Time Ticks Away...

Everything seemed to be falling into place, with a tentative closing date of Thursday, Dec. 17. We'd hired a sewer lateral company (And I recommend them highly, Terra Nova Engineering), they were scheduled to come in and get the sewer done on Tuesday, Dec. 15.

Then it all fell apart again. A rainstorm moved in, causing the sewer lateral work to get postponed to Dec. 17 - a closing still possible, if we can get the completion paperwork from them early enough in the day. But then a bigger hoop appears - F. gets notice from the underwriter on Wednesday that they would like all the Section 1 work called out in the termite inspection completed (more on that in a minute) and since the inspection mentioned missing window cranks on some of the casement windows, they would like all those replaced. Oh, and after all this work is done, could we please have an inspector look at it again? Are you serious? We're not going to get our loan if the windows are missing cranks??? Thursday closing out the window, I go home and alternate between blubbering and cursing like a sailor, and drink lots of wine. The powerlessness of this process is what drives me out of my tree. The Husband and the dogs give me wide berth.

The termite inspection does not just deal with termites, of course, it also includes water damage - and ours showed some dry rot in two or three places in the eves (near the wooden gutter), at the base of posts on the front porch, and in the door jamb of a side door. Not a lot of work, but finding someone to do it, and quickly, is the challenge - our loan rate has an expiration date. F. scrambles to find a handyman, ends up calling the selling agent, henceforth known as Champ. (We've learned that the seller owns a great deal of property in Richmond, Albany, and Berkeley - and Carmel. And Champ manages a great deal of it.) Champ tells us he can get the work done in the next 2-3 days. We love Champ. F. loves Champ. We start planning the gift basket we can give Champ at the end of this long nightmare.

So if the work can get done over the weekend, then perhaps F. can get an inspector in Monday or Tuesday, and we can get funded and recorded while we are home in Missouri for a few days - and we will be handed keys when we get back.

Sorry for the Long Absence...

...but despair did indeed set in. Our second appraiser hailed from Discovery Bay, had never been to Richmond before; the day of the appraisal she complained to our agent F. that she had to appraise our place, a house in Oakland, and one in Walnut Creek, all in the same day, and had never worked in any of those three places. Not reassuring. F. did her best, sent many comps, more comps of comparable neighborhoods. The results came in on Dec. 1.: she appraised the house at $235K. $235K!!!! Pardon me, but if you show me a nice house in a nice neighborhood in the Bay Area that I can buy for $235K, I will buy it. I have never seen such a rare and wondrous beast

I mean, honestly, $235K? You should have seen the properties she used as comps in her appraisal - horrible! So now we have two supposedly equally qualified appraisers (both certified at the highest level); one who knows the area and appraised the property at $365K, and another from elsewhere who appraised it at $235K. I want to call the HUD office and scream, "Who is right???!" And isn't a $130K difference just a bit ridiculous? Have they made the system more flawed by insisting on random selection of appraisers?

We get on the phone with our mortgage broker and F. Can we go back to the first loan of $300K? And can we tell the selling agent the second appraisal, and tell him $300K is all we can offer? F. gets on the phone immediately - and the selling agent is once again a champ. He tells her he will do his best to get this deal done. Calls back several hours later, and says they will accept $300K, but we have to cover closing costs, and no new roof. It will mean more money upfront from us, but we'll save overall. Here goes again.

We're Waiting Experts...Not

Our mortgage broker told us last Monday that the new appraiser (hired by the underwriter's intermediary - the number of parties involved in a loan gets pretty confusing) would call to set up payment first, then schedule an appointment at the house with F. I'm delighted when they call on Tuesday, thought maybe we'd have to wait until after Thanksgiving. I give payment information, the appraiser calls the house and speaks to the Husband, who connects her with F. Turns out the appraiser lives in Discovery Bay, not familiar with Richmond at all. F. sends her comps from the previous appraiser; Appraiser 2 asks about similar areas, and F. tells her about Richmond Annex, sends more comps. They schedule an appointment for the day before Thanksgiving.

F. discovers there is no lockbox on the door the night before the appointment; calls the selling agent to ask how to get in, he says, "Use the key from the lockbox." Uh-oh. He arrives, discovers someone has cut off the lokbox, gone inside and stolen the washer and dryer, and the hood over the stove (?!!!). How is this possible? I tell others about this, start hearing horror stories of fully-staged houses in Piedmont, San Francisco, Walnut Creek being emptied by thieves. Feel slightly better that this is not a Richmond-centric crime.

The selling agent is a champ, gets a new hood up before the appraiser arrives on Wed. Appraiser 2 likes the neighborhood, likes the house; complains to F. about the new rules on appraising, and that she gets called to appraise neighborhoods she has no familiarity with (like Richmond - and her next stops are Oakland and Walnut Creek, never appraised in either area). We're hopeful that she will appraise at our offer level, but then the underwriter has to accept it, so there's no predicting success. Appraiser 2 tells F. she will turn in her appraisal by Monday, and we should hear from the underwriter by Wed. Just trying not to despair.

Moving Along at a Fast Clip, And Then...

Things were going along so well, you knew it couldn't last. We shared the inspection report with the sellers, and to our complete surprise, they agreed to replace the roof. No negotiation, no splitting of costs, they would simply handle it. We sent them an offer addendum, and they signed it without hesitation.

Some of the remodeling quotes we've received have caused us to clutch our hearts (and my inner calculator starts ratcheting up). Replace all the windows with new vinyl (not paintable fiberglass)? $10,000. Sewer lateral? $4,100. Put in wood floors in the living and dining rooms and front hall? $7,000 for 500 square feet. (That last quote was from the champagne of wood floor companies - we will now be looking into the beer price range).

The mortgage broker let us know that the underwriter asked for a little clarification from the appraiser, wanted to know why he had gone so high (just over our $360K offer). He provided, they approved the loan and the broker requested the "loan docs." The underwriter did mention that the appraisal had to go through a "desk review," but suggested that this was a formality, no reason we couldn't move ahead. I was beginning to think that maybe we could close by Nov. 30.

Then on Friday, it all caved in. We got an email from our broker saying that the desk review appraisal had come in much lower than our offer - just $300K, in fact. He was flabbergasted, our agent was flabbergasted, even the rep for the underwriter was flabbergasted. The desk review is just what it sounds like - some person in suburban Los Angeles looks at the appraiser's reports, pulls their own comparative prices (and in this case, they pulled short sales and foreclosures from around Richmond, although this property is neither). Does not visit the property, doesn't know the neighborhood - but makes the final decision on appraised value. No appeal.

So our loan went up in smoke. We are scrambling to restructure our loan and work with another lender - conventional, not FHA - and of course pay for another appraisal. We let the selling agent know, he was very understanding, and shocked at the low appraisal. I am now back to work on my house ulcer.

Who's Afraid of a Little Inspection??

The inspector did his look-see (several hours worth) on Friday, sent his report today. Luckily he walked me, my brother and F. through the highlights on Friday (The Husband is away in the homelands of the Midwest, being a good son and making his wife proud.). The two big issues: the house needs a new roof - and gutters, and eave works; and a new circuit board - there are several old fuse boxes in the house, all with larger fuses than they were designed to handle, but still not enough to power modern appliances. There are wooden (wooden!) gutters on the lower level of the house, and the inspector illustrated the need for new ones by taking his poking tool and reaching up to poke a hole in the gutter over the garage - with no apparent effort. Yikes.

The inspector waxed rhapsodically about the state-of-the-art furnace, installed in 2006, with 97% efficiency rating and sparkling new ductwork. His enthusiasm was infectious, but our spirits dimmed a bit when he told us there was absolutely no insulation in the attic, and several upstairs windows did not close all the way. So much for furnace efficiency! Quirks all over the house, including a panic switch in the second bedroom; when switched, it rings a very loud alarm bell outside. Say wha???

F., my brother, our friend who stopped by, all tried to persuade me to keep the giant banquette and matching mod lighting fixture in the kitchen. I agreed to consider it, but the butterflies have GOT to go.

Hurtling Forward

After months of frustration and rejection (that I internalized completely - why wouldn't someone want a nice responsible couple like the Husband and I to buy their house?), it's a little unnerving how quickly everything starts rolling once the offer is accepted.

Appointments this Friday for property, roof and pest inspections; sewer lateral repair will come drop their video in the pipes to take a peek, and the wood floor guy coming by to take a look and give us an estimate.

F. and the Husband met the loan appraiser at the house today; he gave the place a big thumbs up, told them no worries on the appraised value. F. told me later that the Husband walked around with a clipboard, inspecting doors and windows (once a cop, always a cop). Sure enough, he called later and said the sliding glass door in back needed to be replaced, and we needed to put burglar bars on the laundry room window, because it was tucked away where no neighbors could see it. I am now in the process of tracking down window replacement quotes. I see my future - and it's all home improvement. But I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to choosing our own colors for the walls. Farewell, apartment white walls!!

Momentum Starts to Build

F. got the contract back, no sneaky changes, so go, go, go. She's already scheduled property, roof and pest inspections for one day next week; also has the sewer lateral video inspection (City of Richmond has a grant program for sewer laterals, but you have to submit a video inspection and three bids). Since she knows that we want to replace the carpet in the living room and dining room before moving in, she suggests getting them out for an estimate the same day.

We met with the mortgage broker on Friday; he took us through our various options. Both the Husband and I thought he'd been through Dale Carnegie training, because he made a point of saying our names every time he responded to a question. "Well, M., that's a very good question." "Now, M., the reason that I bring this up is..." We signed heaps of paper, many more to follow, I know.

We finished up with time to spare, so on our way home we stopped at Tulip Floors in Berkeley, since the Husband and I had not discussed specifics of a wood floor, and I wanted to find out if we were on the same page. We both wanted darker wood (yay) but the Husband surprised me by leaning towards a scraped finish - he said a flat finish looks like you've panelled your floor. Seven years of marriage, and I'm still learning new things. Scraped finish it is! We make an appointment for Tulip to come out and measure, give us an estimate.

Then we go home and sit with a calculator and some paper, and write all the numbers down. Once again, I feel the need for a brown bag. There's not much chance we can close by November 30, so hoping the federal government will extend the tax benefit for first time homebuyers past November 30...that $8,000 would be a nice step to replenishing the savings.

Can It Be True???

Could this long ordeal be over? F. calls (and I happen to be staring at my computer screen, so see an email from our mortgage broker flash up just as the phone rings). The selling agent says the seller has accepted our offer -BUT - the agent wants to review the offer agreement when the seller FedExes it back. He is concerned that retired-real-estate-attorney- seller may have made changes to the agreement without telling him. But tentatively...full steam ahead!!

F. starts talking inspection, pest report, sewer lateral, and my head starts to whirl. Mortgage Broker wants to set up a meeting pronto to get our paperwork and do some signing. Do I keep a brown bag in my office? Must call the Husband.

My boss stops by, tells me to just think of it as Monopoly money, smile and sign. If you give it too much thought, he says, you'd never do it.

I pull up the house on the street view of Google Maps and stare at it for a long, long time.

Got Patience? Can You Loan Me Some??

I am doing surprisingly well not thinking about the Richmond house every minute - helps that I'm crazy busy at work. But at lunch today I found myself shopping for window treatments that would just happen to fit the large windows in a certain unowned-by-us house. And watching Sweat Equity on DIY has become an obsession, especially since it's bathroom and kitchen week!!!

The Husband and I cruised five open houses on Sunday. The first was a smallish (870 sq ft) mock-MacGregor in El Cerrito. Tiny living room with a ginormous kitchen behind it, with a sadly neglected O'Keefe & Merritt stove (neglecting a stove of that vintage should be a felony). Built in 1925, it had another interesting feature; the bedroom closets had multiple short bars that were perpendicular to the back wall, instead of one long one parallel. Death-defying back stairs to the yard and the back door to the basement semi-finished, very damp, and we looked around for a coal chute for the ancient furnace. The very nice agent sitting in the kitchen told us he had gotten estimates for pest, electrical, new furnace. Asking price: $419.5.

We headed up into the hills for the second house, up above the Arlington at the north end, where El Cerrito becomes Richmond. The flyer said "generous fixer," and they weren't kidding about the fixer part - a huge living room with big windows toward the Bay, but the view mostly blocked by the birch trees planted in the front yard. And there was a definite slope downward on all the front rooms, severe enough that closet and bathroom doors would not close. Little hallways ran off in all directions, a bedroom here, two or three there. All with shredded, threadbare carpet, tatty old wallpaper. There was an attempt to modernize the dining room in the 70s, I guessed, because the built-in cabinets were painted avocado green, with glued on rocks for a mosaic effect. The kitchen had dark brown cabinets, dark brown appliances, dark brown floor - gave the feeling of a muddy tunnel. All this could be ours for just $299K.

Down the hill into northern El Cerrito to look at a little bungalow built around 1916. Two bedrooms, and the owners have done a lovely job with color and design updates inside; the driveway is closed off to make more of the yard, and it is a bit over-landscaped; the Husband starts pointing out what he'd pull out. A closer look at the outside shows many, many cracks in the stucco, and there are holes right under the eaves. We chat with the agent, who it turns out, was the agent for the pink house in Richmond Annex (he kindly tells us we made a very nice bid, but we hear again that the folks who got it bid $2K more than we did and waived inspection, so paid for the $13K in section 1 repairs out of their own pocket. Bygones.). He tells us that these owners are tough, but will pay for the new roof that's needed, but will not cover the sewer lateral or the plumbing repairs that need to be done under the house. We like him very much, but it is clear to us that these owners did the cosmetic things and ignored the bones of the house. Asking price: $479K.

There's an open house catty-corner from this one, we decide to peek. The flyer calls it and elegant 1920s "Exec Home," and we are wowed as soon as we step inside, see the high ceilinged foyer with a sweeping staircase curving up the back wall. Huge living room, huge dining room, I could see Don Draper from Mad Men buying this place to entertain. There's a maid's bedroom and bathroom off the kitchen; the master bedroom upstairs has a walk-in closet for clothes, and another closet with all kinds of cupboards for accessories. Not a single thing has been updated in the kitchen or bathrooms, and it's still lovely. We look out the back window, and our hearts fall - the entire backyard has been paved in cement, and the entire width of the back property line is an open, four-car garage. Not a speck of green anywhere. Who turns an entire yard into a driveway? The binder in the kitchen tells a sad story of new roof needed, $30K pest report, new electrical estimate. I stop in the foyer and say to the Husband, "If we had more money, we could fix this up beautifully." He says, "If we had more money, we'd buy one already fixed." Therein lies our respective feelings about houses, in one exchange. Asking price on this fixer: $599K.

We're headed for home when we see an open house sign for one of the ones I looked at with F. and ruled out - the fixer filled with creepy reminders of sad occupants. The Husband wants a peek, so we park, walk through the open garage to the backyard, in through the utility room door, and explore the whole back of the house before we encounter the agent sitting on the old plaid couch in the dining room. I am immediately reminded of Mama from the movie "What's Eating Gilbert Grape." She is very large, in a loose-fitting muu-muu of a top, sunk into the couch like it's eating her whole. A young girl in the room with her hands us the flyer, and the agent never moves from the couch (I'm not sure she could, without help), chatting us up. I'm getting a fresh set of the creeps. We can't get out the door fast enough.

And We Wait, And Wait...

So much for a response by Saturday. Not a peep from the other agent. F. tells us to remain calm, and I drink a healthy amount of wine with dinner to help me maintain my serenity, fall asleep on the Husband's shoulder while watching a movie from the couch.

AND NO WORD SUNDAY!!! F. has called and emailed, nothing from the other agent, but again she counsels calm, as the agent mentioned that the seller lived in Arizona, and was a bit difficult to contact. She insists we go to some open houses (which I'll write about later).

FINALLY - a phone call on Monday morning. Turns out the seller is a retired real estate attorney. Oy. The seller's agent asks how we came up with the number for our offer of $360K (research and consulting with two appraisers, that's how!) and that the seller wanted to know if we had intended to check the box (that was unchecked) on our offer that said we would pay $360K, no matter how the appraisal came back. F. informed him in no uncertain terms that no, if the appraisal came back lower, we would be negotiating. The agent asked if we would handle inspection, pest report, sewer lateral - yes, yes, yes. He tells us that he has Fed Exed our offer to the seller, and will get back to us as soon as possible, no later than the end of the week.

The end of the week???!!!! Time to get started on that ulcer...

Fingers and Toes Crossed

F. wanted to move quickly on the house on Clinton Hill in the Richmond, so the Husband toured it with her on Thursday morning. She said by the time they reached the downstairs family room, he was whimpering quietly, "I waaaaaaant this house." F. is ahead of us, she has contacted our mortgage broker, and asked him to call some local assessors, get an idea of how high we can go in this area, since it's new to all of us. I poke around on Zillow, see that houses in the area have sold in the low-to-mid 300s, and sure enough, the assessors come back and tell us $360K would be the limit.

We scramble, get an offer together on Thursday, and out to the selling agent - he tells us that he is expecting another offer, but will get us an answer in a day or two. Just so we aren't left hanging, F. has put a deadline of 6:00PM Saturday for their response.

The Husband has perused the City of Richmond's crime maps, and plans to go into the station and talk with them, cop to cop, about the area. He tells me that I will have to carry a phone when I walk the dogs, and he will show me how to use pepper spray if I'd like. (I try to imagine getting to pepper spray with two dog leashes in my hand. And I wonder what the Husband would have thought of the neighborhoods I lived in NYC and Hoboken back in the day...he would have never let me leave the house.)

We can't resist, it's a beautiful evening on Friday, so we load up the dogs and take them to Clinton Hill, take a long walk in the neighborhood. We meet a chatty woman walking her cattle dog, and she joins us, telling us that she used to live in Berkeley but she feels much safer here. We walk past the house, make a wish.

Round and Round.

Tuesday night, F. and I set out to hit four houses (hopefully all before dark). First stop is the house that was supposed to be open Sunday - F. has followed the instructions and called to leave a message that we were stopping by. Even so, we are letting ourselves in when the front door opens, and a college-age girl in sweats peers out at us. We explain that we called, she nods and lets us in, and we can clearly smell her dinner in the kitchen. A pudgy old schnauzer trails after us in the living room; when we come to a stop she gently paws my heels, so I turn and pet her. A few more steps, she follows, she paws, I pet. The girl comes out of the kitchen, scoops her up, grabs a bowl from the counter, and heads up to a bedroom, closing the door behind her. Guess we won't see that bedroom. The house is partially updated, kitchen looks good, floors refinished. A card table and folding chair are the only furniture in the living room, and when we see the other bedroom, there are two twin mattresses on the floor. Hmm. Downstairs from the kitchen is the laundry room and entrance to the garage; down another half-flight is a rec room, nice other than the old green linoleum, and the stains where water has pooled in the middle. We walk into the backyard, and along the side of the house is a gully where yesterday's downpour must have flowed, eroding the neighbor's fence. And there's no back fence, just scattered cinderblocks, and a drop-off of a three foot retaining wall into the back neighbor's yard. Huh. Asking price: $469K.

We stop by the "retro" place that the Husband and I checked out Sunday. F. sees too much that needs to be fixed, and doesn't like the flow. We agree that $495K is ridiculous; if they dropped the price $75K it might be worth considering.

Next stop is the place in Richmond, whose exterior set the Husband's heart aflame. So very dated on the inside (made me long for a martini) but the previous owners kept it spotlessly clean. Huge living room, big bedrooms with multiple closets, and a big family room downstairs that would be the perfect office space for the Husband to hole up in. The kitchen has butterfly wallpaper, and even better - butterfly tile backsplash. There's also a giant banquette in the kitchen (this is clearly banquette week in the home search). We go downstairs and open up the doors to the basement, and gasp - neither of us have ever seen a basement this immaculate. No dirt anywhere, not a cobweb or a twig - I would eat off this floor. Tons of storage, 1400 square feet, and a double garage. The Husband must see this place. My imagination is already hard at work, tearing up carpet, pulling down drapes. Asking price $325K.

Last stop on our whirlwind tour (and it's dark out, we just can't go that fast) is back in El Cerrito. Another old, tired house; about 1200 sq ft, 3 bedrooms, 1 bath. Even though the painters' equipment is sitting in the living room, it still feels like the elderly folk who lived here just left the room; beat-up plaid couch; thin, frayed towels hanging in the bathroom; mismatched sheets on a little old bed in the back. Why didn't the selling agent clear this place out? The layout is bizarre: there's a door from the dining room into the kitchen, kitchen into the utility room, utility room into the hall, hall into the dining room. That's a crapload of doors in a very small area. Bathroom is antique, the kitchen linoleum is truly vintage, I think I've seen Joan Crawford standing on this linoleum in a movie. Big yard full of crumbling cement levels. This place kinda gives me the creeps - like bad feelings are floating around. Someone needs to smudge some serious sage here, but it won't be us. Asking price: $440K.

Dust Yourself Off...

Sunday afternoon and the Husband is available, so I make my list of open houses, plot our route (Wha? Me, obsessive??) The first stop is a bust - no open house sign, just a terse note stuck on the door informing agents to call first, because this home IS OCCUPIED. Okey-doke, we'll try you later.

We swing over to a couple of houses off Fairmount. The first is a very cute MacGregor bungalow, just over 800 sq ft.; they've done a lovely job of updating (and staging). The place is immaculate, and a peek at the pest report shows $13,000. They've added a little utility room in the back, and the small backyard is as pristine as the inside. What puzzles us is the large object sitting next to the back of the house. It looks for all the world like a unit for central air conditioning - and although we grew up with AC, we've never seen a house on this side of the hills with a unit. How often can they possibly use it?? We ask the agent, he hasn't a clue. Asking price: $495K.

I think there's another house one block over, so we find the for sale sign and follow it, walk in; I immediately whisper to the husband that we are in the wrong house - the gorgeous built-ins on either side of the fireplace are a clear sign that this house will cost more than $500K. But I could weep at all the shelf space. The kitchen is brand new, the closets deep and wonderful. The agent tells us that the pest report is $20K, but $15 of that is to replace the back deck, which since the yard is level, she would replace with a flagstone patio. I am afraid to look at the flyer in my hand to see the list price: $565K. Farewell, beautiful built-ins.

The third stop is near the EC Plaza BART; it looks old and tired from the outside. Inside they have refinished the wood floors and painted the main rooms, and the flyer coyly describes "retro" details. Retro means that the banquette that was built in the kitchen is still there, sparkly-flecked plastic covers and all. And the dishwasher is retro too, circa 1968, with several decades of dust inside. The husband is puzzled by two shower rods, running parallel about 10 inches apart in the main bathroom; perhaps a very skinny person was showering? The addition in the back was done on the cheap, though with permits; place and press tile, painted plywood cabinets, and the additional bathroom is dark as a tomb. The backyard is almost entirely paved, and when we round the corner, we see a giant lump of concrete that turns out to be a defunct water feature. They've added an enclosed side porch out the kitchen door, and plunked the washer and dryer there. And the location means that both the kitchen and main bathroom windows look out onto the porch and its plexiglass windows. The Husband is sure F. will think this a teardown, but wants her to check it out. He bonks his head on the too-low garage door frame, spends the rest of the afternoon whimpering about the indignity and injury bald men must endure. Asking price: $495K.

Our other stops are just drive-bys; one is near EC Del Norte, another older place; can't see the indoors, but we walk around and peek into the huge backyard - and spot another huge, defunct water feature. Somebody made a killing selling those in El Cerrito a few decades ago. I'll check this house out with F. later in the week.

We decide to explore broadening our horizons, and head to Richmond to check out a listing I saw - we find a little neighborhood called Clinton Hill, and the ex-cop Husband is surprisingly charmed. We get out of the car and walk around the block, and are pleased by the houses and their well-kept yards. And the Husband is intrigued by this listing, as the house looks big, and has one of his most favorite features...a double garage. Another one to put on my list for F.

We come home and spend some time on the City of Richmond website, checking out their crime map and stats. The Husband decides that if we are seriously interested, he'll go down to the police station and have a chat about neighborhoods.

Making Tweaks

Some of the earliest houses we bid on back in August are closing now, so we can see the details of what offers beat ours. The one that needed serious cleaning after horrific tenants - we'd bid $380K with $15K back in closing costs; the house closed at $377K, nothing back, and inspection waived. There was a huge tree growing under the patio that had buckled the concrete, headed for the foundation, and they waived inspection?

I review with F., making sure I'm clear on the difference between waiving inspection (which means you take the house with all its faults, big or little) and "as is," (meaning you can still inspect, but you give up your right to negotiate if something big is wrong - and most importantly, if something big is wrong, you can withdraw your offer). I don't think we'll ever be desperate enough to waive inspection, though we will start considering adding "as is" to our offers, since we're seeing that on most of our competitors' offers.

The Husband owned a house years ago in Missouri, and this is not the way the world worked there. I'm finding it difficult to stir up enthusiasm to look at any houses this week. Cynicism reigns supreme.

Hello, Disappointment.

I had a bad feeling when I opened the Real Estate section of the Sunday paper and saw that they were holding an open house for the place that was considering our counteroffer - texted F., and she called within a half hour, just heard from the selling agent. The sellers went with the other offer, because they countered back higher (instead of what the sellers asked for) and increased their deposit. Would have been nice if they'd given us a chance to counter again.

Not surprised, really, this is beginning to be a habit - just have the icky feeling that we were totally played.

And F. shared her conversation with the agent from the other cute house we bid on last week - this realty company has many of the listings in El Cerrito and Richmond Annex. The agent told F. that they prefer mortgage brokers in the immediate area that they know and work with - and offers with those mortgage brokers are looked on more favorably. Again, that icky feeling.

Beginning to really, really hate this whole process.

Suspense Is A Killer

Saturday morning, and I am sitting on pins and needles - and it's not remotely comfortable. We followed our strategy, made an offer on the second Richmond Annex house - it was listed at $412K, we offered $440K with $15K back on closing costs, and the offer set to expire at 6:00PM on Thursday. The selling agent called F. almost immediately, said there was multiple family members who needed to approve the offer, and he would try to reach them by our deadline. Back and forth on phone calls, but no offer approval by the end of Thursday - and no idea if there would be one.

So we made an offer on the cuter Annex house (offers due by 11:00AM on Friday - 11:00AM, really??). List price $449K, we offered $480K with nothing back.

By Friday night we had more answers - no chance on the cuter house - the selling agent said she had received three offers over $500K (gulp). And the other agent finally called back with a counteroffer - $460K, $15K back and a shortened ten day inspection period (instead of the usual 17 days). Much phone traffic between the Husband, F. and myself - and we decided to go ahead. Then found out there was a second offer on the house that the agent was also trying to counter. Sigh. So no idea yet if they've accepted our offer.

I will now try to get the landscaping I've planned for the front yard out of my head, and will resist the urge to research Richmond's street tree policy.

Once More, Into The Breach

Seems like the market is expanding - I'm now getting five or six emails from the MLS database every day with new listings. Most look like problematic properties; lots of work needs to be done, or the neighborhood is sketchy, but reassuring to see more available.

Last night took the Husband and F. to see the Richmond Annex house that I had liked so much on Sunday - they both liked it very much. The Husband was especially fond of the yard, but pointed out that closet space and storage in general was on the thin side, and we'd end up using the garage purely as storage (which the current owners do now, having smartly added shelving and hanging racks). I tried to forget all the times I had mocked others have having so much junk that their garages overflowed. But the Husband is game to make an offer on this one, though to be competitive will stretch us to the limit.

We also checked out another, brand-new listing in the Annex. The block is not as charming as the other, the house about the same size as the other, though distributed differently. Big closets, newly refinished floors, and to the Husband's delight, a brand-new kitchen and bathroom. The backyard is huge, with two apple trees, a pear tree, and a peach tree - the apple tree is covered in fruit. We see all kinds of potential in this place - and the backyard gives us the option to expand. What it needs is not urgent. And best of all, it's much, much less expensive than the other one. Asking price: $412K.

We are getting more strategic. We decide to make an offer on the second house, with an expiration date of Thursday at 5PM. If the owner rejects our offer, we can still throw our hat in the ring for the first house, which has offers due on Friday.

Hang onto your hats, here we go again...

And We Begin the Third Month...

The Husband is working a matinee again, so I'm solo on another scouting mission. After checking online and in the Sunday Chronicle, it appears there are only two houses on my list. I rush out the door at halftime of the WNBA finals (go, Indiana!) and head up the hill a bit in El Cerrito for the first.

The flyer calls it a "spacious starter home," and at 1500 sq ft., it is spacious. Built in 1962, and I don't believe a single improvement has occurred since then. I climb the steep steps to the front door, and walk in - there is the distinct odor of old, dirty socks once I step inside - but maybe that's just the old brown shag carpet. The view is lovely, but a linoleum-floored dining room is not. It's a few steps up to the three bedrooms and two baths; I think one room must have housed Frank Sinatra, or some member of the Rat Pack, because it smells distinctly of millions of cigarettes, and a lot of scotch (with a spicy overtone of fresh paint). The backyard is a cinderblock retaining wall in front of a hill that would have to be scaled with climbing gear. I flip through the pest report, and it's a laughable $5k. Please. I saw the asbestos wrapped pipes in the garage, the buckling tile in the bathroom. And as I turn the page, a nice disclosure that this house is in a landslide zone. Perfect. I bid the overfriendly agent farewell. Asking price: $450K.

Over to the Richmond Annex for the second house. I fall in love as soon as I get through the front gate, and see that this house is built on two lots, so there is plenty of lawn, and it's beautifully landscaped, including this grassy front, perfect for frolicking pooches. The owners have done some nice work inside - they haven't completely renovated the bathroom or the kitchen, but done enough to make them look modern. The rooms are good-sized, the flow works, and the backyard is big. My mind instantly puts our furniture in the living room, and it looks great! Pest report is clean, sewer lateral was done this year - definitely move-in ready. I start calculating how much over the asking price we'll have to bid on a place as nice as this, and how I will convince the Husband. Asking price: $449K.

I email F. as soon as I get home, can she come see this place with the Husband on Monday or Tuesday? Offers are due October 9th. I need to calm down and not obsess. Suggestions are welcome.

He Who Hesitates...

F. emails on the fixer-upper first thing on Wednesday morning. They have already accepted an offer. What??!!! But the selling agent tells her they would welcome back-up offers. In the meantime, F. has tracked down the pest report and owner disclosures from the last time the house sold, in 2005. The owner says outright that in heavy rain there is water under the house, checks yes on the boxes asking about water, movement, and mentions noisy neighbors (?). Many of the items in the pest report have been visibly dealt with in the interim since 2005. I am ready to walk away, but the Husband asks if we can put in a backup offer. I know it's his love of square footage talking, but I crumble. It's only a backup offer, what are the chances?

Only Half Crazy, As It Turns Out

The Husband, Realtor F. and I take a field trip to see the two short sale fixer-uppers I looked at on Sunday. The first stop, at the Albany house, does not go well. They agree that the block is lovely, that the top floor needs mostly cosmetic work - but once we head down to the lower floor, foreheads start furrowing. F. heads into a part of the basement I did not go into over the weekend, starts pointing out jerry-rigged wiring, plumbing, and ducts wrapped in asbestos. The place is clearly a disaster area. She is getting progressively angrier, and when I ask why, she whips out the financial report on the sellers' mortgages. They bought the place in 1999, had just over $160K mortgage; took a second in 2004, then refinanced every six months on both the first and second, up to over $500K by 2007. F. fumes, "They sucked this nice little house dry, and didn't put a dime of it into upkeep or repair." We flee outside, stand in the cool breeze, strategize. They are asking $500K, the Husband theorizes, but if we offer much less? F. thinks they will get at least $450K (which is what the selling agent told me on Sunday), and it needs over $100K to make it livable. And these are not things we can DIY. We walk away.

The other fixer-upper, in El Cerrito, appeals to the Husband instantly - he loves the walkway entrance, with the lower patio. We are startled when the front door opens - one of the tenants, a nice older woman, tells us that she is expecting us, and to look around as much as we like. She heads back into the living room, sits mending a pair of blue jeans, with jazz playing in the background. We still feel like intruders, stand in the living room for only a minute so the Husband and F. can catch the view, and then move on. The Husband gets more excited as we look at the bedrooms and baths; the windows need replacing, but the lack of cracks and water damage is cheering. We have become cynical, clearly. We head down to Catland, F. notes a downward slope in the floor, and is not horrified by the unpermitted bathroom. One of the cat tenants, a little calico, comes out to meet us. We pet her, then tell her we're headed out the back, and she is not allowed outside, as the sign clearly states.

The yard is unkempt, dominated by an enormous, lovely redwood - if we wanted to grow anything else here, the redwood would have to go, but who wants to cut down a beautiful tree? F. heads around the front, and finds the door under the house. All kinds of intriguing things down there. The space under the unpermitted bathroom is dug out - were they getting ready to pour cement? Don't you usually build the foundation first? Work has been done on the foundation in other places, and a platform that runs the width of the house has been built, with shelves and wood stored in other places. Did someone have a workshop down here? Is that PVC pipe connected to copper pipe?? Many, many questions to be answered. F. will call the selling agent and see if there are reports, but the Husband says without hesitation that he wants to make an offer on this house.

Short Sales R Us

The Husband had to work, so I'm on my own for open houses. I have a list of five houses to see in two hours; Richmond, El Cerrito, and Albany. And it's hot out. I fill up the water bottle, roll down the windows, and head out.

I am immediately sidetracked by an open house sign just a block away, I follow the sign bread crumbs to a place tucked away in a cul-de-sac in EC. The house looks 50s era, not bad on the outside. There is no agent immediately apparent when I walk in, so I call out - he's sitting reading a book in the living room. He tells me right away that it is a short sale, and he is covering this open house for a friend. The living room has big old aluminum windows that frame a view of the bay; the three bedrooms and bathrooms upstairs aren't too bad, just need the floors refinished and a coat of paint. I head downstairs, and the door to the outdoors has a sign that tells me not to let the cats out. The bedrooms on either side make it clear the cats have not been out a great deal. And perhaps they do not have a litter box. Stains, scratches, and an unmistakeable smell. But the rooms are big, and of course, an unfinished, unpermitted bathroom. I come back upstairs, and stop in the kitchen - an ancient oven from the seventies, a rusty refrigerator - and a ceiling with a swirly gray pattern that puzzles me. Then I figure out they had a kitchen fire, and the swirls are where they tried to clean the soot off the ceiling. Asking price: $469K.

Second stop is in the Richmond hills, a very sweet little house, just over 900 sq ft, but a double garage, which makes the house look a bit lopsided. Nice yard, but a peek into the storage area off the garage shows a huge crack in the retaining wall. The structural engineer's report says it must be replaced, but only to the tune of $27K. $15K pest report, and it needs the sewer lateral. The bathroom is so itty-bitty that there's no way both the Husband and I could stand in it at the same time. Asking price: $299K.

Back down the hill to the flats of El Cerrito. Another nicely maintained house, but even teenier at 800 sq ft. They've kindly done all the pest repair and the sewer lateral. There's a covered, walled patio stuck on the back - just wood walls and ceiling and plexiglass windows, cement floor. A real addition would have been nicer. The agent offers me cold lemonade, and I am tempted. But neither bedroom could fit a king bed, so where would the two of us and our small dogs sleep?? I say no to the lemonade and to the house. Asking price: $449K

I head over to Albany for the next one. The block is lovely, well-cared for little houses, near Solano Avenue. The house is not lovely or well-cared for, for many years. Paint and refinished floors could do a lot; stripping the western-themed paper from the kitchen would help. The downstairs is huge, but cheaply done walls and linoleum, and the by-now standard unpermitted bathroom. I would like to line up everyone who does unpermitted work and slap them silly. I chat with the agent standing outside in the shade. It's another short sale, scheduled to go into foreclosure in November if they can't come to agreement. This house needs love, but not sure the Husband would go for such a fixer-upper. Asking price: $500K.

Last house of the day is on the other side of Solano, and very pretty on the outside. Tiny rooms upstairs, though the closets are nice-sized. They've finished the basement, two rooms bigger than anything above, and a (Praise the Lord!) fully-permitted bathroom. Absolutely no flow to the place, The backyard is half cement, half taken up by three enormous palm trees. The pest report is a jaw-dropping $50K. I walk around the outside, and see that the chimney has cracks where it meets the house, the porch has cracks where it meets the house, and there is a crack big enough to stick my pinkie in along the side of the house. Can you say can of worms? Asking price: $449K.

I'm exhausted by the time I get home, and sweaty. Might have to have the Husband and F. look at the two fixer-uppers, just to tell me that I'm crazy.

Battling to Stay Hopeful

A whirlwind weekend. We got inspection and pest reports on the Pink House, realtor F. asked the other agent when offers were due; he responded, "First come, first serve." The reports were not bad - small electrical and plumbing updates - so we decided to make an offer on Monday 9/21. Then I headed off to Portland to see friends.

Got a call from F. on Saturday night - the other realtor had called, and they had received an offer that demanded a response by Sunday evening. If we were interested, we needed to move now. A flurry of phone calls between me and the Husband, me and F., the Husband and F. We decided to jump. The asking price was $479K, but F. had done the comparisons, and nothing in that area was going that high, especially with an old kitchen and bath. We settled on an offer of $465K (gulp).

F. was a warrior, blazed through paperwork, and delivered our offer to the other agent's doorstep on Sunday afternoon. Back in Portland, friends were already congratulating me, although I warned them it was too soon. We stopped into Powell's City of Books, and I browsed the home improvement section, trying to show restraint by only writing down titles, not actually purchasing the books. Trying very hard not to count my chickens, but bought a copy of This Old House magazine at the Portland airport, and daydreamed about repainting the Pink House the whole flight home.

Sunday night, and the Husband and I were settled into the couch with the pooches, watching the Emmys (Neil Patrick Harris rocks) when the phone rang. It was F. - she'd already heard from the other agent, and we did not get the house. The other bidder made an offer slightly over the asking price, no closing costs back, and wrote in "As Is," which meant either that they did not intend to do their own inspection, or if they did and found something wrong, it would not change the offer. F. said outright, "That's crazy, and I will never let you do that."

Making an offer near $500K without an inspection and bearing all the risk? Sounds like complete insanity to us. But if people are so desperate that they will take these terrible risks, how will we have a successful offer?

I am dejected. Fourth offer down, how many more to go?

Little Pink Houses

We went Tuesday night after work to see two houses with F. One was up in the Richmond Hills, and was as pristine as advertised. Fresh paint, new windows, refinished oak floors. Two wall heaters, which cold-blooded me shivered at - but everything very nicely done on the inside. Some puzzling features of the outside included a yard entirely covered in gravel, with visible sump pumps and all kinds of drainage pipes snaking everywhere. (Underground lake?) Another downer for me - a huge shed taking up half the backyard, finished as an office - but not legal, since there was no foundation. Sigh. Why don't people take the time and money to do things right? Six kinds of fruit trees, but all crowded together in the front yard - as soon as they establish any size they will be crowding each other out. A horrible house, like something out of Deliverance, right next door, including multiple cars in need of major repair dumped in the driveway. But the Husband loves the newness of the indoors, and the size - he drools at the big 1400+ square footage, the shed, the double garage. He would never have to throw anything away, ever. Asking price: $449K.

The second house appeals to me much more - up on a little hill in the Annex. Built in the 40s, and clearly one couple's home for many years. Nice size (1200 square feet), with character. The kitchen and bathroom need to be completely redone, and at some point the linen closet was removed to bring the washer and dryer upstairs. The yard is large and lovely, the third bedroom over the garage has an abundance of closet space that makes the Husband salivate. Did I mention the pinkness? Pink carpet, pink walls, pink silk valances over pink sheers in the windows all through the living and dining rooms. But F. kneels in her cute sundress and yanks up the floor heating register, pulls back the pink carpet and sees nice wood floors underneath. We could make this a lovely home, I am convinced. Asking price is too much: $479K.

The Husband and I spend several minutes sitting in the pinkness, debating this house over the one in the Hills. He loves new, I love old - he wants all the work done, and I want to do some of it myself. As we're walking out, we look out the front window, and the Husband says, "Is that Sutro Tower?" It is. A view. I might change his mind after all.

Slides Are A Bad Thing

F. called on the Husband's dream house, and discovered that there were already five offers, and the bank was negotiating on several, expected to accept an offer that day. We gotta figure out how to find out about these properties sooner - we jumped on it as soon as it came out on the MLS, but somehow that wasn't soon enough.

Once again into the breach of open house Sunday. We stayed in El Cerrito, looked at a place halfway up the hills, on the southern side of town. Spotlessly clean, big (over 1300 square feet), three bedrooms and two baths, a beautiful view of the Bay. Kitchen and bathrooms need updating (the swan etched into the glass shower door just screams 1982). We fell in with another couple looking, found the door to the water heater and furnace that also led under the house. The man climbed right in, while his wife told us that he was a structural engineer, and that this was always where he headed. We heard his voice from behind the furnace, saying, "Uh-oh." We all trooped back up to the dining room to peruse reports, and found one from the official structural engineer. Turns out this part of the hills is called the Blakemont Slide Area - and the engineer's report told us that the foundation needed at least $250K of work, since it had not been retrofitted in a long, long while. All four of us sighed and headed for the door. Asking price: $415K.

The Husband spotted several other open house signs just blocks apart, so we checked out a few more. At one the agent greeted us by telling us the square footage (around 1600) and the price for purchase or rental. Since this place was just a block above the last house, we asked about the Blakemont Slide, and he looked at us blankly, said the reports weren't done yet. Rampant dry rot, cracked plaster, sloping floors and the funkiest layout we'd ever seen - a tiny family room in the center of two bedrooms, a bathroom, the laundry closet, and the sliding glass door to the patio. Nothing looked more recent than the late 80s. Asking price: (wait for it) $675K. We held our laughter until we got back to our car.

The last house of the day was beautiful - still on the Slide area, but with an engineer's report saying that the foundation was in tip-top shape. Beautiful upgrades; a gorgeous kitchen with new cabinets and granite countertops; a master bathroom to die for; beautifully landscaped yard. All this beauty comes at a price well beyond our means: $725K.

Bring on the new listings, because the inventory that's out there does not work for us.

Back in the Saddle, Again.

F. picks us up at 6:00PM on Friday night - we're going to see how many houses we can squeeze into the remaining hours of daylight.

We start with one close to home, near the Del Norte BART station. First time we've looked at a house that just really felt like an apartment. About 1000 square feet, but it feels much smaller. Bland. The kitchen is out of 70s hell, with that hellish fake oak finish, pink formica countertops, and mismatched appliances. The rooms feel small, small, small. The yard is just an alley in the back and on one side; it opens out a little on the east side, but rolls straight downhill. The Husband is intrigued by what's underneath the house, since it's built on a hill, and finds a door at the back that opens up to the foundation, and where someone got as far as framing out a room and throwing up some sheetrock. Creepy. Asking price: $490K. Seriously?

We head up into the El Cerrito hills for the second one. It's listed as a handyman special -immediately apparent as we come down the walk and see the exterior paint sluffing off in sheets, the window frames appear to be rotting. Inside they have gone to the trouble of new floors, but no paint or repair for the ginormous cracks in the plaster in the living room and one of the bedrooms. But the view is spectacular from the huge living rooms windows - we can see Mount Tam, the bridge, the city. 1700 square feet, with a huge, ancient kitchen, a dining room with a huge "window" of glass brick (why, Lord, why?) and the living room on the first floor; two bedrooms and a bath on the second. Where is the advertised third bedroom and second bath? Why, just climb carefully down the narrow, pitched stairway to the basement, pass the washer, dryer and utility sink, and there they are - in dark panelling and green linoleum-tiled floor. The curly tile tells me that this room has flooded, more than once. The bathroom has a tiny sink that hits me just above the knees. Clearly tiny people lived downstairs. The yard is huge and just loose dirt, the pest report is $19K. For some reason, the Husband thinks this one is a possibility. I shrug. Asking price: $405K.

House number 3 is in the Richmond Annex; the MLS claims many updates, and we are optimistic when we pull up. It looks immaculate. The lockbox hangs on the front door, but the key unlocks a side door, so we end up walking around the back to find the door. We are surprised to see that someone has added a utility laundry room across the entire back of the house - not a real addition, just concrete floors, bare wood walls and green corrugated ceiling panels - very puzzling. Even more so when we get inside, and wonder why the house is so dark - it's because the two bedrooms and the bathroom have windows that look out - into the utility room. Huh? Asking price: $435K.

The last house is also in the Annex, and has an old glassed-in porch and a tiny turret at the front corner of the house. I'm already in love. They've refinished the floors beautifully, and put in new windows that have a charming pattern of panes. There's two tiny bedrooms up front, with a bathroom inbetween, and then we walk into a huge kitchen with dining room and TV room (what else can you call it? There's a big wall of cabinets with an opening for a TV!), two much larger bedrooms in the back with a big bathroom and a laundry room. The yard is bit overgrown, but fixable - and it looks like a few of the interior remodeling details remain unfinished, like light fixtures. This one is bank-owned, and you must get pre-approval from Wells Fargo. The Husband's face is alight. He loves this one - sees all the rooms and knows he would not have to downsize his clutter. Asking price: $425K.

We go for cocktails after, and the Husband keeps telling F. how much he wants that house. She promises to call the other agent the next day. I have learned not to be too optimistic, so I try not to think about how perfectly an armchair and reading lamp would fit in that little circular part of the room inside the turret.

The Bargain Basement

Received our first listing alert for a house under $200K. (The previous low was $299K.) What kind of house in Berkeley would list so low? Well, the kind of house that's been empty for many years - judging by the graffiti artist who kindly left his name and the date on the large work he did on the living room wall - at least since 2003. I give the seller credit for actually publishing photos on the MLS site. Broken windows, graffiti, one room that just looks like a pile of debris, chest-high weeds - all this can be yours for the low-low price of $178K. Cash only, please.

I have recovered enough from our last failed bid to not even consider this. Scheduled to look at some actual possibilies on Friday.

If At First (or Second, or Third) You Don't Succeed

After observing several days of house-mourning, I feel ready to move on (although I'm pretty sure every time I drive by that house, it calls to me). After thinking that the housing market still pretty much sucks, a friend gave me a reality check by telling me about the first two houses he and his partner bid on at the height of the housing madness. They had the second to lowest bid on both, with 27 and 31 others bidding, respectively. 31 offers! Makes 8 offers look downright measly.

Labor Day weekend, so the Sunday real estate section is thin - nothing new in our price range (at least in a neighborhood where we'd want to live), so taking the weekend off from open houses. Will putter in my rental garden (and when we move, we're taking our rosebushes with us. I'm just sayin'.) and gorge myself on the DIY network (or as the Husband calls it, "house porn.").

...Hitting the Bottom of the Pool

September 2, and I try very hard to stay focused on work. I resist calling F. until nearly 11:00AM, which I think shows tremendous restraint on my part. She laughs when I call, checks her email and finds one from the seller's realtor. It is very nice, but says that the seller has accepted another offer, with conventional financing and a larger deposit. She will certainly be in touch if this sale does not work out.

F. does her best to cheer me up, but I'd let my imagination run away, and gotten too invested in the house. I am heartbroken. I was so convinced that it was the house for us. I call the Husband, who is in Milwaukee for the rest of the week - he tries to cheer me up by telling me we can buy a beautiful house for $200K less in Milwaukee. He also points out the 90-day moratorium on foreclosures in California was instituted on June 15, so there should be a wave of foreclosures soon. This depresses me even more. I don't want to benefit from someone losing their house,

I call girlfriends and wallow. The dogs do their best - the little one licks my ankle while the bigger one jumps onto the couch and puts his snoot in my ear. I can hear my father in my head, laughing about "the healing power of dog spit."

Diving In, Headfirst

The pest report comes back and is astoundingly low - just $3K. Realtor F. is very skeptical, but we decide to take the plunge. They want offers by September 1 at 4:00PM. The Husband and I ruminate - decide to offer $380K, and ask for closing costs back. That's $30K over the list price. How can they say no?

I try not to obsess, but walk the dogs past the house slooooooooowly, imagining the changes I would make before we even moved in. I go online and start pricing things like gas fireplace inserts and appliances. I plan where I will put the raised vegetable beds in the big backyard. But I try not to jinx the sale by always saying "IF we get the house," when speaking of it to others. No verbal jinxing allowed. Mentally, though, I'm jinxing it all over the place.

F. sends in our offer, and the seller's agent calls almost immediately to discuss. They speak for nearly a half hour, and the other agent says it is a good offer. I start picking out paint colors in my head.

Could It Be?? Maybe???

F. tells us that the tenants are still moving out of the last property we tried to look at in El Cerrito, but it is available for realtor-escorted viewings. She meets us there on Tuesday night, and she is not impressed by the overgrowth or the ancient garage door. We go inside, and it looks like several tornadoes collided. The tenants have taken their furniture, but they have left scattered piles of clothes, toys, books and trash spread out everywhere. A turtle squats in a dirty terrarium in one of the bedrooms. Every cabinet door is open in the kitchen, food still sits in the pantry and is spread on the floor. Mold grows on all four walls of the bathroom.

We make ourselves focus on the house, not what's in it. 1100 square feet, a big kitchen with the laundry in a utility room with a door. Big, open living and dining room space. The bedrooms are on the smallish side, but the closets are not. And once we pick our way across the crumbling patio, the yard opens up - the lot is 5000 square feet. Plenty of space for small dogs to play. It needs a new fence, and hopefully the rusty swing set will disappear.

F. is clucking her tongue with disapproval. None of us can believe children lived in this mess. We will wait for the pest report, due on Aug. 27, to see if the problems are mostly cosmetic. But I like this house, I think we can fix it, and the price is right. Asking price: $350K.

Must...Not...Give...Up

We keep telling ourselves that some people look for months and months. Homeowner friends regale us with stories of bidding on eight, nine, ten houses before finally being successful. But isn't the homebuying world supposed to be different now?

Sunday August 24, and we have only two houses on our list. One is back in the Richmond Annex. The owners have made some questionable choices in the improvements. They took out the shower in the master bathroom, and turned it into a cedar closet. Sink, toilet, cedar closet. Hmmm. The second largest bedroom was wired to be a home office, leaving the tiny third bedroom (that can barely fit a twin bed) for guests. The other bathroom has been retiled in turquoise. The house itself is very 70s era, with the same concrete and bonsai Japanese garden that we have at our rental, which does not appeal, although the double garage makes the Husband salivate. Asking price: $425K.

The second house is most decidly not open; several househunters peer through the windows with us and see belongings strewn everywhere. There are children's toys and garden pots piled in the overgrown front yard. We will ask F. to investigate.

Not Just The Toe, The Whole Foot

F. checks on the Richmond Annex house, discovers that they want offers by noon on Wednesday. What is it with the crazy deadlines??? We meet her after work, and all traipse to the house. Even with a pest report of $30K, she is impressed, the Husband is impressed. The rooms are big and bright. We don't love that there is a tenant in the garage apartment, especially since there are no permits, but we can live with this for a bit. But $448K is over our pre-approval. I will call our loan officer tomorrow to see if we can go higher. If so, we are throwing our hat into the ring for this one.

Our friendly loan officer takes us up to $450K, tells me with our credit history we can go even higher. But she also issues a word of caution - wants us to think about what we can really afford on a monthly basis. She gives me a formula to calculate our monthly payment, including taxes, household insurance, mortgage insurance. Yikes! I think $450K is our upper limit.

F. gets our packet in before the deadline; we offer our top price of $450K. The other agent tells her that she has received eight other offers at that time. This is not good for us.

The answer comes within 24 hours. Another no. Someone offered much more, and could put 20% down. We do not have $90K for a down payment. We are disappointed, but beginning to see how this whole wacky system works.

Isn't it supposed to be a buyer's market??

Somewhere, Out There

Third weekend of househunting. The Husband is at a softball tournament, so I am on my own. I head to Berkeley, to check out two houses in the same neighborhood near Ashby. Oh, to have lots of money to fix up an old house. The first is full of quirks and tiny hallways and hidden closets - and cracked plaster, rotting carpets, decaying bathroom fixtures. I'm pretty sure I could knock down the freestanding garage if I just lean hard. Asking price: $419K.

The second one breaks my heart - clearly once a grand house, huge, with columns and a sweeping staircase in the front hall. Tall elegant windows and French doors in the parlor, living room, and dining room (several with warnings not to touch). There's a butler's pantry off the kitchen, and back staircase for the servants. The agent does not hesitate to tell everyone that it needs a new foundation and roof, not to mention new everything else. There are four big bedrooms upstairs, all with varying peeling wallpapers, and the strangest bathroom I have ever seen. Pink fixtures that have faded to purplish, and pink tile on the floor, walls, AND ceiling. Who tiles their ceiling??? Asking price: $395K.

I venture into a new neighborhood for the last two houses - Richmond Annex. We've instinctively avoided anything in Richmond, stories of crime have scared us away. But the Annex is charming, downright Berkeleyesque. The first house is tiny and immaculate, but no room to grow, as the backyard is about the size of a king mattress. Asking price: $379K.

The second makes my heart beat faster. A living room with a fireplace and beamed ceilings. Two big bedrooms. The bathroom fixtures are aqua, the kitchen is old, but it is clean and charming. The double garage has been turned into an apartment, and the realtor takes great pains to tell us that although the work is up to code, no permits were obtained. The yard is lush, with fruit trees. I can imagine our two little terriers romping. I walk through it again, slowly. This may be it. Asking price: $448K.

When the Husband gets home I load him into the car and drive him over to see the Annex house, even though the open house is long over. He is charmed too. I will call F. tomorrow.

Getting Right Back on the Horse

F. tells us not to despair, jump back into the search. I meet her on a Thursday night at a house that has just come on the market in Albany. Another 20s era place, neglected landscaping. The living room and dining room make me giddy - someone has clearly taken a great deal of time and trouble to restore the woodwork to pristine condition. The dining room built-in makes me swoon. The front bedrooms are a bit small, the front bathroom is archaic, but livable.

The kitchen is something entirely different. There's a stain on the ceiling the size of Florida, bulging ominously - I'm pretty sure Craig T. Nelson pulled his wife and kid through it on a gooey rope. The cabinets look like painted plywood, and a big, eager dog clearly tried to dig his way out of the kitchen door - through several layers of linoleum and down to the subfloor.

The listing says a new master suite, and we find it on the other side of the kitchen, tacked onto the back of the house, clearly a do-it-yourself project. The baseboard is just 1X4 nailed to the sheetrock (and you can see every sheet of the sheetrock, since they didn't tape or mud). They measured wrong, so the baseboard extends into the doorways by about an inch on each side. The tile floor in the badly laid out bathroom convinces me that no one owned a level.

Outside was even worse. Two decks, both rotting and patched with plywood. The garage with "parking for one car," has actually been turned into an illegal in-law. I'm guessing it's illegal because the bathroom only has a sink and a toilet and a pipe sticking out the floor where the shower should be. Sure, you could park here, but you'd have to tear out the closet that's been built in front of the door. The crowning touch? We walk to the sideyard, and the chimney is falling off the house. I can literally see daylight between the brick of the chimney and the stucco of the house.

Asking price: $485K. We laugh and laugh, and then go home.

Putting Our Toe in the Pool

I get an email from the MLS database about another house, just a block away that has come on the market. I know this house - walked through it when it first went on the market over a year ago and was staged beautifully and priced at $510K. They reduced the price twice, and still it sat, the staging lamps lit at night, burning sadly in the window. They finally took away the staging and the real estate sign after six months, and it has sat empty ever since. About 900 square feet, and a 5000 square foot lawn. MLS is listing the price as $371K.

I call F. the next day. She finds out that it is bank-owned, and they want offers by 1:00PM Friday. Today is Wednesday. This is insanity! The Husband walks the dogs past it, peers in windows, peeks into the backyard. We meet F. there on Friday morning, she does a walkthrough with us. The fence is falling down, teeming with termites. One wall of the master bedroom has been converted in a mishmosh of a storage unit, cupboards and drawers of assorted sizes. But we see potential. We decide to give it a shot. We give F. a check to include as a good faith deposit.

F. emails the contract, we sign, scan, and email back (how did they do this before technology?). We offer the asking price. The agent for the bank tells F. that there are seven other offers.

The good news of bank-owned properties is that they make a decision very quickly. We get our sorry, no by late afternoon. We are not close with our offer - others have offered much more, and can put down very large deposits. We shake it off, tell ourselves that we're just starting to learn the process.

Pest Reports Are Your Friends

Second weekend, fewer houses - some we rule out just by driving by. After 16 years on the force, the ex-cop Husband casts a fisheye on any of the following being too nearby: apartment complexes, especially with people hanging around outside; liquor stores, especially with people hanging around outside; and young men walking pit bulls, rottweilers, or mastiffs.

We look at another tiny place in Albany - when will we learn? Remodeled, everything new, inside and out - but only one bedroom, and a microscopic lawn. They give us a typed list of everything they've done to the house: new plumbing, drip irrigation, double-paned windows - and three sump pumps. This tiny property requires THREE sump pumps?? As F. says later, "Is it on a river?" Asking price: $469K.

On to another place in Berkeley, where someone clearly lived for years, and kept things clean, but not updated. But it's huge - the eat-in kitchen could hold a table for twelve. It takes us a little time to find the "unpermitted" second bathroom - walk out the back door of the kitchen, down the stairs, across the patio, down another little set of stairs into the laundry room - where the ceiling is so low the Husband cannot stand upright. "You're doing all the laundry," he says drily. The washer and dryer sit on one side of the laundry room; a toilet, sink and cement stall shower on the other side. Gee, not up to code? Asking price: $425K.

The Husband does not like the looks of the apartment building across the street, but I ask F. to pull the reports. She emails pages and pages of inspection and pest reports - termites, electrical issues, plumbing - estimated at $36K, but she will also insist on a stucco test and foundation inspection. I forward the reports to my handyman brother in San Francisco, and he is more concerned with what is missing from the report than by what is included. We don't pursue the house, though I had already remodeled it in my head. Must stop doing that.

Houses, Schmouses.

Mid-August, and we do our first trip to open houses with our realtor pal, F. We walk through the house a block away that has the funky yard, and she purses her lips at the 70s era kitchen. Even though she is wearing high heels and lovely crisp capri pants, she does not hesitate to climb or crawl anywhere.

We look at another house in our neighborhood, a tiny two-bedroom, with a huge (5000 sq. ft) lot, all flat - we can easily picture expanding. The previous owners have done the place a disservice, painting one bedroom deep purple, the other midnight blue - including the ceilings. The floors need refinishing, the kitchen needs updating; just cosmetic things, we tell ourselves.

But F. whips through the pest report on the counter, sees $30,000 of termite, dry rot and mold issues, and a sump pump under the house. She pokes sheetrock and walks carefully through the yard, finding what appears to be a sinkhole. F. looks up at us staring down at her from the deck. "This is a teardown," she says, without a shade of doubt in her voice. Asking price, $349K.

Our last house of the evening is bank-owned, and there is still an eviction notice from the last tenants taped to the door. The house looks 20s era, and our first glance inside fills us with hope. Beams on the living room ceiling, still wood-finished, and french doors into the dining room. I can't figure out the painting treatment they've done on the dining room wall until I get close and realize that it's mold. The kitchen still has the original-era tile backsplash - but they've tacked an additional room at the back of the house that slopes downward so much it could be a boat slip. There are old, neglected fruit trees out back, and we quickly find the cause of both the slope and the mold - the foundation is crumbling, and the gutters nonexistent on the side of the house, so water has been leaking directly into the walls. The outside of the dining room wall is bloated and obscene. Asking price: $379K.

I pat the house sadly and tell it we can't afford to fix all the things that are wrong with it. F. and I drop the Husband at home, and go to a swanky bar where I down two grown-up cocktails and am completely pie-eyed. This househunting is depressing.

It's the Money, Stupid.

As instructed, I go online, surrounded by a pile of tax returns, bank statements and retirement account reports, and fill out the application for pre-approval. It takes over two weeks to get a response, and it is a chirpy email from our loan rep, telling us to sign on the website for our results. Our credit scores are good news (but no surprise since I checked all three credit reporting agencies already), we're both over 800. We're golden.

Not golden, it turns out, but bronze. Maybe nickel. they've only approved us for $350K. On review, I realize that where the application asked for the price of the house we wished to buy, I guessed and said $350K, so that's all the approval we got. Sigh.

I send our loan rep an email, explaining the mix-up, ask her if we can go higher (also pointing out several errors in their credit reporting, read those babies carefully!). She replies the same day, and takes our loan up to $420K. That was easy.

We Got Yer Houses Right Here

We got underway on the Great House Hunt the first weekend in August. F. signed us up for MLS (Multiple Listing Service - a real estate database) updates for El Cerrito, Berkeley, Albany and Kensington. Emails starting popping up daily, and I resisted the urge to open them immediately - this househunting thing could not turn into an obsession.

Which of course it did, almost immediately. I scoured through the listings, bought the Sunday paper and scribbled the list of the six open houses we needed to see that day. I'd done the online application for preapproval of a mortgage, and we were waiting for the results, but hoped to find something for $400K or under.

The first stops that weekend were very local. One house was just half a block away from our rental house. Just over 700 square feet, with two bedrooms and one bath, it felt like a mobile home (and not a double-wide), with a postage stamp of green lawn in front and behind. $375K asking price. Note to self: we need more than 700 square feet.

The second house was a whole block in the opposite direction, sitting in the point of a Y intersection. The house itself was in good shape, about 1200 square feet, but the yard was tiny, and chopped into three sections with funky fences. They were asking $499K, but perhaps we could negotiate them down. Another note: we kinda want some yard for our little dogs.

Two more in Albany, both ridiculously small and ridiculously overpriced for two bedrooms and about 800 square feet. $455K and $475K, respectively. One had a small lean-to against the house, just outside the kitchen door. Out of curiosity, I lifted the lid. A washing machine sat inside. A side door on the lean-to opened to the dryer. I tried to imagine standing outside in the rain, doing laundry. We moved on.

One in Berkeley was beautiful, just off San Pablo Park. The owner was an architect, and had done a great job opening the galley kitchen and adding storage - beautiful new kitchen and bath. I'd misread the price, though. $539K. The Husband was inconsolable, as he thought this the perfect house. I should have read the warning signs - he liked a house that looked old on the outside, but was brand spanking-new on the inside. Just the kind of house we can't afford.

Grownups Own, Right?

So what made a hard-core renter like me (and a convert like my husband) decide to buy? Financial factors played a role, of course - suddenly seeing listings for houses in our neighborhood for less than $500,000 - and then watching houses sit unsold for months. And then the Bigfoot of California real estate was spotted - signs that actually said, "Price Reduced." Add to that all the press about the housing market reaching bottom, and our tax accountant telling us that now was really the time, and tax incentives to boot!

There was an emotional factor as well. I was tired of the white walls and neutral, serviceable carpet that is the curse of all renters. I wanted colors of our own choosing; deep, bright colors on our walls. The straw that broke the camel's back was our current landlord's decision that the beautiful, two-story maple tree in the back yard was "too tall." (This despite no power lines above, and no branches above the house.) I begged, I pleaded, to no avail. She arrived on a bright Saturday morning this spring with the gardener in tow, and he stood in the tree with a chainsaw, lopping off an entire story off the top of the tree, leaving naked, amputated stubs. I was a powerless witness to a tree's mutilation. Renting sucked.

I called our friend F., who is a realtor in her spare time as a CFO. She is also an uber-athlete who does 68-mile bike rides on the weekends, is unbelievably fashionable and well-accessorized, and beautiful to boot. She would be altogether too intimidating, except that I have seen her in the bottom half of a fluffy chipmunk character costume, shaking it like a Polaroid. The woman does not take herself too seriously.

F. told me that if we were serious, I needed to contact our bank and get pre-approved for a mortgage. With that letter of pre-approval in hand, we'd know our price range, and be able to start making offers on houses. And she told us to get out there and start looking at open houses. If we saw something we liked, she could pull all the information available to realtors (and not to normal joes) on the property, and we could go from there.

Away we go!

A Tale of Two Renters

I've been a renter all my life. The first seven years out of college I lived in New York City, where I dreamed only of an apartment without roommates - no one I knew owned. I moved to San Francisco in the 90s, and was perfectly content with a large studio on the downslope of Pacific Heights.

I met my husband (again, a long story not meant for this blog) in 2000, and he sold his house in Kansas City, Missouri (three bedrooms, 1 1/2 baths, double garage, basement, attic - your basic storage fantasy) for $96,000 to move out to San Francisco and be with me. Goodbye studio, hello two bedroom, one bath, one car garage in the Richmond District in 2001. He'd hoped to buy another house with proceeds from the last one, but this was just before the crash of the dotcoms, when real estate was just beginning its dizzying ascent. Renters we would remain.

I got a job in Berkeley in 2003, and the commute across San Francisco was absurd (especially for a non-driver like me). We came to the East Bay and started scouting neighborhoods. We settled in El Cerrito, renting a smallish house with a huge yard full of fruit trees, walking distance from BART. We were happy, our dog was happy - until the owners, who had purchased the house years ago with the idea that they would live there when they retired - decided to retire. Then came the second rental house in El Cerrito, big house with a 70s flair (my brother walked in, looked at the paneling in the living room and said, "Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!") and a smallish yard covered in Astroturf. We rolled up the Astroturf, planted grass and rosebushes, and have been ensconced here for nearly three years.

We'd look at open houses in our neighborhood, but the prices were just beyond the pale - not to mention that after a Sunday open house, a sold sign would appear by Tuesday. It seemed like we would just have to rent forever.