any Christmas cards out this year. We'll be busy trying to get things cleaned up before heading out of town.

They want $181 900 for this place as a condo.

$181 900???!!! Holy crap, who'd have thought this place would cost so much!!

The official letter from the new owners of our soon-to-be condo came yesterday, and now we have a tough decision to make. I'm torn over whether we should buy or not. On the one hand, we really love the location and our apartment (despite being leaked on) and would love to stay. Plus we hate moving. On the other hand, the asking price was waaay more than I was expecting. Coming up with a down payment by August will be tough, especially since I'd want to put down at least 20%. Borrowing against my 401k would be an option, but I'm a little hesitant about taking on that much more debt at this point, especially considering the credit card debt I've been trying to dig out from under for the past year. Doing some rough calculations putting down at least 11% on a 20 year mortgage would make the mortgage payment about the same as what our rent is now. That would mean I'd also have to factor in that darned PMI as an additional cost.

Well, we have a little bit of time to make a decision. The first thing to do will be to head over to talk to one of the sales reps sometime next week. I'd like to find out what they have planned for the condo-conversion process (new flooring, appliances, other upgrades?) and see if there's any wiggle room in their price.

We've decided that since we have to either buy or move again, we might as well look into buying a house. $182 000 can get a reasonably decent house around here and if we have to spend that much we might as well make it a house instead of a condo. Plus with a dog on the way a house will probably give us more space to deal with it.

A trip to the bookstore got us armed with a couple of house buying books which we've been reading to learn about the process. Quite frankly, it all seems quite overwhelming especially with the time frame we're looking at (moving by July/August), but I'm sure that's a sentiment many new home buyers experience.

We've already started with combing through various local real-estate sites and checking out MLS listings for areas we want to live in to get an idea of what's out there and what kind of prices we'll encounter.

I guess the next thing will be to find a good real estate agent. We'll have to tap some of our friends that bought homes recently to get recommendations. And then navigating the home mortgage maze...

Our first decision of 2005 is to buy a house. After much discussion and consideration we decided that if we have to spend $182k, then it's going to be on a house rather than a condo.

So for the past few days we've been browsing through the online MLS and the real estate section of the paper checking things out and seeing what's out there and the kinds of prices we can expect. Mostly small and expensive or not-so-small and really expensive in the areas we want to live. If we want big and cheap, that means living farther away and a longer commute than we want to deal with. We did find a few places that look interesting enough to check out later this week. The wife's parents are also planning on making a trip down on the weekend to have a look around with us too.

We've also been working on a list of items and features that we want in a house and ranking them by importance to us. I'm sure this will be an interesting process.

After a weekend of doing a lot of driving around checking out places with our realtor, we found a place that we decided to put an offer on. We saw a lot of places that we were interested in, but most of them already had contracts written on them already so they were out.

The one we decided to put an offer on isn't too far away from where we are now. Our realtor wasn't able to get in touch with anyone from the selling agency over the weekend so we won't find out until this morning if it's still on the market or not. It's a pretty big place at the end of a cul-de-sac. It'll take us pretty much to the edge of what we can afford, so it'll be tight for the next couple of years until our credit cards get paid down. But after that it should be smooth sailing barring any unforseen financial calamities.

Financing has been secured. Next step is to have the contract reviewd by a real-estate lawyer, then drop it off with our realtor and 'earnest money' check and hope someone hasn't already beaten us to the punch.

Update: Gave the signed contract to our realtor and went over to the selling agency with her to check out our various options for things like flooring and cabinetry. Haven't chosen anything yet, that will be Saturday. The selling agent didn't seem to think there would be an issue with the builder signing the contract, so I think we just bought a house!

Along with the condofication of the apartments, there's a lot of other stuff going on. A number balconies are being completely rebuilt, new landscaping, people driving around slow gawkingchecking out the place and installation of a gate. That's right, it's going to be a gated condominium community.

So now I have visions of us driving in late one night and suddenly finding the gate closed and locked and having no way of getting in. Whatever code we need to punch in to get in is tacked to our door (our usual way of getting messages from the apartment people) but of course we don't know that because we haven't been home yet.

That would probably suck.

Applying for a mortgage loan involves a lot of rummaging and running around, as I'm sure anyone who's been through the process knows very well.

We opted to do our mortgage through E-Loan. So far the people I've been speaking to have been very friendly, helpful and provide most everything that needs signing electronically. And there are forms up the wazoo. Of course the signing thing still needs to be done on the dead-tree version, which means faxing it back to them. We're in the processing and approval stage now, so there's been a lot of paperwork that needs to be printed and signed. Hopefully everything goes through smoothly.

Met with the selling agent today to go over our choices for the house innards. Chose stuff like wall colours, cabinets, flooring, tile and carpets. It all went reasonably well, although a few things we want will depend on the cost. If it comes in over our budget, then we'll have to eliminate some of the upgrades we asked for and go with the standard choices. We have things prioritized though, and nothing will be really hard to give up. Besides, we can always go back in a year or two and have things re-done the way we wanted.

After that it was a stop at the house to measure out a few areas. Drywall's been put up so finishing shouldn't be too much farther away.

A trip to Sears netted us a swanky new refrigerator and washer/dryer thanks to the wife's parents. All within budget (barely) too.

Next thing on the list to deal with are some forms that need to be filled out by the Payroll folks, setting up an appointment with the appraiser guy, going to the tile place and the lighting place and getting some insurance quotes.

Somewhere in all that I need to do taxes too...

Posted some pictures of the house in various stages of construction. The drywall is up now so the house innards are starting to look more like house innards.A little bit of paint, some floors and a few lights and it'll be ready to move in!

Today we head over to the tile place and pick out some tile for the kitchen and bathrooms.

Well, the hardwood flooring throughout the house ended up being too expensive, so it's back to plain old carpet. The flooring that the builder was going to be put in was the solid ~3/4" wood plank-nail to the floor-3 coats of polyurethane type floor, not the thin snap together panel type floor. The wife is none too pleased about giving up the wood floor, but I figure we can always do the hardwood flooring a couple of years down the road anyway.

I think we'll have to get a second Roomba to help clean all the extra space.

So now that we're buying a house, the TV seems to be permanently stuck on HGTV. Even Food Network has been forced to take a back seat to the home improvement and decorating/redecorating shows like Design Remix, Decorating Cents and Weekend Warriors. I'm relegated to sneaking peeks on most of the other shows I like to watch now.

Watching these shows is interesting though. Home improvement doesn't seem that difficult. I think even I could do some of this stuff. Lots of work, and having the right tools seems to help. Of course it also helps to know what you're doing too. But then again, that's what shows like these are for, right?

Ok, when does Lowe's open...

The driveway, walkway to the front door and back patio have been laid down, cabinets in the kitchen and bathrooms installed and painter guys have started working. Doesn't look like it'll be too much longer now, and everything seems to be moving along nicely. Now if only I could get someone to let me know when they expect the house to be finished so I can give the 60 days notice on my apartment and let the appraiser guy know when to check out the place!

More photos posted in the Photo Gallery if anybody wants to see.

Rick asks:

However, you have not told us where the vomitorium is going to be. You know, the room that you can roll your drunk friends into, where the pizza and vomit stains on the floor are considered part of the ambiance.

Traditionally, the 'Vomitorium' is usually in the basement, which in most houses is usually unfinished or at least has one unfinished area (read: easily hosed down) that can easily serve the required function.

However, seeing as how Charleston is in the Lowcountry, and houses here typically have no basements (it's not called the Lowcountry for nothing you know) it's not really practical for the new house to have an indoor Vomitorium.

Fortunately, Charleston is sufficiently warm year-round (by Canadian Hooligan standards) that I think the screened-in porch out back could serve quite adequately as an outdoor Vomitorium. It has the benefit of being open with good air flow (so beer flatulence doesn't build up), is easily hosed down and dries quickly and has ample space for a large group of slumbering Hooligans. Easy access to the outdoors also means no stumbling around searching for the bathroom in an unfamiliar place.

He also asked:

And what about the whore closet? You have to ask pTom and Leanne about that room! although I do believe that pJoe was responsible for naming that one.

Although I'm not familiar with this 'whore closet', there are a few places that could serve what I imagine the required function to be. Up in the FROG there are a couple of gnome-sized doors on either side to access a small amount of storage area. There is room in here for maybe 3 or 4 people (2 or 3 large ones) on each side. It is open to the outside though, so these people might have to share the space with the occasional squirrel, bat or other critter.

Appraiser gets to go do his thing on Friday. One last conversation with the insurance guy to get things finished with that and it looks like we'll be able to close by the end of the month! Woo hoo!

It's down to the final stretch. All the major work is done on the house, and we went through the house with our realtor for the walkthrough today. Neither of us was terribly impressed with the painting that was done. The colours came out nice enough, but there are a lot of little touch up things that need to be done. Far more than what I would have expected. If the painters were all finished, then they were very sloppy on finishing the details.

Hopefully fixing all the things on our list won't take too long, and we'll be able to finally close on this this house and move in by mid-April.

It's finally coming to the end. We're going to end up closing a few weeks later and paying a bunch more in closing costs because of issues with the appraisal and getting that clarified.

First it started with the loan people contacting me asking why I hadn't responded to their emails about the appraisal report. Since I never received the email with the appraisal report, and didn't know the appraiser had gone back out there, naturally I was a little confused. So, a copy of the report was sent out again. Much to my surprise, the appraiser valued the house somewhat lower than the purchase price...$14 000 less. So then began a two week long exchange of recent sales figures, discussions and reviews of the appraisal, which didn't end up changing anything in the end.

We go to closing this afternoon, and with the exception of the wedding (and most of that was spread out in relatively small amounts), I will be dropping the largest amount of money I have ever spent into someone else's hands in just a few short hours.