House of Swank

The Rules of the Game

Everyone knows the first rule of real estate is, "Location, Location, Location."

The second rule of real estate, as I've heard said before, is "Buy the worst house in the best neighborhood you can afford."

That second rule needs a slight amendment.

Sweetie and I spent a LOT of time determining what neighborhood(s) we'd like to live in when we moved to the 'Couv.  Some of that involved balancing our desires with our checkbook.  Our #1 choice for location would have been a neighborhood known as "Carter Park."  It's immediately north of downtown Vancouver, with most houses built in the 1920s to 1940s.  The houses are also well out of our price range.

The House of Swank is immediately North of Carter Park, by 3 blocks.  Which is a hell of a lot better than we ever thought we'd be able to do.

There was ONE house we saw in Carter Park that met our basic requirements:  3+ bedrooms, 1.5+ bathrooms, $250,000 or less.  I don't think the house would even qualify as a "fixer upper."  There were two bedrooms upstairs, with closets that backed up to each other.  Or rather, one closet that the two rooms shared, as there was no wall between the two closets.  The kitchen resembled a circus funhouse, with a random assortment of cabinets that wrapped around a corner and were of no consistent height or style.  The main bathroom had stairs between the sink area and the toilet and shower.  Not just a step, but 3-4 stairs with a railing and everything.  Which was better than the downstairs bathroom that, although it had a door, I don't think someone could physically fit into the room and close the door at the same time.  That was at the top of our price range.

The second rule of real estate should really say, "Buy the worst house THAT YOU ARE WILLING TO LIVE IN in the best neighborhood you can afford." 

After we toured the House of Swank for the second, and final, time, we checked out a couple of other houses in the neighborhood.  A house 2 up from ours is for sale by owner.  We grabbed a flyer.  It was selling for about $70,000 more than our house was selling for.  There was an open house around the corner that had an asking price of around $90,000 more.  Granted, the second house had rooms that were SLIGHTLY larger than our house.  And it was completely remodeled and finished to the 2007 standard.  But dang if that isn't some huge appreciation.  If this weren't such a slow time real-estate wise, I'm sure our house would have been sold to flippers for a HUGE profit.  But it wasn't, and now it is ours. 

That's going to be one of the most fun parts of getting to work in the house.  As I'm ripping up the carpet any time I get sick of the labor I'll just think to myself how much of a profit the house would pull with the renovation complete.

Welcome to The House of Swank

Prices have been negotiated, deals have been struck, contracts have been signed, and assuming everything goes OK with inspections and such sometime between now and October 31, Sweetie and I will own this:

It's a brick ranch with a full basement, built in 1950.  3/4 mile from the nearest Safeway, 1.5 miles from the coolest part of the 'Couv, with a bus that stops outside our front door.  It is everything we dreamed of in a house, and the size and layout is such that we could conceivably live here until we die.

Which, we suspect, the previous owners did.  It's held in trust right now, with a brother and sister having to make decisions between themselves.  There are NO records of sale with the County.  We suspect the original owners had this house until they passed away, and now the children are selling it off for their inheritance.

The entire upstairs of the house is carpeted, with hardwood floors underneath.  When we originally toured the house the carpets were pulled up in several spots and we could see that the hardwoods were in lovely shape, so our plan is to pull up all the carpeting as soon as we close and before we move in.

I'm very excited that this house has BOTH a living room AND a family room.  As much as I like my TV, I also like having it hidden away somewhere, so that there are places in my home where I can sit and read, or visit with friends. 

The living room, dining room and kitchen all flow very well together.  There is a hallway that runs parallel with two bedrooms, a bathroom and a den along the back of the house.  The den has a big sliding glass door out to a large covered porch that is absolutely lovely.

The kitchen, although small, is well laid out to allow 3-4 people to work in there without standing on top of each other.  The biggest flaw of the house at the moment is its' lack of dishwasher.  We plan to relocate the fridge to the wall to the right of the photo, and put a dishwasher where the fridge is now at some point, hopefully soon.  This plan may require a new, smaller fridge, in which case this will get moved to the basement and become the beer fridge.

One of my favorite features of the house is the basement.  Since we'd been dating a couple of months Sweetie and I have been planning our "Basement," which would be the room with the TV and La-Z-Boy, with sports, music and movie memorabilia covering the walls.  This house already has good-sized room set aside for that in the basement.  It also has a bedroom already in place.  I don't think it's a fully-legal bedroom because of the size of the window, but the window is larger than your standard basement window, and when there is a child of swank in their teen years who would like to live in a cave, we will be able to give them that opportunity.

In addition to the rooms already set aside, there is a large open space in the basement as well.  That light you see to the right of the photo?  That's the half-bath that's downstairs, that could probably be turned into a full-sized bath without too much difficulty.  To the right is a workbench that will be relocated at some point.  Someday, we are talking about putting a wall into this space to divide the storage and laundry area from the rest of the room, and making better use of this big open space.

That's one of the things I love most about this house.  The layout and condition are such that we could move in today, but there is a lot we can do and want to do to the house to make it ours.

Which basically means lot's of blogging material.

Stuck in a Rut

The cat, he does not like change.  He likes sunny windowsills, dark corners to hide, and having the top of his head scratched.

He is also a very smart cat, so knows that something is up.  When Sweetie and I were preparing for a couple of recent excursions Samson snubbed us, knowing that he would be without us for a couple of days.

Now he knows something is up, but I don't think he quite knows WHAT is going on.  He just can sense it involves change, and has therefore let us know he is not happy with that.

Basically, this translates to lots of being other places, and when he is around being very vocal about NOT LIKING THINGS ONE LITTLE BIT.

Today I managed to grab him and explain to him that he would like the new house.  It has some GREAT sunny windowsills, a basement with lots of hiding spots, and tons of room for him to run around in.  The only thing he isn't going to like (but we aren't going to tell him about this bit yet) is that the food and th litterbox will likely be on different levels, meaning there will be no way for him to avoid the stairs.  He's suffering through that layout now, but he's getting older, occassionally walks with a limp, and there are times he is standing on the bottom of the stairs and WANTS to go up, but just has to summon the necessary will to make it up the stairs.

Thankfully, he is in a place he knows and loves now.  And will be able to stay here until we are sufficiently settled in the new home that he is not introduced to chaos.  Also, he doesn't know this yet, but he shouldn't have to go to the kitty hotel anymore... that was always a bit traumatic for him.

But, his brain is the size of a walnut, so getting all of this to sink in is really hard.

More With the Hot NFL Players

An ASTOUNDING number of people are happening upon this blog wanting to find out who the hottest NFL Quarterbacks are.  So, because I'm bored, wanting to blog, have nothing real to blog about, and need SOME reason to feel good about my fantasy team, today we will do the list of hottest NFL players on In Tiki We Trust (my fantasy football team) as of today.

I'm going by current mugshot on NFL.com, because I've discovered that google images leaves too much room for discrepancy, and for long-time players will favor older photos over current photos.  For defenses I picked Ray Lewis of the Ravens (because he's famous), and his equivalent on the Giants.

Julius Jones, RB

Rob Bironas, K

Chad Pennington, QB

Vince Young, QB

Javon Walker, WR (whose freakishly large neck hurt him a lot)

Matt Hasselbeck, QB

Ravens, D (as represented by Ray Lewis)

Bernard Berrian, WR

Shayne Graham, K

Hines Ward, WR

Maurice Morris, RB (for two more days)

Ahman Green, RB (who would probably move up if he'd shave his beard)

Steve Smith, WR

Jason Witten, TE

Giants, D (represented by Antonio Pierce)

Warrick Dunn, RB

Julius Jones is lucky he's hot, and not injured, because he's holding onto his roster spot by a thread at the moment, and will likely be looking for work in the fantasy football world in the next couple of weeks.

If you've got a particular group of NFL hotties you'd like me to rate, just let me know.

P.S.  To the people finding the blog wanting to know who the hotter Manning is, you need to get your eyes checked.  Without any doubt it's Eli.  No contest whatsoever.

My New Job

I have a new, hopefully temporary, job.  The title is "House Buyer/Seller."

Damn, selling a house and buying a house takes a lot of work!  Especially when you're 200 miles away from one of the houses in question, and you don't have a scanner or fax machine at home.  I'm going to be good friends with the guys at the local Kinkos when all is said and done.

The past few days a fair amount of my time has been spent shuffling paperwork back and forth between us and our agent in Redmond.  Sweetie is unable to print or fax personal things at work, and is only free to speak to outside humans for 40 minutes at lunch time and after 2 pm.  So that means I get to collect any paperwork that needs signing, then gather the signatures from him in the small windows of opportunity available, then get them sent off where they need to go.  Tons of fun!

And we've found a house we want to make an offer on down here (details being withheld so as not to jinx anything).  Which means a whole slew of paperwork begins on this end as well.

This really is a full time job.  And I have NO IDEA how people moved any distance before fax and e-mail were available.

Tomorrow's to-do list (for my reference as much as anything else):

• Fax response to inspection report to agent.  (Basic response:  We'll take care of everything that's actually our responsibility, although not all of it is our responsibility).
• Fax paperwork to mortgage broker down here, and finalize everything is in place for the pre-approval letter so that we can make an offer on the house we want.
• Scope out specific information on First American Title down here, provide info to agent selling the condo so that we can sign all closing documentation down here.
• Research home inspectors, so that once offer is made on our home we have an inspector at the ready.  We do NOT want to use our agent's inspector, as Sweetie ran into some issues doing this in the condo, and when you're buying a 57 year old house you don't want to run into any issues down the line that can be avoided.
• Confirm balances in bank accounts, transfer money so that earnest money is readily available for an offer.
• Be done with all of the above no later than 2:15 pm.

To John Stemper

A note to those finding this website while searching on "John Stemper" - if you happen to be John Stemper, or if you happen to know John Stemper, you should leave a comment or drop me an e-mail.  Especially if you've ever lived in Colorado and played Fantasy Football.

Homeless

It's official.  As of October 10, 2007, Sweetie and I are officially without a home, and totally dependent on the kindness of my parents and, if they get sick of us, other friends and family, while our stuff lives in its POD in North Portland.

The good news is that some lucky little kids should be getting empty boxes and packing material when they go Trick-or-Treating this year, once we're into the New House of Swank.  Our mortgage guy has promised us we can close in 14 days if we want, but if we can wait 25-30 he can get us the best possible deal.  So now all we have to do is get the last of the ducks lined up to be ready to make an offer, and find the place to do the offering on.

We're looking at 4 houses tomorrow.  One of them we already like a fair amount, so I think we'll have a place picked out by the end of the weekend.

Good God, it's really happening!

Cross Your Fingers and Toes

We have an offer on the condo.  We are negotiating final price and details at the moment, but should have a fully executed contract no later than Friday.

We will be looking at contestants to be the newest House of Swank this weekend.  There is a strong front runner at the moment, but we want to make sure we don't miss out on a contender.

Don't mind the fact that my face is turning blue, but I think I'm going to be holding my breath until the deals are all done now.

Have We Learned Nothing From The Bee Gees?

Once upon a time there was a movie called "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."  It starred Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees and tells a love story set to Beatles songs.  It's got to be one of the worst movies ever made.  And if you don't believe me, perhaps you will change your mind when you learn that the female love interest's name is Strawberry Fields.

A new movie has come out.  It's called "Across the Universe."  It, also, is a love story set to Beatles songs.  This time the female love interest is Lucy.  The male's is Jude.  There are also a Sadie, JoJo, Prudence, Julia and Mr. Kite thrown in for good measure.

The film has received a 50% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.  Part of me wants to turn and run the other way as fast as I can, but much like a car wreck part of me is drawn to it.  The fact that the music seems good, and that T-Bone Burnett was one of the music producers means I'll probably suck it up and see it at some point.  Even though I already know I'll be disappointed.

At least "Sgt. Pepper's" had George Burns.

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Things

Jimmy Rollins
Miguel Cabrera
Fausto Carmona
Michael Young
Todd Helton
Steve Smith
Matt Hasselbeck
Vince Young

Double champion this week - baseball AND football!  Meaning I am completely mediocre in both fantasy leagues right now!  Yay me!