It's Closing Time

We've reached the final stretch, nearing the home ownership finishline. Soon this lovely piece of shit will be ours to recreate!

Man, what a dump! This thing is for reals in need of some TLC – we have a LOT of work ahead of us. But, on the other hand, we've a lot of work behind us here in middle of January.

September:
We made an offer on the house

End of October:
FHA 203k Feasibility Analysis says it's feasible!

All of November:
Contractors. Numbers.

December:
Document Processing, many frustrating maths.

Now, here we are in January, all set to close on Monday. We were set to close today, financials were looking good on our end. A paperwork backup in the mortgage broker's office prevented us from completing the sale today. Also, the walkthrough proved to be a bit disappointing. There were disgusting amounts of junk left behind despite our agreement in the terms of sale to have the property (including basement) broom swept and have the car on blocks removed from the lot behind the house.


On the lots (aka land) – as we attempted to wrap our minds around the incredible amount of junk removal left to do, the question of 'who's shitty old wood hut is this?' came up.

As Howard spent all afternoon trying to address the underwriter's final concerns, I took some time to look a bit further into the land behind our property. I found some good infos: we now know for sure that the lot behind the house that is fenced in already with our property has been in tax lien since 1998. Once an account goes into $2K or greater in overdue taxes, it enters the Sherrif's Sale queue. That would be make it easy to take ownership of the land by simply paying the back taxes at Sherrif's sale. The only problem is that the yearly taxes on the land in question are only $15, total balance now roughly $500. We would be waiting some time for the land to go through the system.

So, they told us to get a lawyer and make an appeal to the city. As the homeowner of an adjacent property we might be able to legally purchase the property sooner. Either way, it looks like we're all set-up for the first chunk of land prospecting. In fact, I have more documents that show a perpendicular lot to also be in tax lien, totaling almost $1k (yearly taxes on that land are $25 bucks).

In the next edition: Renovations, Re-Creating our space

It's Feasible!

We got our FHA 203k feasibility inspection report last night and...It's feasible! Yay! This means that inspector thinks that project is feasible in terms of bringing the place up to FHA standards. In fact, the FHA requirements are quite reasonable and our requirements in terms of improving the homes livability are much higher.

FHA required repairs are limited to those repairs necessary to preserve the continued marketability of the property and to protect the health and safety of the occupants, A.K.A. the three S's:

• Safety: protect the health and safety of the occupants
• Security: protect the security of the property (security for the FHA insured mortgage.)
• Soundness: correct physical deficiencies or conditions affecting structural integrity

For us this means replacing the

• HVAC
  
• electrical
  
• roof
  
• basement wall reparging
  
• rear exterior wall stucco
• window caps
• some new windows
  
• sidewalk concrete block
  
• smoke detectors

But we also want to do 2 new baths, a new kitchen, a little deck and some other things to make the place sweet!

Our FHA consultant, Catharine Hall, owner of Value Home Inspections, is extremely knowledgeable and has been very helpful. If you are considering doing a 203k or just a regular home purchase i definitely recommend her.

Third Time's a Charm?

Our Second offer did not go through, boo. Because of the amount of repairs that needed to happen to make the place livable we couldn't bid high enough on the asking price. With that news, we've moved out of our neighborhood, it's too expensive!

Kensington here we come! We found the one this weekend.
It fits all our top criteria:

Size - it's a four bedroom - three story, big!

Condition - it's solid, but old. Pair that with CHEAP! and we have a winner.

Outback Area - There is a giant backyard, and an even giant-er conjoining lot that we're going to try and purchase. If all goes well we'll be city farming in 2010!

The house is about three blocks north of Girard on a tree-lined street called Lawrence Street, between 4th and 5th. There is a park right across the street that has some nice trees and a fountain, though dry right now it has some serious potential. From the park you can see the top of the Crane Arts building through the trees. Its a different neighborhood, but we're very excited about the potential. Multiple houses on the street have already been renovated and it's definitely coming up in conjunction with the flurry of activity just south of Girard at the Piazza at Schmidts.

Not to mention all the arts activity going on in the area, we're looking forward to trans-formative years coming up!

Onto the house itself: It only has one bathroom, which has no sink, WEIRD! We'll be expanding that bathroom and completely re-modeling, along with putting in a brand new bath upstairs on the third floor. Also, the kitchen is puny right now, and will be totally re-invented. In lieu of an inspection, we think the electric is rather updated, but the heating is another story...The roof is likely in need of replacing as well.

Some of the intact features that we love - high ceilings on the first floor create a nice light-filled open space. The whole first floor is open, and we're hoping to open it up even more with the kitchen re-model. There is an original cornice on the top exterior that is in pretty good condition, along with the original marble steps. The front exterior is painted brick, which we'll be power-washing to restore to it's original condition. We have trees and greenspace galore!

Outback we'll need to stucco the rear exterior and demolish a few weird wooden sheds, then it'll be a clean canvas to create our dream backyard area. Eine might even get her own doggie door! Fancy.

We're waiting on the Seller's Disclosure, and we have a few concerns regarding the property lines in the back. Hopefully we can take ownership of all the land out-back, giving us four conjoining lots of land! That might take some time to pursue, but we're hoping we can get some answers and move on to our offer soon!

On Wednesday we're scheduled to walk-through again, and tentatively will have the contractor coming through with us to get started on the estimates for the re-hab work. With only Two-and-a-half months left until the cut-off for the first time home buyers credit, it's sure to be a mad dash to the finish line!

More to come.

Second Offer

So we've been looking for awhile now. Everything new we've seen recently has been a dud. At the end of our last round of showings, we reviewed everything we've seen so far with the Realtor.

I'd never really stopped thinking about the house at 24th and Carpenter - it was one of the first places we'd seen, and was the very first place we went back for a second look at. Since we found it so early-on we kinda let it go. We were still thinking Boarding-haus big, and were fresh to the process, so we wanted to take more time to look.

Now, as we revisit it, we realize just how almost-perfect it is!
Here are some photos.



The house isn't on the market any longer. The owner had resigned himself to the fact that he needs to fix it up before he can sell it, and had started to do that. It was on the market for quite some time... When our Realtor contacted the Seller's Agent this week, she was enthusiastic and said that the seller really would like to sell as-is as opposed to renovating it himself.

So we're making an offer! It's a pretty banged-up place, no kitchen, and mechanicals in need of updates. The offer is a bit low, so it's another long-shot, but hopefully the seller will entertain it!

More to come.

More Hunting

We had a rather depressing go-around of haus hunting this Saturday. Everything was crappy and not what we wanted. The hauses in our neighborhood in BUDGET are either too small or simply so destroyed that it's wholly unfeasible for the monies we have at our disposal through the FHA 203 (k).

Here's what we saw.

We're going for another round tonight, and there are a few things that are looking rather promising. With over two months of haus hunting under our belts, we're getting rather saavy at envisioning a space and focusing in on mechanicals, exterior conditions, and potential BIG disasters.

Also for the first time tonight, we're going back for a second look at a haus we let pass at first look. After seeing the whole scope of our options we're beginning to re-evaluate what's important, realizing that the neighborhood is really what matters most to us.

Still day-dreaming of stately old hauses with adjoining empty lots for urban farming...

"I bought this baby straight cash."

We didn't get the place. Someone came in with a cash offer better than ours. Who does that? Investors, looking to turn it into 3 apartments and pull in close to 5k a month, that's who, and we just can't compete with that.

I'm starting to get the impression that this is probably going to happen with any competitively priced place just coming on the market. My realtor says she hasnt seen this level of interest and activity for years, which means that the market is heating up and we need act fast.

We're still looking to do a rehab with the FHA 203(k) and following the market closely but for the most part, we're back to our former strategy of looking to low ball offer places that have been on the market for awhile.

A stronger offer

There's a stronger offer on the table. Due to the lack of transparency in this stage of the real estate industry, I can't be sure of the terms of this so called offer. I can't be even be sure that another offer has been made, although my realtor has assured me that the seller's realtors is "not supposed to do that"; meaning that it would be highly unethical and probably illegal for a seller's agent to lie about offers on the table.

There are actually multiple offers on this place right now, with at least 1 being stronger than ours and others expected to come in today. It's an amazing deal so this was too be expected. I've raised my offer to my max. So once again we wait, fingers crossed.