One Stop Story

I hate to admit it, but James has found something that will probably keep me busy for the rest of my life. Stumbleupon.com. Not sure if any of you have checked it out yet, but it's already given me a bunch of things to look at.

One that I found that I just needed to share is: http://www.onesentence.org/

It's pretty simple, in one sentence, tell a story. Easy right?

I had to include my story, which for your pleasure I will share.

"Even though it happened over 20 years ago, I still feel bad about not stopping my classmate from shoving that orange crayon up his nose."

House = no go... oh well...

So we went and looked at the house - and no - we are not buying. We realized that no matter how awesome it was - because it was awesome inside, there were such huge issues that we couldn't overlook.

Issue one: THE DRIVEWAY
It was shared between the house and the one next door. We could be able to deal, but the space was tight. You couldnt get two cars down the driveway, but maybe a motorcycle :) As we don't have a motorcycle, we checked out the garage. There was space inside so that took care of that fear.

Issue two: THE ROOF
The roof was put on at least 16 years ago. Who knows what state it's in and most likely will need to be replaced first thing in the nice weather. That's a long way up and $5000 we wouldn't have in a house at the top of our price range.

Issue three: THE FENCE
It's old, it needs replaced if not this year, next year. Manageable really but when added to everything else - not such a good thing.

Issue four: THE STRUCTURE
The house, having been built in 1916, is old. And therefore is prone to a few shifts and things. But one of the main support beams of the house was cracked. There was water that leaked into the house due to issues with the slope of the land at the side of the property and the driveway. There were soft spots on the main floor that you could feel as you walked around - in that the floor wasn't supported completely. We plan on having kids in a few years and if we got that house, we'd have a very tough time putting a rec room in the basement. It is questionable that the current owners put up a support wall smack dab in the middle of the room. Is it possible when they made the main floor open concept they didn't support the house well? I don't want to be the one to find out

I could have overlooked nearly everything, but the structure scared me. We had two things about the house going in that we worried about - the driveway not working with two cars at the back and the basement being able to turn into a rec room. For James that was key as he wants to be able to grow with the house.

It was good that we had both sets of parents with us because it made it easier to talk about all the things we questioned and realize exactly what we were getting in to. They were supportive either way, but wanted us to understand what we were getting in to.

Our agent, as I knew she would be, was/is awesome. She went through comparable listings that had sold in the area. Was completely understanding when we talked about our current mortgage preapproval situation and is more than willing to go with us anytime to go look at other listings.

So the hunt continues...

sick to my stomach

We are leaving in a very short period of time to go check out a house. This house could be the house we buy, this could be the first house that proves to be pretty in a picture but has a whole pile of issues underneath.

We already have some red flags, but the pros completely seem to outweighing the cons.

I'm just feeling so nervous about it because I've never really liked anything like this. One that I couldn't walk away from. I literally walked into the bedroom and sighed. It was cozy and cute and had this amazing open ceiling and lots of light. It was awesome.

But today is a new day and I might get there and completely change my mind. I might go in and realize that this house just won't work.

Of course with this house my mind goes back to the other house that we really liked. It's still on the market and in fact, just dropped in price. The house is only 10 square feet different than this, and the basement is already done. The yard is bigger and it's also updated for the furnace, roof, windows. Will it be worth the not so pretty exterior to go back to that house and make it ours?

Right now I'm loving this house we are going to see - and even knowing that the driveway is shared, and the roof will need replacing within a couple years - I feel we can work past that.

Houses aren't cheap though and we really want to make sure that we can afford the one we have.

Who knows what's going to happen. Send me all your positive mojo and hopefully what is meant to happen will happen.

Open Houses - Week number 6

So this week was positive and negative one but things seem to be looking up! I got hired on permenantly at work since the girl I was covering on mat leave decided to not return to work. That meant that we can really start seriously looking. A few new listings that looked promising in our price range also came up too so we had some new open houses to check out.

I decided to double check with our mortgage broker this week regarding our mortgage. It's been awhile and since I'm permanent I figured we should get things sorted out for real and ask more questions. Unfortunately, something came up on my credit report and it pissed me off to no end. I changed my credit card to a lower interest card to save money. The company I have my card with NEVER told the credit bureau of the change, and it showed up that I had TWO credit cards with huge amounts on them. I was livid! This could hold us back from our dreams. I contacted them and told them they have to fix this because it's going to look awful on me if we find a house we want within the next week before they can fix everything. Needless to say I called them, ripped a good one and they are getting it sorted and faxing a letter to my mortgage broker by Tuesday/Wednesday.

The other bad thing was that my mortgage broker is going on vacation this week and wont' be back until December 1st. I had a bad feeling about that - but meh. What can you do? Everyone is entitled to vacation - and who would think we'd find a house?

Saturday's open houses were no go's. The first one had a really great porch was one and a half stories on a good street. Long driveway, big property and original hard wood floors and trim. This is where the problems began and we left without even checking out the basement. They even had put wallpaper over tile! Unbelievable! The other bathroom had a lovely pink hue. And not in a way you could fix either - the sink and the toilet were pepto bismal pink! Yeah it was ruled out completely when we were told that they already had TWO offers. Who says that and then still has an open house?

We went to a second open house yesterday on a whim. I knew we could afford it and hadn't really looked at a backsplit yet. Um yeah. We don't like them. And especially when it was the original owners and they were packrats and the house smells and is ugly. Yep - it's out.

But today - we may have found the one. We've already contacted our agent and talked to our parents and are going to try and get in on Tuesday night to see it. 3 beds, two baths, two storey, red brick, in Galt near our old house. It's pretty darn awesome. Keeping my fingers crossed that the parents give the stamp of approval and we can get this house for the right price.

Fingers crossed for the following: mortgage broker has someone else in the office that can help us out, the house doesn't sell before we have a chance to look at it again, our parents agree that it's a good investment and that there are no major structural problems, that CMHC approves us for a mortgage even with the stupidity from my credit card company.

Fantastic Fortunes

So somehow, on a day when things seem to be going great, blogger decides to tell me that I'm a spammer! Me?! A spammer! What is that all about?

James did tell me that many real estate type things are deemed spam. It is possible by updating all of you on my open house adventures, that I've created a monster in the form of spam blog.

What they don't realize is that I have a counter on my blog, and the three or four visitors I get a day really don't count as me spamming anyone. I can assure you that this blog is mine and my thoughts alone.

In other news, it became official today that the girl I'm replacing on maternity leave is not coming back. I thought she would. The company is great, benefits are awesome, pay is okay, but it's what you expect. I was really surprised when I found out but at the same time - feeling awesome.

I only worked with her for three weeks but I thought she was a really nice person. I don't want anyone to think that I was stealing her job. I even applied for other jobs. Of course none of them interested me that much. But I felt really good about my prospects. Last year, when I found my position eliminated, I was worried. I felt stressed and I felt dark. this year was different. I was optimistic. My future was wide open and it felt really good.

Now I feel even better. I can settle down and finally look at really getting my own house with my own bathtub!

My sister has been talking about this one agent for a couple months. But we had another one. Only thing was - that agent was very hands off and very forgetful. It was a husband and wife team - and the husband didn't even recognize us two days after seeing us for the first time. That doesn't allow me to trust. The wife, she didn't email me back for a MONTH when I asked to be set up on the email listings. Very disappointing as we had high hopes.

This week, with the change from temp to perm - I decided to do something about it. I contacted the agent my sister recommended and within an hour I had a response. We went back and forth and she's already sent me 20 more listings than the first agent has. James and I have talked a lot over the past few weeks and it just seemed like the right time. I'm already happy with the service we've received. She seems organized, focused and listens well to what we have to say.

Could mean my house dreams are coming true!