Regular readers of /dev/null know that I'm not one to miss a day of posting. And even though several days of February and March went without posts on the main page, I actually was writing but not posting—because of the house purchase. When we first got started on our house-hunting...
I've avoided posting about the house so far partly because we've been bitten once already1, but mostly because you'll be hearing more than your fill about it next month when we actually start moving. The big news, however, is that we're having our final walkthrough tomorrow and expect to be...
I just read about the housing situation in Detroit. If I were taking a job in that city, I'd take my signing bonus and get 5% down mortgages on as many properties as my monthly budget could afford. And then sit it out for as long as was comfortable. The...
As you may be able to tell from the photo, Zinsco was a manufacturer of inexpensive residential electrical panels. Zinsco panels were apparently popular in the 1960s, and were installed all over the place. The house on which we've placed our offer happens to have a Zinsco panel in it....
Here's the deal with earthquake insurance: insurance companies calculate the value of your dwelling based on (1) the appraised value of the property, (2) the square footage of the house, and (3) a modifier based on the relative values of dwellings to property, determined by the geographic location. Any one...
I've given you the basic details already, but here's what's up. Our first house completely fell through. Once we found out the seller was a huge dorkotron, we started considering terminating our offer. Shortly thereafter, we toured fifteen houses—that's where the superlong post from yesterday came from. We ran across...
Our offer was accepted—I'll post more details once we're further along in the process!...
Over the last two days, we saw fifteen homes. If you happen to be, you know, shopping in the eastside of Puget Sound for houses in approximately our price range, here's a list of what we saw. 27033806: Holy crap, they completely remodeled a tiny shack! Be sure to check...
We've officially terminated the offer. The seller is a dick and isn't worth dealing with. ...and we've already placed another offer on another house. Man, what a weekend....
Just a hint, fellas: remember to use short nails....
So in, uhh, response to my last post about buying a house, I'd like to say that the tactics I outlined don't always work. It turns out that despite the comparably very poor condition of the property in question, the seller had absolutely no intention on budging on repairs, concessions,...
Negotiation, much like practically everything else, is often best served by creativity. So we're stealing a page out of someone else's playbook and will be attempting to renegotiate the sale price of our home down instead of getting credits for issues raised in the inspection. The heart of this lies...
We had our inspection today. Of note:Lots of leaks and a few pests. We'll have to relay the vapor barrier in the crawlspace, patch a bunch of dripping plumbing, fix ten of the twelve crawlspace vent screens, and fumigate everything below the floor. Oh, and did I mention the four...
Even though we're working hard to get the seller down on price, we're also working our asses off to figure out how much remodeling we can do pronto. Currently on the agenda is:Ripping out all of the acoustic popcorn and dropped soffits Taking down four walls, two each dividing the...
I'm really sick of this delay-posting nonsense. Nevertheless, when you read this (surely a week or so from now), you'll know that our offer was countered, and we accepted! The house's status has officially been changed from Active on Market to Subject to Inspection in the MLS, so that means...
So, there's some weirdness here. Our agent mentioned that it's possible (although not necessary likely yet) that the listing agent and seller of the home in which we're interested may actually search for us to do some basic background checks. The problem here is that if I'm blogging about how...
After only a weekend of hunting, we think we've found the one for us—so we're going to try to assemble an offer tomorrow. The house could use work, but it's priced (about) right and gives us the flexibility to fix it the way we'd like it and to squeeze some...
Layla and I got our first tour of some homes today and, due to the price and location where we're looking, have seen a lot of fixers. After seeing a handful of these homes-in-need-of-attention, I'm left scratching my head to figure out how much it really does cost to get...
After meeting with a loan officer mortgage consultant and a real-estate agent, Layla and I are really cranking down on looking for a house. We've been poking around the local listings on-and-off for the last few months, but we've now got all of the pre-approvals and timelines to start looking...
Layla and I spent six hours in a home-buying seminar for first-time buyers today, and since Mouser posted about open houses, I figured I'd use this opportunity to share a bit of what I learned. The rationale for real estate agents to hold open houses makes sense, at first glance....
