Houses with Character

I am currently trying to buy a house with character.  It has nooks and crannies and stuff.  It also is 20 years old.  Do you know the average lifespan of a roof?  If you guessed approximately 20 years, you would be close.  The house also has freeloaders in the form of termites. They say there are two kinds of houses in Arizona: those with termites and those that are going to have termites.  So, termites are not a huge deal unless you have a special kind of termite that involves tenting the whole house and fumigating.  Thankfully, there will be no tenting in my future. 

I just had my second ever home inspection, and Hunky Home Inspector is one thorough inspecting machine.  We spent 2 1/2 hours in the heat going over every detail of the house, and the resulting report is 32 pages long.  It includes things that are right, recommendations, things out of code, and things that need to be addressed, including the roof and minor rot.  I did get a discount because it was my second home inspection with them...or did I get the discount because I am cute and outgoing?  Only Hunky Home Inspector can tell you the real reason. 

I am not sure what happened with the haircut between inspection one and inspection two, and we had been outside for a very long time at this point, but this is what a home inspector should look like.  I have to say, the picture does not convey the added cuteness factor that comes with experiencing the know-how firsthand.  What doesn't this guy know?  Maybe macrame, but if you ask me, my money is on HHInspector knowing macrame. 

So, this is the part where a bunch of people talk to a bunch of people and there is the looming terror of the appraiser and closing and the unknown things that are bound to come up in this process.  I am 1/2 a step close to owning a house.  That could all fall apart between now and September 15, which is the current closing date. 



  

Home Again, Home Again, Dancing a Jig

Despite getting my hopes up about a ganga deal on a house and signing papers and talking to Mr. Realtor who talked to Mr. Seller who talked to Ms. Fannie Mae several times, the house I was looking at has been set free, released back into the market for another sucker to buy.  Mr. Realtor told them to talk a long walk off of a short, lopsided, broken sidewalk to hell.  So long block house.  So long broken doors.  So long abandoned van.  So long broken furnace. 

I was into the notion of a fixer-upper, a blank canvas of landscaping, and a challenge to my limited carpentry abilities.  However, things work out the way they do for a reason, and this reason was so I could find another place.  Earlier this week I said, "Helloooooooooo house of destiny!"  Two words:  mature trees.  Another two words: abundant character.  I should also mention fireplace, fireplace, fireplace.  3 fireplaces to be exact. 

In abandoning what looked like a great deal but which would have turned into a lingering nightmare, I found a place that is awesome.  So, I signed more papers today, Mr. Realtor will be talking to Mr. and Ms. Sellers, and we shall see what happens. 

Another bonus:  Hello again Mr. Hunky Home Inspector.  I will let you know how it goes....with the home buying of course.   

Love Letters from Home Inspectors

I got my first love letter from Mr. Home Inspector.  It said:

Dear Allison,


Attached is your home inspection report. The report is in PDF format.  Simply double click on the file and Adobe Acrobat will open it. If you don't have Adobe acrobat installed on your machine, got to: www.adobe.com and download the acrobat reader. It is free and only takes a few minutes. 
Please call with any questions.

Sincerely,

I think he likes me.  I really do.  He used the word "dear". 

Snag, Heating is a Drag aka Home Inspection Killed My Soul

Home buying is like gouging your own eyes out, cooking them over a fire, and then stuffing the charred remains of your eyes back into your eye sockets.  At least that is how it feels after home inspection day. 

A little about the home inspector:  terrific guy, kind of cute in that home inspector way, and I couldn't help but flirt just a little.  (Oh Mr. Home Inspector, you are so very smart!  (to be said in your thickest southern accent while fanning yourself and sipping a cold beverage)).  Kip would claim I flirted a lot, but Kip is a revisionist.  I flirted only a little.  Competence is so sexy, right?  Plus he has this way of wearing the tool belt and wielding his screw driver...anyway, I digress. 

It seems that there are several fatal flaws with the house I am looking at.  The large fenced in lot, the nice view, the quiet street:  those are not fatal flaws.  The broken bathtub, the broken furnace, the non-existent hot water heater, and the missing stove:  those are all problems for qualifying for an FHA mortgage.  Who knew that the government cared whether or not I had heat?  They don't care if I have air conditioning, which is odd since I live in the desert.  They do,  however, want me to be toasty warm all winter long.  Also, the cash outlay to actually fix the furnace, etc... is a tad prohibitive considering that I am not made of money.  The irony is that the very company I am getting the mortgage from, Fannie Mae, is the same company that is SELLING the foreclosured home.  They know what the house needs in order to qualify for the very loan they are pimping out to the first-time home buyer. 

I have until Friday to go back to Fannie May to request some repairs or a credit on the house, but unless they do the work, a credit on the house only means cheaper mortgage, not cash in hand to install a heat pump.  The other problems are mostly cosmetic and cheap/easy to fix.  The heat pump is the opposite of cheap and easy but it would make Allison one very happy girl, especially as I am enjoying my new temperature-controlled home over a candlelight dinner with Mr. Home Inspector.  

It Is Official

I might be buying a house.  Who knew it could be so complicated and yet so simple all at the same time?  All I have to do is initial a bunch of pages and have an agent fax them to another agent, and I have officially accepted an offer.  It seems insanely simple to say, "Why yes.  I will buy this incredibly expensive thing from you.  Thank you and who do I make the check out to?" 

Of course the complicated part is just starting, and it means that I now have an army of "people" that will do things for me for the right price.  I have a mortgage guy, I have an agent, I have an inspector, I will have an appraiser, I will have some sort of insurance person, I will have a window person, a roof person, a yard person, a floor person, a plaster person, an appliance person, a person's person, a clown, a pimp, and whatever the hell else I decide I need in this process.  It's all about a feeling of false security because there is a person that can deal with whatever comes along.  The world is ending?  Let me get my person for that. 

Buying a house will either be awesome or the beginning of the end of all happiness.  I'll let you know what happens.  I do know that Bhodi and I will miss our downtown walks.  What about bread lady and stick man?  Will be ever see them again?  And the taco guys, box man, can man, the barky poofs, Kip and Raymond?  Oh sorrowful day.  To prepare for a possible official move, we are getting in all the walking time we can so that we can see everyone a few more times before I pack up my one box of belongings and head to Rio Rico.  Rio Rico....just the name sounds so far away.  It is, however, only 10 minutes from my current abode.  The real bonus: one half acre of fenced in delight for Bhodi to romp around in.