When Perfection Fails to be Perfect
Housekeeping again. If you missed it before, the thing that makes this blog appear in some folks' email the day after I post is going away in July. Idk if you use it, but sadly I don't have an alternative for you if that's how you remember to read my odd thoughts, other than I post the new stuff on Facebook. And yes, I wholeheartedly support you not using Facebook, but, well, I'm open to suggestions on how else to get it to you if you want it.
Looking for a home is a little bit addictive. I've never really understood gambling on a core level, but when I look at homes... I think I might know what the issue is like. There's always this idea that the next one you see will be perfect.
There will be a click.
The home will speak to you.
...and have cool turrets.
...and sparkling fireworks will shoot out of your butt to a grand fanfare playing Sousa!
But I digress. It's just, the promise of the next time, or the next experience seems to be something I actually can relate to. And this must be why, after seeing the home we really liked -except for it not being as inexpensive as we'd want and also being over the river and through the woods to get Chris to work, and needing to read the HOA rules but I had a headache to beat the band so we were having trouble deciding- I found myself just perusing Zillow instead. Like one does when one is avoiding doing a thing that must be done.
Nestled amongst the usual $500K homes with 663 sq feet in San Diego, the $239K homes in Carlsbad for the 55+ crowd, and the $450K townhouses that we want no part of, was a $399.9K listing for a manufactured home on two acres.* Not the kind of thing we're really looking for. For one thing, Chris really would like five acres. We have nothing against manufactured homes and this one looked nice enough. But, hmm. Almost $400 thou on two acres and a manufactured home? Really?
And yet, the two acres had an existing pad up the hill from the manufactured home that already had two water tanks at the top (those ain't cheap). The description said it was ready to build on... I mean, there are a lot of regulations so... maybe, maybe not. But surely we should see it right?
Melissa asked the agent about what was on the table thus far. That real estate agent was about as clear as frosted glass about the other offers. We did finally get some reckoning of what was up and of course, the $399.9K listing had been offered up to $415K. So much for hopefully talking them down to $380K!
I'd been having a rather fruitless day. I got up early to take the car in to have its electronics poked and prodded. After a few hours the nice mechanic said he couldn't reproduce the issues, so I told him a different issue, which he then could reproduce.
I worked on some paying work while I was sitting in their waiting area, which was a step up from folding metal chairs, but just barely. Mechanic released our car after only a bit over two hours saying it probably needs a new multi-switch in the steering column but it might only fix one of the issues. We'll see Tuesday when I bring it back whistling the tune of $400 as I go.
Sitting in the waiting area didn't do much for my post second vaccine shot body, and when I got home, I crawled back into bed where I stayed until it was time to venture out to this place at ### Highway 94. Such an imaginative name.
To say the home is close would be incorrect. However, it's really only 50 minutes to Chris's work, which is better than many options we've considered. The manufactured home is quite ugly from the outside. It reminds me heartily of the manufactured classrooms we used to take exams in at CNM, from the metal steps to the pressed wood walls. The big difference is that these steps were rusting.
I couldn't quite tell which side was the back and which the front |
But the inside... well, it was very nice. I liked the fake wood floor. The kitchen was large enough. There was actually space for our table in the dining area. I kind of hated the wall color, but that's easily changed. And there seemed to be room for things we would need, like my home office.
I feel like I recently saw this color used in a design show I watched |
Cats are definitely going on those cabinets |
I didn't take a picture of the inside of the ick tub |
It's called an egress |
The master bedroom was really nice, save for the mirrored closet doors. Nice french doors led out onto a patio that oddly had worn carpeting covering the ground. This seems to be a thing, and I don't understand it. I guess it's not a New England thing (where I grew up).
There was a bit of a surprise in the bedroom. A computer showing a slide show of flowers on the property during spring, while playing soft instrumental music. A little campy, but also a good idea.
It says: Pictures of property and flowers in the spring time :) |
The master bath was nice enough. I didn't really bother to photograph it. Outside the french doors we had this:
With the ground cover carpet... |
There was a similarly put together area out the other side of the house. Like this area, it wasn't amazing, but someone tried and succeeded in making good things happen in general.
We then walked up the switchbacking drive up the hill to look at the pad at the top and found this curiosity on the way...
It might be related to a well or the septic? |
I'm not happy about the power lines that literally go directly through the property. But I was so pleased with the pad that I almost forgot to take a picture of it and the water tanks at the top!
There's enough room and we could build south |
There's an odd fenced in area that seems to have maybe old raised beds...? |
So, here's the big question. We want to make an offer, but we really think this place might be worth $375K or maybe the original list price. But supposedly the bidding war has already gone up to $415K.
After much gnashing of the teeth, we decided to offer $410K but we shortened some of the contingency periods and also the owner wants a 45 day escrow (meaning that long until you close the deal) plus potentially up to two weeks to stay at the house if he needed to after that. Apparently he's looking for a home in Alabama and has an elderly mother. And really, that's a lot of work. Moving plus looking after your elderly mother? The guy deserves some leeway.
So we offered up to 14 days at the house after close of escrow for a dollar a day (yeah, we'll be paying the mortgage, but we thought it would sweeten our offer) and $75 a day after that. We were going to let him stay the 14 days for free but Melissa said that lawyers have told her that it's easier by far if a thing happens to charge a nominal sum.
Today they countered at $435K. And a bunch of other things that shortened various contingency periods (that being time when either of us can back out due to specific contingencies that are written in), they don't want to pay for a home insurance thing for if appliances they leave shit the bed, they don't want to pay $14 dollars to stay in the house 2 weeks and they want to stay up to another 30 days after that if they pay our interest, taxes, et. al (which could amount to over $75 a day...), and they don't want to pay for a report for wood destroying pests and organisms nor fix the big things a report would find if we had one done, and some other sundry things.
Let me digress here and tell you all that, if you haven't done this before, buying a home is hella stressful. I suppose that it wouldn't be if you could be assured that the price you were paying was fair for what you were getting and you didn't have all these deadlines, nor had to compete with other people. But this just calls up so much we don't have answers for. Sure, we know the housing market is a seller's market right now and things are selling for way more than they're worth. But is the market going to continue to go up? If we buy this home, will it be worth more in 2 years? In 5? Or will the housing market crash like it did back... whenever that was, and we'll end up owing more on it than it's worth and then can't sell it except at a loss?
Not that we want to sell this place... It seems like it could be our forever home if we can build what we want. Except that then Chris did some research on building additional units on your property and it seems like any additional unit can't be more than 1,000 square feet (92.9 sq. meters). So, Chris and I start having an argument in which he feels that 1,000 square feet will be fine for our home and in fact, it's been so long since he went to learn how to build Earthships, he's not entirely sure he can do much better. And that's legit, but we've been living up each other's left nostril for the whole pandemic and, love him as I do, I want to stop living in his nose!
I argued that I already gave up my more silly ideas of what I want in the house (a slide, a tree, a treehouse...) and some of the things that were less silly (a pantry, more than one bathroom, an herb planter near the kitchen...) and I do really need a space to do my art work and a home office. (I realize that art space sounds opulent, and it is, but art is the biggest way I take care of my mental health.) As well as Chris needing a workshop, though that doesn't have to be part of the house necessarily... but I know what's going to happen. We build him a workshop in the garage or in some structure that's not connected to the home. Then either, he puts his computer and 3D printer on the dining room table like they are now, which will tick me off because I just really like having a table that looks like it's meant to eat at even if we tend to eat in front of the TV, or he'll spend most of his time in the workshop and I'll never see him. None of these things is what I want.
We also argued about things we have no way of telling, like about the housing market. Chris has heard that people from northern CA have figured out that properties down here are cheaper and so they're buying them all up and therefore, the housing market here won't change in any semblance of a reasonable time frame, if at all. And I agree that this could be happening but does that mean we really need to offer a bunch of money on this home above what it's worth?
Speaking of what it's worth, I didn't have a very clear idea of what happens when a property appraises for less than the contract selling price. Apparently, you the buyer just have to make up the difference because your lender isn't going to just give you the price of the home you agreed on. They'll give you the appraisal price and you kick in the difference, including the down payment you've agreed to make, which for us is 20% so we can avoid having to pay mortgage insurance.
So, Chris and I are arguing like daft goats grumpily banging their little stubby horns together.
It's not like the stuff we're arguing about would really be anything to argue about if we weren't so stressed out and unsure what to do about spending gads of money. And... regarding home buying being stressful... Well, when I get really stressed out in a particular way, I get gassy.
CW: Irreverent wording coming up about death of a family member
No really. When my sisters and Chris and I went to bury my mother, we all had to pick up the 6' 4" casket for my 5' 2" mother, from where it was laying in mom's living room (with mom in it) and figure out how to carry it outside to the van in which we were driving it to the cemetery. (I'd vetoed the borrowing of a friend's pickup where the bed only extended 5' because I kept imagining mom accidentally splayed out on the highway from tumbling out of the truck bed and giving some kid nightmares for the rest of its life about the gooey dead lady in the middle of 393. The van rental company kept asking what we were moving in the van... it was awkward because plausibly it's illegal to transport dead folk without a permit but... mom wanted inexpensive...)
There we all are in our nice enough funeral clothes, trying not to bump mom into the wall or ruin the door frame by failing to trigonometry the huge wooden box through a twisting hall and out the door, and also not lifting one side so much that we'd have disturbing zombie mom leaping out of the box or sliding crumpled up mom in the bottom of the box, which just seems uncomfortable even if you're dead. We were all on edge and snipped at each other as siblings do and, well, I started farting it up. Everyone just about had to crawl into the coffin with mom to get away from the horrid stench! I think one of my sister's even chastised me, and maybe commented that it was fortunate for mom that she was dead at this juncture (as if I could help it)!
So Chris and I are arguing, and I'm farting like the sound of a goose being strangled by a killer who happens to also smell like a rancid egg. And really all of it comes back to the same thing. We don't have so much money that it's comfortable for us to buy something that expensive. Our income is low (especially as I was fired last week from one of my jobs) despite having the remains of money left me by my family and we don't want to set ourselves up for a situation where our monthly payments are so high we're not sure we'll be able to cover them with income alone. But I get a better interest rate on my investments than I'd pay on a loan, so it does technically make sense to borrow as much as possible. But it feels bad. And also I learned to think of success as being able to support myself on income. And while that doesn't have to be the yardstick for success, it just is in my mind and hasn't changed in the years I've been telling myself that it isn't necessarily true.
So I let Melissa know we needed a bit of help decoding the counter offer. We moodily took the dog out for his walk (I finally felt well enough to do so). And mostly left it alone while we watched The DaVinci Code. I took a break in the middle to make two loaves of banana chocolate rhubarb bread, because Chris and I have conflicting food sensitivities and can't possibly eat the same delicious things.
Melissa had had a day. Seriously, I thought I was busy and stressed? I do not know how she does what she does. All I can say is that I hope she has a lot of help at home and someone gives her a foot rub every night. We talked with her somewhere around 11pm and got clear on the various weird things they wanted, agreed to some and not others, and grudgingly offered them $420K. I hope it's enough but I sadly doubt that it will be. It's just... probably we wouldn't have to pay the whole $420K what with the appraisal and all, but we might and higher than that just doesn't seem right for this property. In fact, $420K doesn't seem right itself, but higher is just out. Unless there's a counter counter offer and we somehow decide we just really really want this one. Ugh! It's so difficult!
* Note that these are search results where the cap is $500K. Homes here are definitely available for way more money.
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