desperatehousehunt

The First Week in the New House

2005-07-10T14:28:00.000-05:00

I can't believe it's been a week already.

The house is totally great and so far I love being a homeowner, even
though the very first thing I had to do was put in a new gas line.
Ouch! There went my nascent emergency fund. I was a little perturbed,
but then the plumber told me it was the original gas line (from the
1890s) and I felt it was a little more understandable. Also, one of the
drawer fronts came off in the kitchen and there seems to be no good way
to repair it, so the kitchen renovation/remodel/cabinet replacement is
moving up in the timeline.

Another thing that I can't believe is that our possessions from our
1000 sf apartment are totally filling up this 2200 sf house. Actually,
the dining room and the guest room are just full of boxes, and the
very small (7 x 10) room which will be my home office is empty because
it needs new carpeting. I ordered those cool tiles from interface flor
(www.interfaceflor.com) but they only sent half my order! So maybe
it's not really that bad and will be fine once we are able to put
things away and make use of all the closets, etc. Also, the basement
is still totally empty (but we need to use that for book storage).

The business transition has gone pretty smoothly, much to my
amazement. The part-time guys love the neighborhood and apparently a
lot of their friends live over here already (I guess due to the
saturation effect of cool happening Williamsburg just to the north).
All the people who have come to work on the house want to know if they
can buy one like it too, thus reinforcing my belief that we did make
an intelligent purchase.

I am just so happy to be out of that apartment, which we had completely
outgrown, and away from my dysfunctional ex-landlord, to whom I had
the great pleasure of saying "You can't bully or manipulate me
anymore--the nature of our relationship has changed" when he started
to threaten me because he felt we hadn't disposed of our trash
properly. I feel like, he wanted us out, we are out, end of story.
Sometimes you have to pay a price to get what you want.

I like the neighborhood, everyone has been very friendly so far
(although possibly not as friendly as they might be, but friendly
enough). The houses are really beautiful--so many brownstones! and
mostly well kept up, and the churches are gorgeous. And it's much
quieter here because there is less traffic, plus the house itself is
much cooler--we haven't had to use the a/c at all and I think will
probably end up selling at least two of them (we have 3).

Now if we can only get the wireless network to work and Mr H can figure
out the surround-sound home theater system be bought for $300 at a
stoop sale a few weeks ago, we should be all set.

Moving Sucks

2005-06-29T22:23:00.000-05:00

But you knew that, right?

The Transformation Begins

2005-06-27T21:56:00.000-05:00

Nick the painter, rocking and rolling.

My Little Sister Reads My Blog

2005-06-26T07:03:00.000-05:00

In reality, I have two younger sisters, but only one of them reads my blog--and leaves comments. The other one has read my blog, but prefers to email--I guess that's more her style.

But, reading my youngest sister's comments [see below] I was struck by a realization that I have had at intervals over the decades, particularly since I started therapy (EEK! Did I say decades?). And that realization is: I don't have to be perfect.

This relates to my current situation how? The moving diary of course! I don't have to keep a moving diary for every box I pack. I can just make one for the boxes that I prefer to have vague descriptions written on, like "J--PERSONAL" or "DRESSER TOP" for boxes containing underwear, medications, ID docs or jewelry. Instead, I can just call them "BOX A" etc., and list the contents in my coded notebook.

Phew.

Thank you, littlesis, for indirectly guiding me to this important revelation!

In related news, Mr H and I discussed budgets, an area which neither of us are very good in. But at least I grasp the concept ...

Take a Look

2005-06-25T07:56:00.000-05:00

More images here.

Happy Homeowner

2005-06-25T07:40:00.000-05:00

Yes, it's Saturday, and I am still very happy about the house. Even though I already broke something, and I have to buy a refrigerator, and the paint store had no deuces or fives of Benjamin Moore Navajo White, so I had to buy all singles for an increased cost (they just looked at me like I was insane when I asked for a volume discount).

So! The carpets are all pulled up, much of the wallpaper has been steamed off and the rooms are all prepped for painting. I just need to pick a color for the floors (we are painting instead of staining because they are the pine subfloors--I don't think this house ever had hardwood, which is not so unusual for late-Victorian houses--they were very keen on those newfangled patterned floorcoverings in all those nifty, never-before-available colors). One small room upstairs has plywood subfloors, and an icky carpet, so I just ordered the lowest-price Flor carpet tiles for in there--it's a small room and I like flat (non-plushy) floors and I think it would be fun to do the installation myself.

What did I break? A radiator! I was pulling up the carpet in the small hall room upstairs, where there is one of those tiny radiators, and instead of cutting the carpet to fit around it, they just slid it underneath. Then I asked the cable installer guy in the next room if he had some kind of heavy-duty cutter, and he said no but came in to look and said he'd help me out and I grabbed the carpet and he grabbed the radiator and we both pulled and crack! the radiator broke off at the coupling. I guess I need a plumber.

The Update You've All Been Waiting For

2005-06-23T21:29:00.000-05:00

Yes ... I am a homeowner. A desperate homeowner! I am the proud possessor of a classic 1899 brick row house in fairly decent shape, with most of its original details, and the jumbo no-doc mortgage to go with.

The cashier's checks arrived 15 minutes after I called Fed Ex to whine that they were two hours late, and the closing was relatively uneventful. The one real moment of drama occurred when I discovered that the rate was recorded as .125 higher than I thought it was going to be and I successfully requested it be changed.

Now I understand why nobody can ever explain exactly what happens at a closing. Because they all just make jokes, mutter acronyms and hand papers to each
other. Then it's over. Oh yes, and we signed our names a bunch of times and initialled a lot of pages. I thought it was so cute to see mine and Mr H's initials nestled side by side like that. I want a tattoo.

After a lot of hanging around and waiting for the ACRIS forms to get filled out, while Mr H read a book about eskimos and I stared vacantly into space, c'est fini. Gloria gave us a hug and called me "Sistah!" and I hugged her back and asked if I could email her if I had questions, and we shook Arnold's hand and then wrote a check to the lawyer and wandered outside into the sunlit early summer evening.

Then we went back to our soon to be ex apartment and I emailed Painter #2 that he had the job (because Painter #1 never got back to us with an estimate and #2 was reasonable enough and said he could start tomorrow, which he really needs to do in order to be done by June 30 so we can move in on July 1). Then we got takeout and ice cream and packed it in our coolers and went with Master T for a picnic in our very own backyard! On the way Painter #2 called and said could he meet us there and so he did and we went through the rooms and decided which floors really, really need doing and which could go for a bit longer. So tomorrow he and I will go get paint and they will get started on doing the whole thing white. And I will decide if I really, really want to get into properly renovating the house or not. Or maybe just some of it. Or not. Or someday.

The Drama Never Stops

2005-06-23T09:45:00.000-05:00

So, yesterday I spent all day on the phone arranging for the credit union in Connecticut to fed ex me 2 cashier's checks for today's closing. They were supposed to be here by 10.30 and it is now 10.45. Of course I am obsessing like a maniac--I mean, wouldn't you?

Yesterday and this morning I cornered everyone at Master T's school and cajoled them into telling me their stories of what closing was like. I think I have a firm handle on all the pitfalls, mostly having to do with charges and fees they didn't know about ahead of time, but since nobody had this particular situation--what if your cashier's checks don't come? (not that mine haven't come, yet, but I like to catastrophize when I can) I'm not so clear on how to handle it.

Fortunately the closing will be at our lawyer's office, which is two blocks away, and it's at 2 pm, so Fed Ex still has time. In the meantime ...

I still like the house

2005-06-21T23:09:00.000-05:00

We haven't closed yet, but we did have an informal walk-through, as we met the seller tonight in order to get quotes from painters. It's empty now, and its Victorian bones show more clearly.

When Mr H & I walked in, we were amazed to find that it seemed so SMALL without the furniture. And then Painter #1 arrived, a big guy, over 6 ft tall, and suddenly our sense of scale snapped back into place and we understood: this house is pretty BIG-- 2200 square feet never seemed so large. And the ceilings on the parlor floor are really high. The plate rail in the dining room is WAY over my head (OK, I'm only 5'4", but still).

And there are even more built-ins than I had realized. And boy, the kitchen needs work. And I need to get rid of the ugly carpet asap.

Already I feel like I am hemorrhaging money. But I really do want it to look nice. Am I going to have to do my own floor?

I am feeling guilty for saying No to the skim coat plaster. But, damn it, I AM going to have the closets painted.

The End Is Nigh!

2005-06-10T13:02:00.000-05:00

Houston, we have a closing date: Thursday, June 23, at 2 pm, in our lawyer's office down the block.

All over the world there will be a moment of silence as the faithful readers of this blog bow their heads and silently meditate on me and Mr H pulling out our checkbooks for a massive orgy of bank account emptying. Finally, he and I will have joined the ranks of home owners and will be in more debt than we have ever been in our lives. And believe me, we know debt.

But at least this time we'll have the house to show for it. Nobody mention the real estate bubble, k? At least not right now.

I want to bask.

Otherwise things seem to be going swimmingly enough: we have painters doing estimates and have arranged for cable modems to be installed (on 6/24, natch) and movers coming here for estimates (Q: How much? A: Lots.) and I have just written a large check for a year's worth of homeowner's insurance. And sent it to Queens.

Soon everything I own will either be in the garbage or in a box, and we will begin our cross-Brooklyn pilgrimage to a new life. With much, much more space.

What a Difference a Weekend Makes

2005-06-06T17:51:00.000-05:00

Yes, you'd think I'd learned this by now, but Norma's doom and gloom calls of late Friday afternoon are always followed by Monday morning's blue skies and fluffy white candy. Although in this case the good news was borne by a mysteriously cool woman named Diana, who works for the 3rd-party credit investigation service employed by the underwriter. She seemed to possess all the correct info, I was able to confirm it, and she rang off saying she was going to call our landlord and accountant and that would be it. So then I called Norma who announced this was the Final Step. Then I called Michael the paralegal to let him know this. Then I called two different insurance agents to get the whole homeowner's insurance thing in gear. Do I really need to call the Brownstone Agency? They seem kind of scary and expensive. It's not like I'm buying a stately home.

Then Michael called me back and it seems we can either close on Friday (possibly unlikely, depending on how fast the bank can do the paperwork) or on Monday June 20, as Liz the lawyer will be out of town the intervening week. I said OK, either is fine with me.

Then Lawrence the agent called me. He of course wants the earlier closing date, but I pointed out that it's out of my hands.

Whew. It's possible this whole thing is finally coming to a close. Now I'm scared that all the painters are busy. Well, they can paint once we move in I guess, so maybe I should call the floor people first. And the whole thing about finishing the basement has to get in gear also. Not to mention the horror of moving itself.

Must. Get. Quotes.

Makes Me Wanna Cry

2005-06-03T11:36:00.000-05:00

OK, so Norma, who is getting brusquer and brusquer, called me earlier today and said that the info I had sent her about how I had tried to get the erroneous accounts removed from my credit report DID NOT MATCH the credit report that she had pulled. That the reports I had sent to me by the credit reporting agencies were not the same as the triple report sent to her. Hence the discrepancies.

So I don't know what has happened, but now the underwriter is investigating the reports directly through the agency they use to see what wrong there. At least they seem to believe me that something DID go wrong and that I don't have terrible credit habits.

Of course, I still feel as though this was my fault and am thinking that nobody will believe me because the world is full of deadbeats. And that we should have applied for the mortgge in Mr H's name and then added me later.

Norma said: I have been doing mortgages for 4 years and I've never seen anyone with these problems! That made me feel a whole lot better for sure. I seem to always be atypical.

I am trying to do the Zen Yoga cleansing breaths thing, but maybe I will just go watch downloads of Tenjou Tenge and Sousei ne Aquarion instead.

Checking Out the New 'Hood

2005-05-30T17:07:00.000-05:00

On Sunday afternoon we drove over to Bed-Stuy so Master T could see his new-home-to-be. The block is really lively--lots of people out on their stoops (the majority talking on cell phones--I always think that's funny), the air filled with the smell of grilling meat. Kids were playing ball on the sidewalk. Some young men (early 20s?) had set up one of those oil can grills on the sidewalk outside one of the 2 8-family houses. I always wonder where those grills come from. Are they all homemade, or is there some guy who makes them or what? It was a beautifully peaceful urban scene. There was music playing, but not loudly. It was nice to see that I was correct in my belief that the block, while not at all high-end, is a place where people of all ages feel comfortable hanging out and having fun. I wonder if there is a block association?

Master T was a little disappointed in the house however as we had told him it was "bigger" than where we live now, and he was quite indignant to see that the building is in fact one story shorter. He would not be budged by our explanation that we would have twice as much space to live in plus a backyard and possibly a roof deck. (Not sure how that one will work out or when, but I was intrigued when I noticed that if you look straight down Lexington Ave. you can clearly see the Williamsburg Bank Tower to the west).

One disappointment--the corner playground I thought was a community garden actually turns out to belong to the daycare on the corner of Quincy and Garvey (Sumner). Too bad, it's a really nice playground and has picnic tables!

My Head Hurts

2005-05-27T17:07:00.000-05:00

And do you know why? It's because the by-now-extremely sympathetic Norma called me to say that they pulled my credit report to update it and the underwriter is perturbed because it is different than it was before. Now, long-time readers of this blog (who have no doubt memorized every detail) will know that this is because fucking Experian (a corporate entity which I detest with fiery passion, although the individual employees have proven to be not all that bad) at one time merged my credit info with that of a woman in Illinois, and never unmerged it, until they supposedly did so at my request in March (well, they did, but only sort of). So of course once I disputed that info they had to delete it. But, they were supposed to send the updated information to people I requested (and of course I requested that it be sent to the credit union and the underwriter). But I guess they have something like 30-45 business days to do it, or maybe they just don't do it, because nobody but me seems to have a clue about any of this. Certainly not the woman in Illinois whose detailed credit history/private information I have become privy to (if I were her I would be so mad.)

[NOTE: boy, other people sure do have a lot of debt. Well, I am about to join their ranks, so insert appropriate French phrase here.]

Then there is the mysterious uncollected debt to Newport News (of all places!) that appeared on my credit report and which I have just paid off, even though I think I might have paid it once before. It's not even worth going into, and it was less than $50, but it does explain all the weird truncated messages which were regularly being left on my answering machine earlier this year. ARGH!! I was trying to explain to the girl on the phone at the collection agency why it was that I didn't know anything about this, and she started to get all defensive, and I said, Look, I am sure you did everything you were supposed to do to inform me of this, just tell me the quickest way to get it cleared up.

But you know, they really aren't very clear about this, and they send you stuff that looks like junk mail, and recorded messages that seem mysterious in the extreme, and aren't even addressed to you personally. Not to mention that I can't see how I could possibly owe Newport News any money, as I've only ordered from them on a credit card and have paid off all my cards long ago. Certainly before December. And I don't think I ordered anything from there since almost a year ago. I haven't had a collection on an account since I was in college and didn't really understand how it all worked.

In the larger scheme of things this is not so bad, and other people have been through more, and I am not the type to sweat the small stuff, really (it's only money), but, THIS IS ANNOYING ME!!

I hope we can close soon. At least the phrase "I need to clear this up so I can close on my house" had a powerfully activating effect on everyone I spoke with today.

So Close ...

2005-05-24T11:59:00.000-05:00

Norma from the credit union (my new best friend) just called and said that all she needs now is some kind of letter from the appraiser or maybe a letter from the people who replaced the lolly columns and we will be ready to close.

Yikes!

Did I say that already?

On Monday morning I bent over to push a button on the dvd player to make Master T happy (he wanted to watch v 4 of Magical Shopping Arcade Abenobashi ... now all you otaku think I'm either a really cool mom or else ...) and my back went sproing and that was very very bad. I took some codeine and later drank some wine and most of yesterday faded into the mist.

I do remember, however, that the lawyer called and told me that the lolly column replacement was near completion and that the title issue was a tiny bit of a problem because the owner of the house next door is deceased and the will was never probated and so there is some confusion about who actually owns the property and thus would be able to sign the affidavit that they are not laying claim to that strip of land. The lawyer advised me to let it go for now and revisit the issue later, since the underwriters don't seem concerned about it and it doesn't seem to be a problem (although the vague notion of title insurance floats into my brain at this point).

So now I am sitting here with an aching lower back and the realization that I have a lot of stuff to pack and about 4-5 weeks to do it in. I can feel my sanity curdling already. Yes, some stuff is in boxes, it's true. But Much is Not.

The hard part is deciding what to toss and what to keep. What to try to sell and what to not. I guess that I would try to sell some stuff sooner rather than later ... fortunately since we are moving to a space that's more than twice as big as where we live now, it's not that bad. When we moved from our Boerum Hill loft to a snug and cozy 2 bedroom in Carroll Gardens ... that was a nightmare.

The worst part I find is Mr H's insistance that I must cull my belongings, and his unspoken but obvious belief that I never throw anything away. In the past this has resulted in his throwing things away for me, and that was Not A Pretty Picture. I have actually been doing pre-emptive throwing away, cause really, I am sick of a lot of this stuff. I have been closing my eyes and tossing. It's hard, but someone's got to do it.

The other thing I'm concerned about is Master T, who is a wee bit concerned about moving and has been acting out rather a lot lately. I talked to him about how there is a 7 year old boy living there now and maybe he could go meet him and they could talk about what there is to do in the neighborhood. I guess I need to call the broker and see if that can be arranged. I don't want to put any stress on the seller though. I suppose they can say no if they think it would be too hard on their son.

Then I just have to find a mover, and a painter, and a little money to pay them with, and I'm golden. Right?

I am not sure what to expect from the closing, my impression is that we write lots of checks and are the only ones who don't get any money from anyone. We are the cash cows. Well, I'm used to that.

woo HOOO!!

2005-05-21T00:06:00.000-05:00

[From Sat. 5/14/05]: Just got our mortgage commitment letter. The last I heard (earlier in the week) was that our lawyer was going to call the seller's broker and see if they would be willing to discuss replacing the temporary type lolly columns before closing (while we continued to try to persuade the underwriter it wasn't a real safety issue) and I guess they must have agreed! The letter is dated Thursday (5/12) and stipulates that we must be able to document at closing that the columns have been replaced. I guess I will find out if I have any involvement (cash or whatever) soon (I told the lawyer we would pay if we had to but that she should do the negotiating because I am a wimp and would say anything just to get this over with).

[Today] It's taken me a week to write this up because I kept thinking that I would get the lawyer to give me some kind of exciting recap of her negotiations with the broker, but apparently there were none. She called and told him about the lolly-column issue and he called the sellers and they agreed to replace them at their own expense. We are so lucky and they are so nice and I hope their karma is as good as they deserve.

Apparently the replacement starts this Monday and "eight guys" are going to come and put in new, permanent lolly columns. And then the closing can be scheduled. And then I will have to move. This apartment is filled with boxes already and only about 20% of our stuff is packed. I am going to throw out a lot of stuff this weekend, in between trying to figure out whether to take Master T to see SW3 (I'm not so keen, but he is--is nearly 8 old enough? He liked LoTR, but only on dvd--the one theater attempt was too overwhelming ... I haven't seen an SW film in a theater since Return of the Jedi, which I attended with Lydia the Film Queen and we almost got kicked out of the theater when she announced loudly during an early scene "I didn't come here to see the MUPPET MOVIE!!")

This happening has motivated me to tell everyone again that we are buying the house FOR SURE and so I have had many anxiety-filled conversations about home owning in Brooklyn with other homeowners. I must say that everyone is still upbeat about real estate (although you would expect that) so perhaps my conviction that the second I buy property the market collapses is not entirely founded in fact. Thursday night I was out with my friend M who has owned a house in W'burg for several years now, and another friend S who recently bought a house in NJ (right along the Hudson) and someone else I don't know the property-owning status of (a friend of S) and they were nice and reassuring (it's a good price, your monthly housing payment isn't going to go up, you don't have to do a lot of work) and earlier that day I had a conversation with 2 friends of mine from Master T's school, who are J and J so maybe I will just refer to them as A and E, who are both real estate grrls and they too were like, yeah, you made the right decision not to buy a shack you had to renovate or a mansion that requires you to depend on your tenants in order to pay the mortgage, you'll be okay.

But on the other hand, A and E's real estate gains are through the roof. I am just hoping not to lose money. I'm humble, I am.

Of course there's no guarantee of any of this, so I should just focus on getting packed and making lists of all the furniture we need to buy. Which goes something like this:

1. new bed for us
2. bunk bed for Master T
3. 2 new sofas
4. new working desks for each of us

This is a minimum. I figure we will be buying used ikea stuff off of craig's list to start. The living room is going to be kind of empty for a while. We also might need to get a refrigerator. And there is the hiring a painter and doing some minimal finishing of the basement. I am constantly amazed at how Mr househunt knows NOTHING about architecture and construction. But then I know more than the average person, so if you think of him as average, then he's ok. But he's a GUY! says my inner conformist and then I comfort myself with the the thought that he grew up in a foreign country where guy standards are different. But you know I think that even in England most men know how to use a hammer.

Soon, soon ... or something

2005-05-08T12:54:00.000-05:00

Can you tell I am tired? I should have a mortgage confirmation within a few weeks. The underwriter accepted the revised appraisal (they didn't even do a second one) wrt the second kitchen, but is standing firm on the lolly columns as yet--however, that seems to me to be an easier issue to solve, somehow, since even the engineer said that even though the columns are technically an incorrect type, they are not a safety issue. So I'm assuming someone with licensed expertise will have to write a letter to the underwriter and say that in my professional opinion the columns are not an issue, blah blah blah, although I haven't heard back from the lawyer yet.

Also there is a small title problem because the backyard fence is inside the property boundary on one side (by about 14" at one point). But that is the seller's problem to fix; the only hang up might be that they are having a friend handle the legal part and she's a criminal lawyer currently on trial so nobody can talk to her except at night, so the lawyers are communicating via voice message and email, which slows things down a bit.

So I am cautiously optimistic. In between trying to figure out what to do about summer camp and just the whole logistics of moving. My youngest sister suggested a "moving diary" in which after you pack a box you make a list of everything in it and either just keep it in a notebook or else type it up (and then it's searchable! And you can print out the list and stick it on the side of the box!) I had thought of color-coding boxes by room and floor but hadn't gotten to the idea of a Master List yet ... I am sort of hopeless at these things. Mr H is much better--you should see his color-coded diagram of the book warehouse. It's art!

High Anxiety

2005-04-26T20:28:00.000-05:00

Oh, you wouldn't believe how upset I have been about this whole underwriter thing. Unable to sleep or swallow level of upset. It's ridiculous really.

Today Norma the mortgage processor called and said that the underwriter said that the way to fix this loan was a) to do a new appraisal based on single-family comps or b) adjust the existing appraisal to use single-family comps, with a VERY strong preference for option A. But that the appraisers have a "72 hour turnaround" and so haven't responded to the request yet. So I immediately called the lawyer who sounded really annoyed that this hasn't been solved yet but said "I'm glad they are going back to basics on this" and also mentioned that I shouldn't have to pay for the second appraisal. OK, great, but how do I make sure that doesn't happen?

I did take the opportunity to say that I was feeling kind of panicked about this and she said it was not worthy of panic and it wasn't a deal-breaker and the worst thing that would happen is that they would approve the loan but keep the money in escrow till I could prove that I had replaced the kitchen (immediately to tear it out ... ugh, too absurd) but that in no way would any of this kill the deal.

Which is good, because I woke up this morning thinking, if this house thing falls through we're leaving New York! Which is kind of absurd, because, yeah, that'll show 'em! And then I thought I don't know if I can take any more losses, there have been too many losses, my dad, 9/11, my friend B, etc. etc., but then I thought I was kind of being ridiculous about a building I have been in twice. But it did remind me, again, of how thin my skin has become.

I wish I could stop believing (deep down, not on the surface) that the more I torture myself with worry, the more likely the house thing will proceed. Kind of like people who are sure they are keeping the airplane aloft through sheer force of will.

It's so exhausting.

Still unresolved

2005-04-25T11:33:00.000-05:00

Wah! The broker just called me and asked what the hang-up was, we should have the commitment by now. I said, umm, there's a small issue with the underwriters, as far as I know it's not entirely resolved yet but it will be soon and the lawyer is working on it. But it's just a small thing, really, she doesn't think it should be a problem. Then he said he would call the lender and find out. Then we chatted about how he's going to see his brother, who used to live in Carmarthen (Wales) but now has moved to London, in July, and I said we were in London last summer and it was really hot and there was sort of a drought, but London is always fun.

Then I called the lawyer and talked to her ever-chipper paralegal, Michael, who really should get some kind of award. He said that they have been faxing and phoning back and forth and they faxed them an "alternate way of looking at the issue" on Friday and are waiting for their response and he would update me later today.

I can't believe this whole enterprise might founder on such a ridiculous thing.

I had to make all these calls in the middle of my lunch, too, and it got cold, and THEN my mom called me wanting to be reassured about the whole thing and also to tell me all about how she went with some college friends this weekend to the Yale Rep and it rained really hard and how she thinks she passed a building I might have lived in as an undergrad, but she's not sure.

I can't believe that it's APRIL 25 and not even 50 degrees out. Wah! indeed.

Feeling more desperate than usual at the moment ...

A reader writes

2005-04-24T10:04:00.000-05:00

Readers! Yes, I have readers, who are apparently not related to me, and I can't tell you how thrilling that is.

And these readers have questions, to whit:

Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2005 13:44:09 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Mr. Squeeze"

Hi. Love the blog. I feel your frustration of looking for a house as I have been doing this for about a year now. I am particularly frustrated with making the "numbers" work on a lot of the houses I have seen, between the price, how much we're willing to shell out each month, financing costs, taxes, down payments, and other monthly costs that I didn't think of:

I don't mean to pry but since this is an anonymous site, I thought I'd ask anyway for my own education. I would be curious to know some financial details that helped to make this purchase work for you:

1) Final Price
2) Down payment
3) Mortage rate (6%)
4) Taxes
5) How much are you willing to spend each month on housing? How much as % of your income?
6) What other costs are you factoring in besides mortgage and taxes into that monthly amount?
7) Are there tax deductions you are realizing by having your business at home? How much are you saving yearly or monthly as a result?

Thanks alot for your help!

OK, Mr Squeeze, I will do my best to answer them, with a few omissions either because a) this is not an entirely anonymous blog (yes, there are people out there who know me personally and don't you feel special) and b) I don't know.

And now, for the special We Answer Your Questions edition of DesperateHousehunt!

Q.Final Price?
A. $549K. We bid the asking price.

Q. Down payment?
A. 10%. We are trying to figure out if we can make that higher to get rid of the PMI sooner.

Q. Mortage rate?
A. 6.5%. And if only we had bought a year ago it would have been much lower.

Q. Taxes?
A. This one is harder to answer because New York City is in something of a period of transition with regard to property taxes. The city used to be kind of lax about assessments and tax rates but now they are keeping up much better with what houses actually sell for. That said, the tax rate in NYC for single family homes is relatively low (much higher when you get into multiple-unit dwellings and mixed-use or commercial property) so I expect the taxes on our house to be around $250/month, possibly a bit less.

Q. How much are you willing to spend each month on housing? How much as % of your income?
A. I generally follow the (Federal? State? City?) guideline that you should be spending no more that 30% of your income on housing, but personally I prefer 20-25%, which is what we will be spending for this house. [edited to add: I meant 20-25% of pretax income, just to clarify].

Also, you know, I am not really that good at math.

Q. What other costs are you factoring in besides mortgage and taxes into that monthly amount?
A. PMI, heating oil, home insurance, gas (for the stove), electricity.

There are also business expenses for us, such as a broadband connection, which others might not need to consider.

Q. Are there tax deductions you are realizing by having your business at home? How much are you saving yearly or monthly as a result?
A. This is a question I can't answer precisely, because I am not my accountant. We can deduct our business expenses, of course, but I am not sure we are getting any more tax savings by having a business at home than if we had the same business in separate premises and bought a house, if you see what I mean.

For us, it was more of a question of "What can we do, given our cash flow?" My first step was to look at what we are paying to rent our current place and what we were spending on storage and to see how much we could borrow and still be paying the same monthly amount. From thence came our Plans A, B and C, which related to how much we could spend on a house and either A) have enough room to store the books in the same building, B) have a monthly mortgage payment low enough to afford to rent storage and C) something unclear involving tenants and either renting space or not, depending on how big the house was. We never resolved Plan C down to the details because we weren't keen on being dependent on tenant income.

I think being self-employed and paying all our own stuff helps ME personally to a certain extent, because I am better at figuring out what to do with lump sums then I am at dealing with money received in dribs and drabs (as with a paycheck), but that is not a particularly rational apporach, I admit. I know other people who have a similar set-up who are much more perturbed by the ups and downs in their income and totally resent having to pay their own FIAF (isn't that the acronym for the social security taxes? Or am I totally out of my mind?)

The decision to buy a house came about mainly because we both like houses and couldn't see the point of owning a co-op/condo--we've lived in apartments for a long time, in NYC and elsewhere, and were ready for a change. We looked at different ways of buying a building or renting an apartment and continuing to rent storage space and possibly rent shipping space and we never really got to the end of that equation because, basically, we wanted to buy a house. Also, we weren't sure that we would get accepted by a co-op given that we work at home and have employees on-site.

Another factor was that we couldn't afford to buy a building AND fix it up, so a lot was dependent on finding something that was in move-in condition (or close to it).

IOW, it was not an entirely fact-based decision, but I incorporated as much reality into as I could manage, whilst thinking about our secret desires as well. Neither I nor Mr D do well with the totally boring and rational approach to life. So I (we) were looking for an end result that we could be happy in even if financially it wasn't the perfect decision.

There's also no doubt that were it not for our landlord's divorce this all might have been happening a year from now, because I hate change.

I worry a lot about the bubble bursting and interest rates rising and the latest article in The Economist, but you know, at some point you have to jump and trust that you will land.

OK, then! Hope this was helpful. Next?

Vignettes

2005-04-20T19:39:00.000-05:00

So even though I'm not sure I've heard the last of the underwriter issue, and the lawyer has not called me back with the definitive version, I've decided to party like it's 1999 and proceed at full with my decorating obsession. Just to give you an idea of how shallow I am: LUCKY is one of my favorite magazines. And now Lucky has a spin-off, DOMINO, which applies the shop till you drop (express yourself through consumption!) formula to, wait for it, home furnishings. I stand before you as a Very Happy Girl (although somewhat disturbed that the quasi celebrity/nobody who did the end note got a repro Eames coffee table for HER BIRTHDAY, which, alas, is not going to happen to me).

Today our cleaner, who is wonderful and deserving of every penny she is paid (I say this as an asthmatic for whom dust=a trip to the ER) came back after 8 weeks (she had surgery) and in celebration I showed her pictures of the new house. She peered at it thoughtfully and then said in a congratulatory way: A two family! I said, well yes, technically, but there's no kitchen upstairs, so really it's a one family. She then asked hopefully, What about the basement? and I said, well, it's not finished. And she looked at me pityingly and said No tenants then? And suddenly flashing back on all the houses I'd looked at in Crown Heights that were finished and renovated to the max and every space that could be was rented out (some of them not entirely legally), I understood where she was coming from and explained about how we were giving up the warehouse space and would use part of the downstairs for the business and phew, I think I saw respect and comprehension slowly seep back into her gaze.

OK, I'm exaggerating, but I HOPE that she no longer thinks of me as a ditzy girl who doesn't know a money-making property when she sees one ... I swear, I bought this house ON PURPOSE.

Road smoothing

2005-04-19T12:15:00.000-05:00

I talked to the lawyer this morning and she said she thinks it's probably a case of the credit union being based in CT and that she will get it worked out. She also said that this was the second or third issue we'd had because they are out of state ... believe me, I know. At the time, I decided not to use a mortgage broker because I thought having a conservative lender wasn't such a bad thing, plus they had a good deal and good rates and no fee and cash back, etc. etc. etc., PLUS they said that they made lots of loans in New York. But I think they must've meant Westchester.

Yes, I feel like an utter doofus for going against the Conventional Wisdom. But hey, it's worked out well for me in the past!

So now I guess I can go back to my dreamy contemplation of vintage desks on Craig's List and my constant checking of online furniture sites to see who has the lowest price on a round pedestal table and chair set for the the upstairs family room (the winner so far: target.com, with free shipping!). And I want a reproduction Eames coffee table for the living room but I might have to settle for West Elm's version instead, given the price differential.

Yes, I'd much rather daydream about buying furniture, and contemplate just how many daybeds and bookcases and media centers I'd like to have, and make notes on color schemes, then obsess about the underwriters.

Wish me luck.

Just a little bump in the road ...

2005-04-18T19:15:00.000-05:00

Right... RIGHT?!?!

This weekend we got the appraisal report for the house. Basically it
says the house is in good shape and there is nothing wrong with it, he
appraised it for the same price we offered and it's worth a bit less
than comparable two families in the area because the basement isn't
finished and there's no kitchen upstairs, but it's not being used as a two
family so that's OK.

Today the mortgage processor from the credit union called me and told
me that the underwriter said they won't lend on the property unless
the upstairs kitchen is replaced. I was like WHAT?!?! Um, but, you
know the house is being used as a one-family, it's priced as a one-family, we are going to use it as a one-family, isn't that kind of
counterproductive. She said, let me talk to them and I'll call you
back.

Then she said that they can't accept the appraisal because it was
appraised against two-families so unless the house is converted into a
two-family again by having a second kitchen installed, they can't lend
on it, BUT she will have her boss [not in today] call them and clarify
this.

So, I said OK, I'll talk to you tomorrow. Then after I hung up I
immediately called our lawyer, but she leaves at 4 pm and it was
4.01. So I guess I will have to wait till tomorrow to find out how
this will be worked out, because I am SURE it will be worked out, but
it is so bloody annoying!!

I will go insane if I have to start house-hunting again. Plus I secretly feel as though I jinxed myself by starting to tell people about it like it was a done deal.

I'm sure there is some commonly known fix for this. Right ... RIGHT?!?!?

I think I might be a homeowner

2005-03-29T17:11:00.000-05:00

We signed the contract about 10 days ago, in the office of our very pleasant lawyer, Liz Salen, and gave her large checks (well, that totally blew my budget). And then didn't hear anything for a week. Liz said there was a possibility that the seller might object to the way she re-wrote the contract (the seller's lawyer is a criminal lawyer and wrote her own contract ... I guess she must be a relative or something). So we were wondering if there would be any back and forth with the contract, but now the big contract-signing deposit check has cleared my bank account, so presumably the sellers have signed the contract.

Now I have been preapproved for a mortgage at last, plus I get free lifetime credit reports from Equifax since they screwed up so badly by merging my credit report with another person's. Well, maybe not free lifetime reports, maybe just a year's worth free (so I can check to see if they've done it again).

I guess the last hurdle now is the appraisal and the actual mortgage granting and then the closing, and then the moving. And then the nervous breakdown.

Getting in the groove

2005-03-17T20:20:00.000-05:00

Today the lawyer's paralegal called. He said that she had finished reviewing the contract and we could come in and sign today or tomorrow. I said, um, but what about the part where we look at the engineering survey and you know, ask the seller to knock off a few thousand cause there's some things that need to be done? And he said, I'll get Liz for you. The lawyer came on the line and said, well, they've already agreed to inspect for termites and do the termite eradication and pay for it, I doubt they are going to agree to either take the ceiling down and see if the joists need sistering, or reduce the price for that or for replacing the lally columns [or is it lolly columns?] because it's a seller's market. And the house is really nice.

Then she went on to explain that the seller was already nervous because the whole contract thing is taking so long and said that it was because the seller's attorney is actually a criminal attorney who had written the contract herself and it was a non-standard contract and so our lawyer had to rewrite the whole thing and then the other lawyer didn't have a fax. So now it's taken a long time and it's not in our interest to delay it more by asking for contingency clauses, especially not in this market.

And I was silently biting my lip and thinking, how in hell is any of this so much my fault that I should rush into the contract signing just so the seller won't get any more nervous? But I didn't say anything, because I could tell that the lawyer was explaining stuff to the best of her ability and I could kind of see what she meant and I have heard stuff like this anecdotally.

On the other hand I was kind of hoping they would reduce it a bit, you know, just to be nice.

Then I asked if it was OK if I just brought in the retainer agreement and wrote her a check when we did the contract and she casually said, well of course and then remember you will have to write a check for the "contract deposit" which is 10% of the purchase price.

Yipes! First I heard of that, although I vaguely knew that there was some kind of a deposit that was supposed to be put in escrow until the closing and if the deal fell through you would supposedly get it back. But I hadn't actually put that together with the contract signing.

Then I panicked because I thought, I have to give the bank 10% for the down payment and the seller 10% for the deposit, holy sh*t, that's twice as much as I thought, HOW COME NOBODY TOLD ME!!!! then after getting the shakes and wishing I had not drunk quite so much diet coke this morning, and emailing everyone I know who has ever bought a house and saying, WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME, I realized that a mortgage is not like a bond where you pay a certain percentage of the face value ... so, duh, the downpayment goes to the seller, some now, the rest at the closing, and the mortgage money goes directly to them too. The bank is just a conduit. And this was kind of a relief but then I also felt a bit sad that *I* wasn't going to get any money. And, yes, just as I have suspected all along, owning a house is probably financially going to be a huge drag, so it's a good thing I like this house.

So why are we buying one again?

The whole thing made my head hurt so I decided to go for a walk in the park, but my iPod wasn't charged, but that was really OK in the end because it's nice to be in the park anyway. And if you stand in the right place and hold your head at the correct angle you can almost pretend you are standing out in the middle of a huge field in the middle of nowhere, which I like because since I spent the first 18 years of my life in a place which essentially was a huge field (blah blah nowhere blah blah) I can be nostalgic and smug at the same time (like HA! I'm not actually stuck in this field--I can go buy a diet Coke any time I want. On foot even!)

But it led me to wonder what I could do to make myself feel better and less stressed. I don't think $180 for a massage and facial is really all that hot an idea. Not when writing a check for 10% of the purchase price is going to leave me strapped for days. So I made an iMix called c-c-calm which has a lot of songs with deep bass lines on it, for that steadying thumping effect (you know, like hearing your mommy's heartbeat in the womb) and then I ordered some Funkadelic CDs from Amazon after discovering that none of that catalogue is available for [legal, anyway] download anywhere [George Clinton, WHAT are you THINKING], which did cost $21 but I think is worth it for the chance to go around for days humming

One nation, under a groove
getting down just for the funk of it
One nation, we're on the move,
Nothing can stop us now (nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh)

It's almost as good as a massage. Right?

A touch of angst

2005-03-11T11:03:00.000-05:00

If you are thinking of buying a house in NYC, don't read this week's Economist, which has not only a survey of New York City stating that Williamsburg is the next cool place to live, but another article saying houses are overpriced (globally) and that it's better in the long run to rent rather than buy (but only if you invest the money you are not spending on your mortgage in the stock market).

I got a bit down after reading that and did more calculations (not that math is my strong point) and felt better after realizing that because our current rent is artificially low for the amount of space and location (although not for the physical state of the apartment) we are actually going to pay less for a mortgage than we would to rent equivalent space at market rent, even though rents are stagnant or depressed in Brooklyn and there are many many plans for new rental projects/condos and co-ops on the boards in northeastern Brooklyn. Which will inevitably depress the rental market even more, which is why I am glad we decided not to have a tenant.

I suppose W-burg IS the next big thing and so is Clinton Hill (at least for the Economist's readership), and Bed-Stuy is the large amorphous mass right between, and therefore I am probably not making a decision any dumber than anyone else's in deciding to buy a house there. I have noticed too that people's reactions to my saying I'm thinking about buying a house in Bed-Stuy vary a lot, mostly depending on who I'm talking to--those with artsy-liberal tendencies or connections to the black community (or both) are gung-ho, those who have moved elsewhere in Brooklyn because Park Slope is too expensive are cautiously neutral and those who bought in Park Slope and surroundings long ago and haven't looked at housing prices in a while clearly think I am insane but make chipper remarks like "Wow! You're really a pioneer!"

It's reassuring to see that the people who are most like us are curious and want to hear more about Bed-Stuy. This somewhat counterbalances my angst about the car having alternator trouble again (and I just had it fixed 2 1/2 months ago!) and all the snow.

Let me explicate the connection between these seemingly random elements: Once we move to Bed-Stuy (well, to this house, anyway) we will be 7 blocks from the subway that goes to Little T's school, so I was planning to drive him most days, since in fact I drive him most days now, even though the subway is around the corner and takes 7 minutes (4 stops). However, on days when it snows heavily and unexpectedly (like Tuesday) I think, oh no, what am I going to do! and start to panic. Especially when the car won't start.

Of course, once out of the terror of the moment, I realize I could walk the 7 blocks, go get Tom, taking long underwear and snowboots with me, and return, probably without too much damage. And his reluctance to go to school in the morning is going to be a factor no matter where we live, although truly it IS much easier to stuff him in the back of the car, strapped into a booster seat, than it is to try to drag him down the subway steps.

And given that my car is 20 years old, I am going to have to face the fact that someday I will have to replace it. Even though it belonged to my late father and I treasure his obsessively detailed maintenace reports going back to 1985 beyond belief. And even though I will miss having a diesel engine and manual transmission, I am sure automatic steering and working a/c and those auto locking things that beep when you push a button on your key chain will make up for it.

I'll probably be OK, right? If I can buy a house I can buy a used car, without falling apart?

All this and we haven't even signed the contract yet (because it took a WEEK to get from one attorney's office to the other. In the regular mail. Both attorneys are in Brooklyn).

Sleepless Nights

2005-03-08T07:21:00.000-05:00

I was up much of the night contemplating my new dilemma (which may not be a dilemma any more): the first house we bid on is now available again. It is a very cute house. It is less expensive that the second one (I think we are supposed to sign the contract on that today or tomorrow or something) and it's somewhat closer to the subway and also closer to Pratt etc. (but still in Bed Stuy, just on the Clinton Hill border) which I suppose means that it will have better resale value. But, it does need more work (like a new kitchen, or possibly a kitchen added to the second floor by building onto a pre-existing extension) and it doesn't have any storage space (and it's not THAT much less expensive) and it has non-working fireplaces. However, they are not decorative and could be restored.

But, I think that in the end having to pay for storage space and having to improvise closets makes this house not so much a better bargain than #2. It does have a lovely staircase and nice floors and 3.5 bathrooms though. On the other hand, though, it is 4 stories rather than 2 and there is all that dragging of cleaning things up and down ... I can barely manage to clean while everything is all on one floor. I was thinking about that yesterday when I was vacuuming, because I have a Dyson vac, which while really nice is not particularly lightweight and not designed to be hauled up too many stairs, and at $400 or so, not conducive to purchase in multiples. And I don't want any more cheap vacs that don't work well, I am spoiled by the Dyson.

I hope P is still fixed on the same course he was (buying the house we were going to buy) though, because I don't think the vacuum logic would work with him.

ARGH! How is one supposed to make these decisions! I understand more and more all the emails I got from people saying it took them a year to find a house. I interpreted that to mean that there were no houses out there. I now think it means that it takes that long to feel comfortable with your decision! And by then you have seen about 100 houses.

We, however, don't have a year. Well, we would have a year if we moved into a temporary apartment, but I kind of think I would rather die.

As I said to my mom once on a different topic entirely, "I like my decisions MADE."

Moneymoneymoneymoney

2005-03-04T21:32:00.000-05:00

Zee Househuntress, she ees annoyed. She ees theenkeeng, if French Women Don't Get Fat, eet ees becauze zey ARE NOT MARRIED TO ENGLISH MEN!! (uh, yes, I listened to the Brian Lehrer show this morning, what of it?)

OK, so I'm in a generally pissy mood, I can admit that now. And it is probably not entirely Mr Househunt's fault that I am so mad at him. In fact, I had a sucky day today, even unto the minutiae such as finding a parking space (but is that really minute?)

The issue lies in the different styles, I can say now. I am more the "measure twice, cut once" camp, whereas Mr H is more like, "leap before you look" or possibly "marry in haste, repent at leisure."

It's true, Mr Househunt, who has heretofore driven the whole process, is having second thoughts. He is thinking, why should I have to give up my fabulous storage space that I love in order to keep all my books in an unfinished English basement in Bed Stuy. Whereas I, his better half, am standing by thinking irately BECAUSE IT COSTS AN EXTRA $1100 A MONTH!! and trying hard, very hard, not to call him any nasty names.

Of course, he is right, we should consider all the options, blah blah blah. But, in my mind at least, we have discarded this option already. There is pretty much no way we can add another $1100 a month to expenses once we buy the house.

Well we could if we gave up health insurance, but over my dead body.

I think now is the time for the holding period, while we adapt to our new digs and figure out what to do next. Mr H thinks that this business is like a shark and if we stop moving we die.

We're probably both right.

Could this be it?

2005-03-03T10:25:00.000-05:00

587A Lexington Ave
Posted by: househunter.

What can I say? The inspection was practically a lovefest, despite the evidence of termite damage in the basement and the advice to upgrade the lolly columns, add more circuits, and paint the roof silver. For a century-old structure, the house is in great shape. Everything Gloria told us they had done to maintain it is true.

After going over it top to bottom and noting every flaw, we still liked it. In fact, we like it a lot. It's kind of odd, really, because the house doesn't have some of the things I swore I couldn't live without (like original hardwood floors, or a dishwasher) and some things that I swore I couldn't live with (wallpaper borders!) and yet, I don't care, I am content, I'm dying to get the contract signed and let the good times roll.

Is this healthy?

This just in

2005-03-02T05:45:00.000-05:00

Well, not really, I've known since yesterday but first I had to
see my shrink so she could double my prozac dosage. Then I had to
take a nap and go to couples counselling.

Our bid was accepted! And we are having the inspection today. Our
lawyer is supposed to get the contract any second. And then I hope never to speak to the agent again.

The tension is high but I'm holding on

2005-02-28T13:53:00.000-05:00

This morning our real estate lawyer called us and said she had heard
from the seller's attorney and apparently we are the high bidder on
the house and did we know anything about this. Uh, no. She suggested I
call Lawrence at Fillmore and find out what is going on, so I called
him and received a very unclear explanation which I won't even try to
recreate here but after repeated calls to him by P and Michael the
paralegal, it seems to boil down to this (but I am not really sure): 2
or 3 other people bid the asking price on the house but we are the
first so we are supposed to get the contract first. Then we have a
deadline to return it to them and if we make the deadline, we will
have the house. Or something like that.

So it has been a time of high anxiety chez Desperatehousehunt, during
which I forgot to move the car for alternate side parking (but ran out
6 minutes late and fortunately the guy hadn't been by yet), one of us
accidentally broke a chair and P ran out screaming that it was my job
to print out the scan of his green card because he could not stay in
the house one more minute dealing with uncooperative appliances. (The
printer "wasn't working" because it was not turned on). And I went
through 3 different envelopes trying to stuff in the revised mortgage
application before I realized I had to get a different size. And I sat for a while on the sofa thinking "My eyeballs are vibrating and I am getting the most unbelievable headache." And P called from the warehouse to apologize for running out and saying "I am so tense. I am very tense. My tension level is very high."

Yes, I admit it, we are an entertaining pair of drama queens. Little T
will grow up either extremely resilient or prone to cower at the
slightest hint of a raised voice.

But, I can cautiously say that it looks like we may have bought a
house, making me happy since my self imposed deadline was to have
bought a house by the end of the month (all other things being equal)
and it's not even a leap year.

Now, if I can just remember to breathe.

10 things

2005-02-27T21:42:00.000-05:00

We took a mental health break this weekend after bidding on not one but two houses, hiring a real estate lawyer and filling out an awful lot of paperwork. Or maybe it just felt like a lot. I'm sure there's more to come.

Also my mom was here because my sister wanted her to help out with the new baby but not to stay with them (fair enough; it's a one bedroom in the West Village) and then since my mother has a limited ability to take taxis I had to drive her back in to Manhattan and then naturally had to go see the baby who being only 7 days old is extremely kawaii and has a round head the size of a grapefruit which exactly fits in the palm of your hand and so would have been worth it even if I had had to pay to park in a garage (but I didn't--I found a legal street space in front of Jivamukti).

The bid on house #2 was not actually planned as such and who knows what will happen. On Wednesday I gave P a sheet listing 15 houses culled from Craig for him to set up appointments for the weekend. He made one appointment for 10.00 am Thursday in Bed Stuy that never got confirmed and another for 11.00 am which was this house on Lexington Ave. between Sumner and Lewis. When I found out the address I nearly told him to call back and cancel, since those blocks are in my opinion somewhat too far from the subway (and too near a lot of public housing). Plus for some reason he was in a really bad mood and kept accusing me of having an attitude (this from the king of attitude).

When we arrived we were pleased to note that there were no empty lots, although it's not an especially pretty block--there's a ton of newish infill housing. The house we were going to see was part of a row of 5 that look exactly like the standard issue bowfront common to Windsor Terrace and parts south. We were a bit alarmed by a pair of thuggish dogs loitering on a stoop down the block but they were actually pretty well behaved during our visit.

Thus we arrived on the doorstep not expecting much. This house turned out to belong to Gloria, a fairly successful writer of what seem to be romance novels (I haven't read any of them, I'm just going by the reviews). She showed us around and talked about how she and her husband had bought the house 19 years ago and restored it from a shell. And let me tell you, they did a fabulous job. Plus, they have a 7 year old son (same age as T!) It seems like fate--a writer should sell her house to two other writers who run a bookstore, right?

We were stricken with desire, especially after the previous weekend of Badly Renovated Houses and section 8 tenants forlornly resisting eviction. In fact, we bid the asking prices seconds after exiting the house, signing papers on the roof of the broker's car. Perhaps this was rash.

The broker, Lawrence from Fillmore, then called us about a billion times the next day, asking us for all our paperwork, name of the lawyer, etc. I asked everyone I knew about lawyers and ended up picking a woman whose office is down the street from us, so at least we won't have to travel far. And I have a shortlist of 3 engineers when it comes time to do the inspection. And Lawrence gave my number to some mortgage broker who wants me to apply for an "80-10-10" mortgage, which at first annoyed me and then began to seem intriguing.

I feel that we are at a standstill and I don't know what's going to happen next. Maybe we will regain our energy, but it seems kind of ridiculous to keep going on wearing ourselves out seeing houses when we already have made bids on two. How many bids can we submit? How long will it take to find out if our bids were accepted or rejected? And what about all those other houses we never went to see? Are we going to regret it?

In other news, I've lost interest in East Flatbush because cable modems don't seem to be available there. Although who knows, the Time Warner website with the map on where cable is available only shows part of Brooklyn (but all of Queens) with different neighborhoods in different colors, then when you click on your neighborhood (except for the missing parts of Brooklyn--hey it just occurred to me, maybe those belong to some OTHER cable system) you get the same map again, except it's all colered pale pink and there's a note to the effect that roadrunner is available everywhere except for a few tiny pockets that are not TWC's fault (OK so I'm paraphrasing here). Maybe I shouldn't worry then.

Perhaps I would feel better if I list my accomplishments (so far):

Ten things I've done in the course of trying to buy a house in Brooklyn

1 Applied for a mortgage
2 Been pre-qualified for a mortgage
3 Would be pre-approved from a mortgage except that the amended forms I sent back to the credit union never arrived
4 Filled out a second corrected mortgage application except that P signed in the wrong spot (co-borrower instead of borrower). I'm not sure what to do about this.
5 Discovered that while P's credit report (despite his having an extremely common name) is absolutely correct, my own credit report (although I have both an unusual first name and uncommon surname) is mixed up with the history of someone with a completely different name, SS# and birthdate, all of which are on the report along with mine and because there are two mailing addresses listed, I can only dispute in writing (not online or on the phone). This woman has over $100K in credit card debt. (I have none.)
6 Figured out how to withdraw money from my retirement account for the least penalty
7 Retained a lawyer for the first time ever
8 Been to Avenue K
9 Learned my way around Bedford-Stuyvesant
10 Not actually threatened to leave my husband

Hm. It seems like there should be more ...

We still may not get the house, either house, but this whole process has been exhausting and we needed a break. Even my writing style sounds tired.

Changing plans

2005-02-19T05:14:00.000-05:00

Our story so far: When last seen, our heroes, an entreprenuerial (among other things) couple, have tentatively decided to go in for re-habbing a mixed-use building in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Many hijinks and wackiness ensue, with lots of phone calls to potential lenders (since our current mortgage approval is no good for other than a completely residential building). I now know of the existence of many groups (not quite banks) which lend on properties in Brooklyn and I'm sure that will come in handy sometime.

However, the most fruitful phone call was to an architect I know from a local moms and first babies group (I haven't really seen her since frenzied dicussions about preschools 4 or 5 years ago). She, bless her heart, immediately agreed to go look at the place with me.

The whole visit was very informative, especially since the heavy rain earlier in the week had resulted in much of the suspended ceiling falling in on the ground floor -- not a pretty picture. Anyway, in addition to all the blatantly obvious issues (this is the crap-strewn building, for those needing a memory refresher), and givens like new windows, re-wiring, and fixing the pumbing, she also pointed out that the garage was near collapse and there was no mortar between the bricks, so the whole facade would need repointing (very expensive and time-consuming apparently). Also, there was a lot of asbestos in the basement, possibly enough so that removal would become an asbestos job.

This final item was what definitively did it for me. Never mind the potential $500K price tag and the 8-10 month time frame--difficult but solvable problems. My father died of mesothelioma, a cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. There is absolutely no way I could buy and live in a building that needed major asbestos work (note to self: must get that put in contract). Do not try to get me to listen to logic on this one.

This was Thursday. On Friday, we decided to put in a bid on the really really cute house we saw over the weekend, even though the basement was too small. Perhaps I should spare you the many twists and turns of logic that led to that conclusion, although the very very simple version is that what with all the begging and pleading and stroking and massaging I did whilst trying to sort out a mortgage for a mixed-use building, we realized that if we could put down 20% on a smaller house we could afford to keep the warehouse space.

Of course, after we actually did it I decided I hated it and we were crazy, but I'm over that now and focused on how graceful the curve of the banister is and how the kitchen might be redone and how much it would cost to make the small single story rear extension into a small three-story extension so we could turn it into a bijou
owner's triplex with a garden rental (probably too much for right now, but I'm heady with a beginner's knowledge of construction financing).

Now to find a real estate attorney ...

(Realistically, though, I doubt we'll get the first house we bid on, especially since there's very little upside to our bid, but it helps to be prepared).

This weekend we are going to see a few cherry-picked listings in Midwood, where a lot of families from P's school have moved or are considering moving, having been priced out of Ditmas Park (where a lot of people ended up because it's part of district 15).

So maybe we'll move to Avenue K! This househunting thing is all about possibilities.

In other news, my youngest sister had her baby!!!!!

Doing the numbers

2005-02-14T20:51:00.000-05:00

Yesterday (Sunday) we saw three houses: a beat-up quasi-brownstone in
Bed-Stuy, an adorable but too-small house on the Bed-Stuy/Clinton
Hill border (or maybe it was in Bed-Stuy, just near Pratt) and
another house on Franklin Ave., but possibly still in Bed-Stuy, across
from a recently privatized public housing project, but we couldn't see
most of it because it wasn't the regular time to show it.

I have to say that 3 houses in a day is WAY better than 6 or 7. Even
though it was depressing, because the first house was so unloved and
so badly laid out, that even I couldn't summon up any wish to nurture
it, plus the roof problem would have been obvious to a blind person.
The details were all chipped or broken or missing, the repairs were
bad and the carpeting was hideous. It was just so sad. I pitied it,
but had no desire to save it.

Then the second house was SO cute. We liked it so much but there was
NO way we could fit ourselves and our books and our offices and
ourselves in it. We actually spent about 20 minutes trying to sort it
out. It had such a feeling of being a house lived in by a happy
family. This even though on the parlor floor the HUGEST projection TV
I have ever seen was wedged between the pocket doors. It must have
been 5 or 6 feet wide. I am not exaggerating. The top floor was a
little attic with low ceilings and eaves and bright sky blue
carpeting. I liked it even though I am not a carpeting fan.

The 3rd house had a 2 story extension on the back so it was bigger,
plus the basement had been nicely finished and painted white, which
made it feel more spacious. But again, the problem in looking at these
houses that are not only occupied, but filled to the ceilings with
boxes and furniture and clothing, is that it's impossible to know
whether you like them or not, because the sight of other people's
hideous stuff is so distracting. And how are you supposed to decide if
you want to spend $600000 on something if you can't even see all of
it. I long to live in a part of the country where the houses for sale
are tidied up before the public is admitted.

Although not enough to actually move.

This rather lackluster day got us thinking about the crap-filled
laundrette building again. That afternoon we went to our warehouse
space (we rent part of a loft in a former industrial building in
Dumbo, where we keep our stock) and I was looking at it and thought,
hey that laundrette building had two garages and 2 extra little rooms
on each floor so even though the basement wasn't that great for
storage, there might still be enough room for everything and us too.
And then I thought some more and realized (suddenly) that that
building really offered the most space for the least amount of money,
and even with the renovation costs, was still going to cost the least.
Even though, after reviewing the video he shot, P turned to me with a
totally white face and said "the bathrooms look like they belong in a
doss house!"

However, the sticking point is that since it's a mixed-use building
(commercial on the ground floor, residential above) our current
mortgage approval is no good, since my home-town credit union (where I
have had an account since I was 14, when my dad opened it for me so I
could have a place to deposit my allowance and babysitting money--of
course, I couldn't really make much use of it for the next 2 years
since I couldn't pay for anything with a check because I didn't have
any ID till I got my driver's license, but hey, it's the
educating-your-teenage-daughter-to-be-prudent-with-money-and-balance-her-checkbook
thought that counts), anyway, the credit union doesn't lend on
mixed-use buildings or condos or co-ops. So I will have to find
another lender.

I read up on commercial loans (isn't the web wonderful?) and
discovered that most commercial lenders are very conservative and
require 20% down and also many of them won't lend on owner-occupied
buildings. But someone in NYC must specialize in these teensy 3 story
mixed-use buildings, because they are on practically every corner lot
in Brooklyn. The 20% down would be a stretch, but I think we could
manage. I see that the Bedford-Stuyvesant Redevelopment Corp. has
funds to lend to women & minority owned businesses, although I
imagine that I am not exactly what they have in mind.

Then after running through the numbers in my head, I realized (giant
DUH! here) that we should really try to make a 20% down payment on
whatever we buy. Because then we could buy a smaller house, because
then we could afford to keep our warehouse space. Which solves one
problem for us, which is that any house that was big enough to keep
books in and have an office in that we could afford was some place
unsavory, and most smaller places in nicer areas were too expensive
for us (in terms of how much we would have to pay out monthly). But,
if we get a smaller mortgage we can afford to hang onto the warehouse.
Or if we get a similar size mortgage and decide to have a tenant we're
still in good shape, because we won't need to have the storage space in the house
and again the books can stay where they are.

So tomorrow P is going to feel out the broker for the laundrette
building as to what sort of offers might be acceptable and I am going
to find a commercial lender.

In the meantime we are going to ... keep ... on ... looking. Possibly the three most horrible words in the language.

Saturday House Marathon

2005-02-12T18:24:00.000-05:00

We looked at soooo many houses today and I am completely zonked. Next time we have to bring some healthy snacks (the delis in the neighborhoods where we are looking are not well stocked). And maybe some speed.

First, we looked at a mixed-use building on a corner in Bed-Stuy. The building was physically a lot like the one we live in now--wide and fairly deep (extending almost the length of the lot, so about 85 ft on the ground floor) and was built about the same time, so I was confident that unless the interior had been completely renovated in the 70s there was probably some nice detail remaining inside.

And I was right about the detail. But also remaining were many if not most of the possessions of the former residents, as well as some unsavory souvenirs of their pets. The building had possibly been used as a rooming house on one floor, although there were a crib (set out amidst lots of unidentifiable-small-animal crap and other garbage) and a lot of toys and school-related stuff on the top floor, including a
bunch of Yu-gi-oh! cards which T pounced on. The realtor was horrified that I even let him touch them. I compromised by letting her give him a bottle of hand sanitizer and telling him that he had to wash his hands before he ate.

In addition to the animal leavings, the toilets were unflushed (perhaps unflushable? I put the lids down and didn't try the handle. One good thing about the weather being so cold lately is that there wasn't too much of a stink). The kitchens looked like someone took every bag of rice, flour or cornmeal available and threw the contents into the air. What a mess.

Despite the mess, if the mechanicals/structural stuff on that building turn out to be in OK shape, I am inclined to give it a go, although who knows. The rooms, when not
filled with garbage, looked like they would be well proportioned and there was a lot of detail remaining, including a beaded woodwork screen (I love those), mostly original doors, built-in breakfronts, pocket doors, etc. I could see it looking great when it was cleaned up.

But, the big question of course is how much would it cost to clean up? And is the building structurally sound? There was a lot of bracing in the basement (maybe
to hold up the machines in the laundrette?) and something is definitely going on with the roof--how bad I don't know. But if the building needs structural or mechanical work, in addition to to clean up costs (ripping out the carpets and vinyl flooring, taking out the partition walls, fixing the plaster) I'm not sure we could afford it. There is a similar building on the market about a block away for $100K more, and I don't think this building needs $100K of work, so maybe it would all be OK in the end.

After that we saw a couple of brownstones in Bed-Stuy, including 697 Madison and 786 Hancock and a new house on Halsey that was actually pretty nice. The brownstones had tenants living in them though, which made them less appealing to us, since we want to occupy the whole building and loathe the idea of tossing anyone out. The Madison house had a section 8 tenant with 2 little girls and a super who lived there with his mother in law, his wife (both draped in black from head to toe) and an amazing amount of electronic equipment. The Hancock St house was inhabited by more people in headscarves, but was across the street from Friday's really cute house. That block is very nice. I think all those houses are pretty similar in terms of size, although I didn't really get to linger and look at any of them. The brownstones were open houses and a TON of people were looking. Maybe what they say about Bed Stuy's hotness is true and not just hype.

Then we went to look at a house in Crown Heights on Dean between Albany & Kingston. Again, it was fully occupied, this time packed full of plastic-covered furniture and wide-screen projection TVs.

The owner's apartment had the exact opposite issue from the first building--it was so done up and renovated and idiosyncratic it was impossible to see how to restore it to anything more neutral. There were a lot of people looking at this building also.

Then after that we went to McDonalds. Well, husband and son did, since there is nothing at McDonalds which I can even contemplate consuming. I stayed in the car and tried to sketch floorplans for all the houses we had seen.

Then we went to see a place on St Johns between Buffalo and Rochester, which is kind of a rough area, verging on East New York/Brownsville. The building was nothing special, although it was quite large. The top floor was occupied by an incredibly sweet couple who had lived there for 36 years, who barely spoke any english. The husband had no front teeth and was the super of building and had maintained it pretty well. The floor below we weren't allowed to see, but were assured that it was the same layout as the top floor. The ground floor, although originally a restaurant, had been converted into two small apartments (the building is pretty deep) and the owner is supposedly going to change the C of O from commercial to residential. The basement was OK, kind of low-ceilinged, but clear. But the neighborhood! It's going to be a while before that edge of Crown Heights sees an influx of hipsters.

By then my head was pounding (maybe because at least two of the houses we looked at had been thoroughly cleaned with Murphy's Oil Soap, to which I am rather sensitive) and it was time to go home. T had been pretty good the whole time, only occasionally announcing that he was "bored bored bored!" (plus McDonalds had some kind of Yu Gi Oh-like cards--duel masters?--which came with the kiddie meal) but we had all just about had enough.

Ack! How are we EVER going to find a house we like?!?! And can afford? Patrick, the
agent for the final house (a preppy Jamaican, or maybe he grew up in the UK--he actually sounded kind of Irish, but maybe that was the force of suggestion) told us that on average people look at 10 houses over the course of 8 weeks before they find the one they want to buy.

I'm not sure I can last that long.

So-so so far

2005-02-11T13:06:00.000-05:00

OK, so I'm depressed. We looked at some houses in Bedford-Stuyvesant and none of them were good. Well, one was a building site, one was a building site in Bushwick, and one was quite nice but needed a lot of fixing up and was too small and poorly laid out for our needs, but it was really cute and P liked it. And it was the first one we saw that actually had a nice backyard. I kept thinking how pleased T would have been. Of course, he likes any house that has a closet big enough for a 7 year old to hide in.

It always makes me sad to see a) houses being badly renovated and b) cute houses begging for a good renovation that I can't actually buy and give the love and attention they need, so that was a double whammy. Plus the agents weren't nice to us. The first guy talked fast and argued with me when I said I didn't want to live in Bushwick ("You have to make up your mind whether you want to spend more money or you want to live here!") and the second guy was miffed at us because we got the address wrong and ended up being 10 minutes late (we were waiting in front of a house at the opposite end of the block) and only let us look around for about 10 minutes. So not only was it a cute house that wasn't suited to us, it was a cute house I didn't get to ogle.

We also went and looked at the outside of a mixed-use building we've been trying to get to see and were a bit taken aback to find hand-written signs plastered all over it that said "For Sale By Owner" along with "We Buy Houses for All Cash."

But we're still going to try to get to see it one way or another.

Next: House marathon Saturday!

Neighborhoods: Crown Heights

2005-02-10T15:35:00.000-05:00

I've lived in Brooklyn since 1991, long enough to remember the days when Park Slope was just a thin band of safety between 7th and the Park and when Boerum Hill was scary because of the projects. So when I look at a beautiful big limestone house on Dean St between Albany and Troy and see that to get to the 3 train you have to walk past the Albany Houses and getting to the A/C on Fulton requires going through an unpopulated industrial area with lots of warehouses and UPS trucks and under the elevated LIRR tracks on Atlantic Ave, I get nervous. Although the immediate surrounding blocks are perfectly nice and Revere Place is like an urban picture postcard. And if you walk a couple blocks west to Nostrand and go to the subway along Nostrand Ave., it's fine. I think. A bit further east, though, and you are nearly in Brownsville. Go west? Hipsters abound, apparently, near the Brooklyn Museum, but we can't afford it.

So: the saga begins

2005-02-10T14:58:00.000-05:00

So at the beginning of January our dysfunctional landlord called to say he is not renewing our lease because he needs our apartment to live in because he's getting a divorce. I guess his stbx will live in their current place. Or something. Does it even matter? We are on our way out from our cozy if under-renovated nest in Windsor Terrace near the park and movie theater and just 20 minutes by car or subway from our son's school (Brooklyn New School).

So we legally got 90 days (lease was up at the end of the month + 60 days) to buy a house, and we needed a kick in the ass to get going on the whole thing, but still.

Now it's 30 days later and the house hunt is in full force. We got approved for a mortgage at the beginning of February (anybody can get a mortgage these days).

I don't know how it is for anyone else, but this whole
househunting thing is HARD for me and P. In part because the
housing market in Brooklyn in kind of crazy, and because all the
"good" neighborhoods are either really expensive or really
inconvenient.

So we are looking at moving into a somewhat marginal neighborhood.
"Marginal" in Brooklyn has few components, mainly
1. Crime rate
2. Proximity to public housing projects (which tends to
correlate with [1]),
3. Proximity to industrial areas
4. Proximity to highways, elevated rail lines, or undeveloped places that might suddenly
be developed into something objectionable.

It's all quite fraught.

Because we need more room that the average family, and we don't want
to have a tenant, and we need lots of storage space (to house our mail-order book business), I feel like we
can't count on safety in numbers (which essentially means that usually
neighborhoods get gentrified because there are a lot of middle-class people priced out of previously middle-class areas people making
these same decisions at the same time who are likely to make similar
choices). It feels like a huge gamble and that I have very few good ways to
hedge my bet.

This is making us both so tense and anxious that yesterday we had a
HUGE fight about whether the person sitting in the passenger seat of
the car can see the dashboard clock and whether if it wasn't in the
passenger seat occupant's immediate line of sight whether that person
should be obligated to move his head so he could see the clock and
tell the time for himself or whether it was OK to ask the driver, who
had a lot of other things on her mind and didn't appreciate being
treated like a walking timepiece, what time it was, especially since
about 30 seconds earlier she had mentioned that we still had about 5
minutes before we had to meet the agent at the house.

Although agreeing on a house should pretty much be a piece of cake, since we
both know what we want and need. It's choosing the neighborhood, which
is kind of up to me (research girl) that is going to be really hard.
And if elementary-school-age T ever gets mugged on his way home from
school because we are too near the projects, I will die. I can't even
think about stuff like resale value (and since prices in many Brooklyn
neighborhoods have been appreciating at something like 30% a YEAR
recently, that's all the brokers want to talk about. And the sellers
are all really smug).