Inspection

Thankfully our inspection went pretty well. We arrived maybe 20 minutes or so after the inspector started in the basement. It was a pretty long inspection at around 4-5 hours. I'm not complaining though, it just means it was thorough.

There weren't any major issues, just typical problems you would expect with a 100+ year old house. Basically there is still some knob and tube wiring that should be updated at some point, some ungrounded outlets, and some minor plumbing issues. The main things with the plumbing are a missing P-Trap in the downstairs shower and the pipes in the basement are mismatched. The one coming from the sewer is galvanized steel (that one is original) and the other is copper. Those two types of metal do not play nice together and over time will rust and cause leaks. The inspector says it is not a big deal right now, but it should be addressed in the future. We should also replace the sump pump because it has been clogged up with paint.

We don't have any moisture issues in the basement (hooray!) and the house seems pretty sound. The inspector said that our kitchen was one of the nicer kitchens that he's inspected so that's always good to hear. Some of the minor issues with the house that are mostly due to age are the floors aren't level, some of the windows have been painted shut, and there are a few cracks in the plaster. Nothing a couple of do-it-yourselfers can't handle. The bathroom fans don't really work very well so we should probably replace those.

Other than that, things look great for the house! We did experience some frustration when we first walked into the kitchen. The really nice stainless steel french door fridge had been replaced with an unattractive black fridge with a cracked handle. Our realtor called to find out where the other one is and apparently it "broke." I don't believe that for one second, but what can you do?

Our appraisal came back at a very favorable 145K, so we'll be getting 15K in instant equity! That is definitely great to hear. Our lender actually said that it is very uncommon now for a house to get appraised that much higher than purchase price. No complaints here!

So now we are wrapping things up to prepare for closing, which has actually been reset by our lender to May 11 as opposed to May 12. She thought it would be best to allow ourselves one extra day in case any unexpected setbacks popped up. Good thinking. That means that exactly 1 week from today, Glenn and I will be the proud owners of lovely home in Tacoma! Yay!

Love to all!!!

Sunshine Filled Weekend

This weekend was absolutely beautiful. The sun was shining brightly and the skies were boasting a beautiful blue with puffy pillows for clouds. On Friday after Glenn got home from work we took Rally out to the deck and took a nice long nap in the sunshine. It felt so good soaking up all those delicious Vitamin D filled rays of sun. It was also nice to get a little color. I've been wondering if I might end up looking like a sparkly vampire if I didn't spend more time in the sun! We spent the rest of the night inside and watched Fast and Furious (the fourth one) to prepare for the awesomeness of Fast Five the next morning.

Saturday morning we drove out to Gig Harbor to watch Fast Five in DBox seats. If you weren't already familiar with DBox, they are basically seats that have a motion code programmed into them to go along with the movie you are watching. If you've ever been on the Back to the Future ride at Universal Studios, it's like that. They're a TON of fun and really cool. We saw the last F&F in DBox and had such a blast so we knew we would definitely be doing it again. As far as the movie goes, it was AWESOME! I LOVED every action packed second of it. Plus, I am definitely not going to object to a movie with Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, and the Rock. It's definitely a movie to kick off summer the right way.

Since we were in Gig Harbor for the movie, we made our way over to our future 'Hood in Tacoma. We drove by our soon-to-be house (fingers still crossed!) and I giggled as we drove by the house down the street with all the crazy decorations. We're starting to get really excited. I've even began a countdown using the snowflake decorations from Christmas that I never took down. Our inspection is tomorrow (Tuesday) and we are really excited to get back in the house. It feels like it's been forever and we're starting to forget what it looks like inside!

I finally got to spray painting my hardware yesterday. We spent the late sunny afternoon out in the sun again. This time Glenn showed me how to spray paint. I was too scared to just attempt it on my own, so I made Glenn show me how to do it. I'm such a wuss!
We started by spraying the door handles and the diamond panel insets with glossy black. I just loved the way the diamonds looked with the black. I knew it would look perfect against the fabric I chose.
As far as the door pulls go, I've been waffling on that one. I thought that I would try and match the 50's hardware that we picked up at Sanford & Sons.
After one coat of the "chrome" spray paint I knew it wasn't going to match but I was really liking the look. It has a soft shine to it, almost like brushed nickel. The pulls look fantastic against the bright pink so I decided to spray the remaining handles later in the week.
Finally I got to pulling the fabric off of the door panels. They were attached with glue.
After a dusty mess I scraped off the remaining fabric with my putty knife. I am getting super excited about the way my piece is turning out. When it is all done it will be 100% Bri, and that's exactly what I want it to be.

With all the time we spent outside waiting for paint to dry and enjoying the sun, we thought that Rally would get to see his girlfriend for sure. He did! They are just so stinkin' cute together. They really do love each other. They don't act the same way around other dogs. Rally and Mika played together for quite a while before Rally started to get tired. It seems like just yesterday he had boundless energy. Meanwhile, Mika was still all sorts of ready to play. She's only 1, so she's always ready for fun. Rally is nearing his 4th birthday this June! I can't believe it. We've had him for a little over 3 years now. He's such a good boy :o)

We ended up getting a little more color yesterday as well, maybe a little more than we intended. Oh well! We're certainly looking forward to this week and are very excited for Tuesday to get here so we can hopefully get the final green light on the house! After that I am going to start packing things and before we know it, we'll be moving!

I hope everyone is doing well! Love to all!

A Sneak Peek... And Some News

I thought that I would share a little sneak peek on the progress I've been making on my cabinet. So far it has been sanded down to bare wood, given 2 coats of primer, and 3 coats of paint. I've got a little more touching up to do with the pink paint on the larger surfaces but all the smaller parts and details, like in the picture, are pretty much done. After I am all done painting, everything will get a nice glossy coat of polyurethane to give it some durability and mega shine. As far as the rest of the piece goes, hardware will need to be updated by either a glossy black or a shiny chrome... I am still undecided on that. Then I've got to assemble the fabric panels in the door frames and that should be it! PHEW! It seems like I still have a looooong way to go, but it's not too bad. It's been so much fun for me to transform this piece into something I absolutely adore. I have a perfect place for it in our new house.

Yes, I did say our new house! :o) The past couple of days have been completely frustrating and exciting all at the same time. On Tuesday we received the acceptance letter from the bank agreeing to the purchase price. However the seller's were not released from their debt. In a short sale the debt of the seller is forgiven, unlike in a foreclosure where the bank still collects money from the previous owner even though they no longer have possession of the house. That left us in a very frustrating place. Glenn and I did a lot of stressing out and talking over lunch that day. We had a lot to worry about because we only have about 6 weeks left in our lease at the apartment. That left us with very few options, none of which sounded appealing.

We called our realtor and he basically explained that we didn't really have anything to worry about, but we were looking at up to another two weeks for the bank to give another acceptance letter forgiving the debt of the seller. We expressed our concerns about needing to close on the house fairly soon and about the seller finishing the bathroom like promised. In case you were wondering, if the bathroom was not finished at the time of inspection, we would have to use a different type of loan to finance the house. That isn't really an option.

That brings us to yesterday. I got a call in the morning from Glenn telling me that we got the house! Not only did we get the house, but we would be closing on May 12. That's just two weeks! The inspection is being scheduled for Tuesday or Wednesday next week and the appraisal will be done at the same time. We are definitely excited. It's still sinking in at this point and we have A LOT to get done in the short time we have before closing. The reason for closing being so soon is that the house is set to foreclose on May 13 and this time there will be no extensions given. Now we just need to get through the inspection with good results and we are pretty much good to go!

YAY!

A Light At the End of the Tunnel

It seems as though we are finally coming to a head with the house. To sum everything up we offered asking price (115K) on the house, the bank didn't like it and said they would accept 145K, we sent in a BPO proving our offer was fair, bank still didn't like it but said they would take 130K, and we relented.

While Glenn and I are usually extremely quick in making decisions, we were finally brought to a halt with this one. We probably stared at each other saying "what do you think" for a good ten minutes before we actually started talking through it. The biggest holdup for Glenn was that we offered the asking price but the bank wanted more. Basically he felt like we were being duped with some sort of bait and switch scheme. I totally get that. Ultimately we understood that we are operating in the bank's universe, not ours. My biggest issue was that I was tired of waiting! That goes for both of us actually. It's been about 2 months since we put in our original offer and all of this hurry up and wait crap is kind of exhausting.

When it came down to it, I really felt that if we had seen the house just one week earlier when the price was at 145K (or something close) we would have offered 130K and been very pleased. Also, I was pretty positive that the bank was not going to budge anymore. They already compromised their original counter offer and given up 15K while we didn't budge. We deliberated a lot about whether or not we would be overpaying for the house.

In the end, we decided that going with the 130K purchase price would work for us. Neither of us is really excited yet. We still have an inspection to do, and that could change everything. For now it is very nice to finally feel at peace with this. I wasn't sure my heart could handle much more worry and anxiety! Now we wait for the acceptance letter from the bank, and that should be within two weeks. I cannot understand why on earth the bank needs two weeks to draft an acceptance letter when it's actually their offer we went with. Oh well. Like I said, it's the bank's world, not ours.

Love you all!

A Bit Of Good News

Well, there isn't really anything super exciting to share, but I do have a small update on the home-buying front. As I have said before, we decided not to change our offer on the house but rather sent a supplement along with our offer that proves why our offer is fair. That information was passed along to the investors via our negotiator. We have recently learned that the investors will be making a decision, either accepting our offer or countering, by Friday the 8th at the latest. Finding out a real date instead of some indeterminate time frame is good news indeed. I'll keep everyone posted.

Love to all!

A Prediction

Now I am not really sure why, but Glenn is predicting that today we will hear back from the bank. When asked why he would predict such a thing, he pointed out that it's because it's Wednesday and we will be at lunch together. He says that it will be a good day. It would really be great if he is right! Anyway, I just thought I would mention it in case we needed proof that Glenn can actually predict the future.

A Bump In the Road

I can't say we didn't really expect it but we have hit our first bump in the road in our home purchase. And no, I am not talking about all of the ridiculously obnoxious waiting. First, let me explain a little bit about how the process has gone so far.

It began with an offer on the house. Because this is a short sale home, our offer not only had to be submitted and accepted by the seller (it was) but it also has to be submitted and accepted by the bank/investors. In the meantime the house is actually set to foreclose. The first foreclosure date was extended until March 25th but has again been postponed until sometime in May. With that pesky foreclosure date out of the way, the bank ordered a BPO so they could evaluate our offer. A BPO is a Broker Price Opinion. Basically this is a lazy appraisal where someone drives by the house (or not) and determines it's value based on appearance and comparable homes. Once the bank received the BPO they were able to decide if our offer was fair. The BPO came back valuing the house at around 145-155K. Keep in mind they have no idea that the basement in this house is unfinished and that there is a completely unfinished bathroom upstairs.

So that brings you to where we are now with our little "bump." Our negotiator has been working with the bank's negotiator trying to close this deal, and in doing so our negotiator was able to find out that the bank did not like our offer, but they would accept something at or above 145K. Don't get me wrong, the house is great and all, but it is not worth that much money...yet. We are not willing to go that high. We spoke with our Realtor and he is adamant that our offer is fair. He advised us to stick to our guns and not budge on our offer. Because we are choosing t0 leave our offer as-is, we have to basically come up with our own BPO that disproves what the bank's BPO says and shows why our offer is fair. Our realtor and the seller's realtor worked together to create a list of comparable properties and they sent that off to the bank. We were able to view that list and it looks very solid. The average price of the homes they put together is 105K.

Needless to say, our confidence has been a bit shaken by all of this but our Realtor seems extremely confident. We just have to trust that he knows what he is doing, after all he is the expert! He hasn't led us wrong yet and has been completely honest with us from day one. Anyway, that is where we are now. At this point we just keep waiting and hopefully the bank will realize that we aren't low-balling them and will accept our offer.

Love to all!

Adventures in Househunting

One weekend Glenn and I thought it would be fun to run around Downtown Seattle and check out condos in the area. It was free and fun, so it sounded like a good plan. What started as harmless fun turned into quite an adventure that is going to cost a lot of money! We found a really cool place Downtown called the Escala, but it came with a pretty hefty price tag. After a while it seemed that we had both agreed that now was probably a good time for us to start seriously looking at houses.

It's a buyer's market right now and because of that, the state of Washington is offering some really great incentives to get first time home buyers into their first houses. We attended a 5 hour class a couple weekends ago and learned all the ins and outs of loans and the process of buying a home and now we are qualified to get a really great rate on a loan.

Our home search initially began in Downtown, but we weren't going to find any houses there. We wanted a private space all to ourselves, with no shared walls, and a space for the dog to play and just be a dog in. Capital Hill is obviously a no-go. The prices there are absolutely through the roof! We extended our search North and didn't have any luck in Queen Anne, where home prices are pretty similar to Capital Hill. So we pushed further North again. Ballard and Wallingford are very popular neighborhoods just packed full of beautiful homes, but that great neighborhood also comes with a big price tag. Again, we pushed further North. This time we ended up in one of my very favorite neighborhoods in Seattle, Greenwood. There is a lot of charm here and a lot of adorable houses and the prices are a bit less because of the distance from Downtown. The very first house we looked at, I fell in love with. It is absolutely adorable and very well restored. Only problem is it was just a bit bigger than 700sf. Seeing that we live in a 450sf studio, anything bigger is better. Glenn and I just didn't really feel the price per square foot was really worth it so we started to think of our other options.

Now it looks like going North isn't really going to fit our needs and fit into our budget at the same time, so we started to go South. Going South of Downtown Seattle is very interesting. There are lots of unique neighborhoods, but not every bit of them is very nice. We began looking in Beacon Hill. The North part of Beacon Hill is actually quite nice, and priced pretty fairly, but we weren't finding a lot that we really liked. Then we found some places in Mid-North Beacon Hill. They were priced at a place where we were comfortable, but then the guts of the houses were another story. Apparently at our price point, we were mostly looking at fixers. I found this a bit odd, because let's be honest; there are nice little pockets of Beacon Hill, but then the rest is pretty ghetto. I don't get it. We found houses we liked, but they needed a lot of work. On top of all that, we found ourselves scratching more and more of our priorities off our list just to stay in Seattle. Things just weren't making senses anymore.

We kind of felt like we were at a stand still. Should we wait until maybe something good pops up, or is that even going to happen? Then Glenn suggested we look in Tacoma. After all, the places we were looking at demanded a 40-45 minute commute via bus for him to get to work and Tacoma would only tack on 20 minutes or so. A preliminary search online quickly showed me that we could get pretty much everything we were looking for in a house at a much MUCH better price in Tacoma. Plus, we have a handful of friends out there already. I even feel like my job search could be more fruitful there. The school district there seems to have a lot of open jobs that I could be really good at. It was definitely worth a shot.

We gathered up a handful of houses that we would like to see and sent them to our real estate agent, Dave. He's a really good guy. We asked him to just let us do our thing and for him to just take us to the houses we wanted to see. That's exactly what he does, and we love it. He works in Seattle, and more so in the Northern part so we were really grateful that he was more than willing to take us out to Tacoma. The first house we went to was an absolute joke and the second house told me I was done looking. I fell in love instantly. I didn't say anything to Glenn until we were done because I wanted to see how he reacted. We were on the same page. It was almost like I didn't even care about the other houses we saw. The second one was it for me. I couldn't stop thinking about it!

Later that night after talking it over and staring at the pictures, we decided to make an offer. We met up with Dave that night and signed the papers! It was so exciting and scary at the same time! Dave was awesome and he explained every part of the offer to us, and left nothing unsaid. I really appreciated that, because it all kind of seems like a foreign language to me! That was Saturday night. He said they would have until Monday (today) night to respond. While Glenn and I were at lunch today he called and said the accepted our offer! Yay!

The only problem is that the bank is actually set to foreclose on the house this Friday. Because this is a short sale, the negotiator is trying to get the bank to allow an extension for the short sale. If this happens, it means we are in pretty good standing and that the bank will most likely accept our offer, but who knows when. If they don't allow the extension, then we pretty much have to start all over again. The bank will foreclose the house, do a bunch of paperwork, re-list it at a higher price, then who knows after that. Hopefully the bank doesn't want to put all that effort into it and accepts our offer!

So, my friends, that is where we stand right now. This is an extremely exciting part of our life! I can't wait to see what happens. Also, for your personal enjoyment I have provided links to the albums of pictures taken at each walk-through.

Albums:
106 N 8oth St - This is the house in Greenwood (North of Seattle.) It is absolutely adorable and so charming. The neighborhood is great and the house was well maintained. There are lots of wonderful details inside the house. Biggest drawback was the price and small size of the house.

2918 23rd Ave S - This was the first house in Beacon Hill (South of Seattle) that we looked at. It was pretty cute from the outside. It had LOADS of potential, but for the price we weren't willing to put as much effort and work into it as needed. The people who lived in it had some very questionable taste.

3110 Harris Place S - Another house in Beacon Hill. This house was pretty unassuming from the outside but it had a stellar view in the back. The inside of the house was really frustrating and awkward. It had very little flow to and from the rooms. It was very clear that this was NOT the house for us.

4532 10th Ave S - Of all the houses so far, this one needed the least amount of work. It's location was not nearly as good as the other places we looked and we would pretty much give up everything that was important to us if we were to choose this house. The ceilings were strangely low. The biggest drawback from this house, aside from its not-so-great location, was the fact that it had this weird disheveled 2nd unit attached on the side. It would most definitely need to be demolished.

3419 N 22nd St - This was the very first house we looked at in Tacoma. It's in a fantastic neighborhood. The description we read online was that it was a fixer, but we didn't know how much to expect. Just look at the pictures and you will certainly understand why this was definitely not the house for us either.

1503 S 9th St - The second house we looked at in Tacoma that turned out to be our favorite and the one we made an offer on. The people living here are in the process of packing, so there was stuff everywhere, but it was so easy to envision ourselves here. I just LOVE it!

816 S Ainsworth - It didn't take much to realize that we weren't going to be interested in the third house in Tacoma. The neighborhood was a little sketchy and the house was not well maintained at all. Everything inside looked to be cheap and poorly constructed. The house was a great price though, at a whopping 80K!

2002 S 8th St - This house isn't far from our favorite house. I would definitely say this one is my 2nd favorite. It was really cute inside and well maintained. It had a great backyard as well, and I liked the neighborhood. The biggest concern I had was that it was located on the corner of a busy street. While the landscaping did a good job of blocking out the noise, the idea of being so close to traffic was just a bit unnerving.