Monday, July 21, 2008

House #2

It is time to put another offer on a house. Why oh why do we always like the short sales? Just so you know, short sale does not actually mean a short sale. I told Ethan they should change the name because that is just STUPID. Apparently, a short sale is supposed to be when the owner is working with their bank to try to sell the house before it gets foreclosed. This way a foreclosure doesn't show up on their credit. Good for the seller if it works...bad for everyone else. I've been hearing stories that it can take up to 6 months for a short sale to go through. I guess the banks won't even deal with the short sales (like sending out an appraiser) until an offer is on the table. Real estate agents make up prices and hope the bank will accept. There is also the issue with WHO is in charge. Is there one loan, several loans? The banks are overwhelmed with all of the foreclosures and short sales and often no one knows who is in charge of what. Sounds fun right? "Short" means the bank is willing to get shorted, but ofcourse they want to try to break as close to even as possible.

This house is across the street (oh yes, we may have another hilbilly move in our future--i think i spelled hilbilly wrong). We saw it a few months ago at an open house and we've been watching it. We considered the price great at the time, but were leery of a short sale. Then it seems like almost everything we were seeing were short sales and our agent said she was willing if we were. Then we went to another open house in our neighborhood for the same model. This house had some nice upgrades and was in great condition, but that agent (and I bet she is kicking herself now) mentioned she had been checking out the area and thought she was well priced, eventhough a house around the corner just reduced by 60k. Excuse me??? Which house. She told us which one and it was the one across the street. There was a new flyer and we thought OMG. While we loved the upgrades of the other house, they were not worth the 50k difference.

So, Ethan is e-mailing me his signature and I'm supposed to learn how to use our scanner and have the offer in by today. We don't want to get beat out on this new price. Then it will be a major waiting game to see if the offer makes it to the right people and who has the authority about price. We don't mind if the paper work takes long, we are not in a rush, we just want to know if the price is acceptable.

The house is almost 2200 sq/ft, 3 bedrooms and a huge loft. The loft already has a built in desk, and enough room to be an extra play space for Ryan when we are upstairs. It was a model home so it does have some upgrades. There are hardwood floors in the kitchen and family room and it has a pantry with one of those cute doors. It does have tile on the counter but it is upgraded so its at least not the plain white that I have had for the last 7 yrs. The backyard was nicely landscaped and has mature trees because it was a model, but the grass is all dead now. Basically with paint and new carpet we can move in.

I must mention the wallpaper. Not sure if its like this in other areas, but for some reason in CA, the new model homes always have wallpaper. The downstairs bathroom has bright yellow w/ flowers. The upstairs bath has some sort of yellow and blow, and the master is white w/ blue. YUCK. The laundry is upstairs which I have grown to like (hoping there is never a leak) and it has a sink w/ a counter. The only kinda "eh" thing is that it is very similar to the house we rent now. It would be kinda boring to move into the same house...but at the price we can't pass it up. Basically the house is about 200 sq/ft bigger than ours now. We are gaining a lot of space in the master....it is gigantic and space in the living room because its a dining room combo, but we lose space because its not technically an "eat in" kitchen. You could fit a table, but our house now has a clearly defined eating area in the kitchen, but no dining room.

And the short sale process begins.

1 comment:

Our Family of Four said...

Ooooh sounds like a great opportunity!