BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

They werent kidding!! Yesterday they made the announcement that it was the 1st day of fall and Mother Nature sure didnt waste any time! But I Love this time of year and I cant wait for the leaves to start changing! This year it's my mission to get a great picture of the fall colors on route 3. In the morning they are spectacular! I WILL take my camera and go get lots of nature pics...I need more time outside with the camera. I plan to take Boogie hiking at the battlefield more (he's getting better at doing the trails with me so I want to have him join me more on this) Maybe this is the year I wipe the dust off the skiis!!! That would be GREAT!
What does everyone else look forward to??

8411 Auction date

Start:

Sep 27, '08 1:00p

sigh

A break from the house hunt to daydream

I'm looking out my window here at work. The sun is coming up, the leaves are moving slightly, it's just under 70', there isnt a cloud in the sky (as my son would say, "they're all hiding...sneaky clouds.") Anyway, can you hear the breeze and gentle music????? What the HELL am I doing here?!?! sigh. I can picture myself walking around a botanical garden or hiking somewhere just at my own pace and taking pictures of beautiful things. I need a vacation so bad. Did I share that recently one of my childhood friends (38 yo) had a heart attack and passed away 2 weeks ago? Yet again I ask.....what am I doing here? Sometimes it feels like you run the treadmill until you're time is up. I know this isnt all of it. I'm a mom and thats an important job and I LOVE being a mom, I DO enjoy what I do here at Childhelp, but all work and no play is making Amy a very tired tired girl. Somewhere, I forgot to play. I'm trying to get back to that.

SO, I said a break to daydream.... If I could snap my fingers and go somewhere, where would I be? Lying on a boat feeling the rock of the waves? Casually walking as I took pictures of beautiful things? Swinging in a hammock while the wind gently blows my hair? Most days I'll tell you I love my life, but right now (sitting here looking out the window longing for a day of relaxation) I'd take any combination of the above. I'd be content to lay in a field somewhere for a few hours. Maybe it's the need to take off the mantle of responsibility for a few hours that I'm longing for.

Towles Mills

A litt eout of order here-oops...this is the living room of the house.

Do we have a destiney with a house located on a road with the word 'Mill' in it??? Anyway, this was a little further than we wanted to travel everyday...but it was fun to go look at. Only a year old on 5.20 acres. 2700+ SF with a 2 car garage , wood floors and fireplace. Not a bedroom in the house was under 15x15 feet or more (BIG rooms) 3 bedrooms, 3 FB. Very nice front porch and back deck. And we asked for secluded...you can see the neighbors but not very well. Very nice house. Ray and I both liked it, but the distance is definitely a factor in the house hunt.

Po River

Another home located in Hunter's Lodge. it's listing says 1340SF but the basement is unfinished and would probably add another 800SF. 3 bed rooms, 2 bath rooms and what looked like the plumbing downstairs for a 3rd 1/2 bath. 5 acres (suhweet!) and very nicely laid out. Not a large or impressive home but has potential. LOVE the property. We're waiting for the owner/agent to realize that her home is NOT worth what she's asking. Would we buy it, hhmm...we've always loved that location and if Old Mill falls through completely, I would take Ray back to look at this one. It's not going anywhere any time soon. She's is defnitely asking too much.

quick update on the offers

SOooooooooo, the realestate agent handling the old mill house is a complete CF. His voice mail box is so full it wont accept messages and the staff at the office cant get in touch with him. twice now My grandmother has managed to track him down (fax and email) and each time he says he'll have an answer "tomorrow" or "later tonight" with no answer or call back. I am so P.O.'d at this guy. In the meanwhile, the twin springs house wanted us to send in more paperwork but since we were waiting for an answer on this other house, we didnt. It doesnt take a rocket scientist... we lost Twin Springs to another offer. Life goes on and this was our 2nd pick any way, but we have yet to hear something and I dont like being toyed with. Either this guy is the worlds WORST realestate agent ever...or the bank is asking him to hold us off until after the auction. If I can scrape the cash on hand up, I'm going to go to the damn auction and offer the lowest I can get away with. <grumbling under my breath>

House hunt frustration

Please oh please, dont leave me hanging like this.

We were told that we would have an answer yesterday from the one house. nothing.

The house that we had as our 2nd pick (smaller but in great neighbhorhood) has already responded with positive remarks and further steps. (which I'm not happy about.) The mortgage company wants us to pre-qualify AGAIN with them. Oh SHEESH, come on. So we've been prequalified and pre-approved TWICE for 2 different types of loans, but thats not good enough. I have a major issue with them hitting our very good credit score again for this useless step.

The house we had really wanted said we would hear something yesterday. So far, ive only heard my realestate agent say she'll call us as soon as she hears anything. Blast!

I hate waiting.

is it just my husband??

are all husbands this unmotivated when football season starts?? I like football too but we also have a house to pack (since whether or not we move, we have work to do to the kitchen and rec room) some walls to spackle and paint and I know I can spackle while watching the damn TV. uuummmm......if I'm the only one thats going to do anything to get us ready for this, then we are definitely not moving because I'm already fed up and we havent even had an accepted offer.

maybe I should call and have the cable cancelled...................................................

deep breath...

ok... so we've lost our minds, but we're going to make an offer on 2 different houses (ack!) We've decided to make an offer on Twin springs (pics to be added later since I dont have acces from this computer) AND Old Mill. Lets see what-a-happens.
Meanwhile, I dont like the looks of the interest rates but hopefully we'll have some answers by the end of this week. We should have made the old mill offer sooner but honestly, I worried that they wouldnt accept our offer but after today..devil may care!
We saw 3 houses that I actually purelled after one.  What some people will think their homes are worth is comical. (and asking that much, dont you think you'd clean up so it looked better when people came to show it???) Anyway, after a depressing day of crappy houses, we basically said what the hell are we waiting for. Meanwile, neither of these offers may be accepted so the roller coaster may not be over yet. Hopefully we'll get this all settled and I'll be more visible to friends & family.
YEEEEEHAW!
Since it's been questioned..according to my realestate agent/grandmother- yep, we can make an offer on both houses. Honestly, I highly doubt BOTH offers would be accepted so I'm not worried that we'll end up with 2 contracts we cant get out of. Meanwhile, the Twin Springs home has 2 other offers on it so ours might be piddly change and Old Mill the bank is trying to send back to auction. We might lose out on both. This could be the end for a little bit. I'm sick of trying to squeeze time to look at homes, balance a life and sleep somewhere in between not to mention trying to finish up the odds and ends we'll need to do before renting. But I'm crazy and stupid and even if both offers fall through, I'll probably still look. Just alot less aggressively. Every time I throw my hands up and say "enough" another weird/wtf thing happens in my subdivision and off I go to look again. ....sigh....

House hunt-Twin springs

Hard to get a good picture of this but the front yard was MASSIVE! 3BR 3BA 2708 square feet(though I'm not sure how they came by this number..it feels pretty small) 2 car garage, 3 acres POOL (ooo yes! Bonus!) lots of plusses:

GORGEOUS! contemporary open floor plan. Wood floors, see through fireplace. Resale value would be almost 200,000 of instant equity (did I mention since its a foreclosure they are letting it go for a song?) Stainless steel stove & microwave hood but the fridge and dishwasher are missing. AT 1st walk through, this place is drop dead show place. Very little to be done (wear & tear painting, buy missing appliances, get the pool back in shape) but not much to do besides that. But after stewing on this, there are down sides for even this gorgeous property:

3 bedrooms...no office for Ray. and the other rooms arent really big enough to squeeze an office in. No play room for RayRay (we would have to give him the big upstairs bedroom down the hall from ours and make 1/2 a playroom...cringe)

unfinished basement with no walkout means we have to put the money in to actually make a studio and all clients would have to come through the house (not a biggie, but something I was hoping to avoid) and of course since my office is planned for a corner of the studio, no office for me until we complete it.

Front yard is huge, but the back fenced area is mostly pool. Great if you have older kids, but since I need a fenced area to let Ray play and not worry, this isnt the best situation. We'd have to put his swing/play set in the side yard, maybe open the fence area to include more of the yard to the left of the house. Actual living area is reduced again to mostly 2 rooms and the room wired for the TV and sound system wont fit our TV since the fireplace is in the way.

Very torn. Beautiful house, but we keep bumping up against the "ooh that wont work". SO since we said that we were only going to do this if we found the perfect house (and even though this is relatively inexpensive house we would still be dropping a largish sum) I think we're going to walk away from this too. My Grandmother is going to lose her mind (lol) and this house will be gone quick. Its very nice and will be the perfect find for some happy family but we are going to keep looking. (which consequently we think our perfect house is the house on old mill, even without a garage)

House hunt-moral dilemma?

We are searching now because the market is definitely down and prime for buyers. The market is flooded with Foreclosures and more showing every day. However, ive had the conversation with several people about how every foreclosure was somone's home & dream. This is, after all, the american dream. SO, with the guilt of buying up somone elses broken dream already firmly in place, Ive discovered a part of the market that I had formerly not known about- Pre-foreclosures.

Pre-foreclosures are homes that have gone into default but have not yet been re-possessed by the lender. To help you understand a foreclosure timeline, here's a brief tutorial (Ive learned alot in the last few days:

Notice of default- the Homeowner is at least 3 months behind in payments to the lender. A notice of default is posted at the county clerks office. The homeowner has up to 60 days to get their loan current or work out a payment solution to get current with the lender.

Auction- If the owner cannot get their debt current with the lender, the next step is auction. A notice of sale is posted and their home is auctioned off on a set date for the back owed amount plus fees that may have occurred due to the process. The owner has rights of ownership until I think 5 days before the sale. (after the sale, the owner has 240 days to buy back their house for the amount sold plus 6% interest)

Realestate owned- If the home doesnt sell at auction, the bank will usually take posession and send it to their REO dept. They figure out the amount owed and set a price. Then get it listed with the MLS to be sold. Usually at this point, the home is given a clean title and probably has some issue that kept it for going at auction (damage etc.)

Owners in pre-foreclosure sometimes try to sell their home for the amount owed so that they dont have the black mark of a foreclosure on their record and perhaps have a little extra to maybe start over. Some try (sometimes successfully) to save their home and make no attempt to sell. Either way, they arent facing the gun yet, but are on shaky ground.

Now, MANY people search for pre-foreclosures because the potential for a very reduced price with alot of house is a good bet. You can save up to 90% of the market value. But it feels smarmy.... You are circling like a shark (as my hubby did the jaws theme behind me the other night) waiting for someone's bad luck (or bad choice) to benefit you. 

Alot of people made bad choices buying more house than they could afford using risky lending practices and are now looking at possible foreclosure. So in a sense, you try to justify what youre doing. But I still feel smarmy.

In case you were wondering, yes, I have found a house in pre-foreclosure that we like. Ive talked with the bank to find out what their status is. I'm watching this property to see if it goes further down the process making itself available to us. They are not attempting to sell their house (and I havent contacted them) And having mixed feelings the whole way. We are trying to make every penny we have count for us. That means taking advantage of this market and put us in a better place to have more room and land.

How do you feel? Would you search around pre-foreclosures? Auctions? Foreclosures?