Our Dog Child is Home!

We're very happy to be reunited with our fuzzy baby! We enjoyed playing catch with her in the front yard this evening. She's getting very skilled at catching frisbees and flying squirrels midair.

After driving out to Santa Cruz to pick up the dog, I spent the afternoon working on my legal research & writing class. We were given an assignment at least two weeks ago to go research at the law library. While I got started on the research, I never actually sat down to write up the memo we'll have to turn in. I worked on that today. I think I'll need to go back to the law library tomorrow and spend a few more hours searching for cases.

We picked up our CSA produce tonight. We finally remembered to take a photo. (I've forgotten the last couple of weeks.) Strawberries are in! Yum, we picked up our delivery just a couple hours ago and we've already eaten the strawberries. Jeff is doing his cooking routine this evening to process the veges for storage.

Our realtor Clint has written up the addendum for the sellers on the Multnomah property for our signature. So, tomorrow we'll be delivering the message that we'll only proceed if they discount the property another $15K. I don't have any clue how long they'll take to agree, or not. Hopefully we'll know by Tuesday.

Are the Sellers Motivated?

We're about to find out. =)

So, after having our builder and a mason out, we have much more information about what this house needs to be restored. We are torn about what to do about this house. There is the worry that the right thing to do would be to walk away from this money pit, but we've both fallen for the neighborhood. On Sunday we dropped back by the house and visited with the neighbors and they're really nice.The foundation isn't as bad as we feared, according to our builder. We should be able to reinforce the weak area and it should last a while longer. Though, the roof is much worse than we realized. The installation was so shoddy that we're actually going to have to remove it and install a new roof.

Anyway, we're planning to go back to the sellers and ask them to cut the price another $15K. In our estimate (actually our builder's ballpark estimate), it needs about $60K worth of structural work to fix the pest damage, weak foundation wall, crumbling masonry, and replace the roof. We think it only fair they should defray at least a portion of that expense. If they refuse, we'll just have to walk away—again! But we really don't want to.

Home Inspection Done

It took about 4 hours to have the home inspection done today. In addition to the many problems we already knew about, the inspection also found a number of problems we weren't aware of.

The 96-year-old foundation on the house has issues. The inspector showed us an exposed section on the back of the house where he could basically shove his pocket knife into the cement. While there aren't many visible cracks, the concrete is very soft. So, now we're trying to figure out what this means for the future. How soon does this foundation have to be replaced?

The inspector also found some pretty extensive termite and beetle damage. In fact, there is a large beam under the front of the house that is practically hollow. He was almost able to insert his finger into the soft wood. We were also unaware of this damage before this morning.

While we were walking along the side of the house looking at a sagging roof, I tripped over something sticking out of the ground and I fell backwards into the neighbor's fence. It was so rotten that the fence just came down. Unfortunately, I managed to fall on a nail which punctured my hand. Ouch.

On Monday we have two more appointments. It's possible we'll have enough information by then to make an informed decision.

Waiting to Go

I've got everything packed and I've finished everything on my list and I still have about an hour before I leave to pick up Jeff, so I figure I may as well do a quick blog entry.

I'm feeling much more stress this time; I'm not sure why. I'm not sure if I'm uneasy about the house purchase, or if I'm uneasy about Jeff quitting his job soon. It's pretty scary to cut our roots and just move, with no idea how it will turn out.

As far as the house, I've scheduled several appointments over the next 4 days. We have a full house inspection Saturday morning. On Monday we're meeting with Green Hammer Building Contractors to discuss the energy upgrades we'd like to do to the house. We want to seal it up tight with insulation and other energy saving upgrades. And we're hoping to redo the kitchen and add an attached bathroom upstairs.

Also on Monday, we have a Mason coming out to look at the crumbling brickwork to give us an estimate for repair. That one will help determine if we decide to call this house ours. On Tuesday, we are having someone come out and try and locate an old oil tank on the property. The sellers claim there never was one, but we want to be sure.

We still need to schedule a sewer scope, but I figure we can probably wait until after the inspection. If the inspection shows us some very serious problems, then we'll pass on this house. The price, frankly, isn't cheap enough if there are major problems. But we're not seeing them, so it may be fine.

I did go off galavanting to Monterey yesterday. On the way, I dropped Shasta off at boarding in Santa Cruz. It was a lovely drive and we had beautiful weather. It's probably just as well I went out and looked first, because I didn't end up buying the set. The furniture was exactly the brand and finish I was hoping, but the sellers only had a headboard for the queen size bed. They didn't have the footboard or rails. I was very disappointed; I like the finished furniture look of the footboard. The seller seemed pretty disappointed, too. While I was there, I even called the furniture company to get a price for the missing pieces and they said $700! Seriously? $700? In this economy? Anyway, it turned this good deal into not such a good deal, so I passed. At least I had a nice day with my Mother. =)

I finally had time this morning to take a long walk with my walking buddy, Heather. We actually walked 2 miles from her house to Hobee's for breakfast and then back again. It was a nice walk and I'm glad I got a chance to visit with Heather again. After breakfast, I spent the rest of the day working through my To Do list getting ready to go. I hope we're not forgetting anything!

During this trip in Portland, we're staying with our friend who doesn't have a wireless connection, so we'll be mostly offline until Tuesday night. We may sneak over to the Multnomah Library to use their connection, but we won't have it at the house. I'll let you all know how it goes as soon as I can.

The Inspections Begin!

The sellers have now verbally accepted our counter offer. Our realtor, Clint, told me they had wanted to counter back at a higher amount, but he warned them not to, so they just accepted our offer. (Good call!) The forms are still shuttling about collecting signatures, but this looks like it will probably move to the next step. We'll know for sure tomorrow.

Next step: Inspections! We have 12 business days to complete whatever inspections we want to do. So now I need to start calling around and making appointments. And I (or we) have to go back up to Oregon, obviously. Though, we could stay down here and try and do everything remotely, but I'm sure we won't be as satisfied with that situation. It's always nice to follow the inspector around and ask questions while he works.

I am cautiously optimistic our search will finally be over. Though, I still clearly recall the house purchase that fell apart last year when the inspection came back with so many unexpected repairs needed.

I've been cruising around PortlandMaps.com and it looks like the house has been in the same family since at least 1938. Interesting!

Counter Offer on Multnomah

Surprisingly, the sellers countered our offer, so I guess their original offer wasn't so much better than ours! We originally offered $380K firm. But they countered at $395K. We discussed rejecting it just on the principle of the thing, but we countered with $385K. We're ready to be done house shopping.

They officially have until tomorrow at 3PM to answer our counter, but based on their last answer, they don't worry about those time limits so much so it could be later in the week. I'm quite sure the sellers are trying to work the other buyers to get their price up, so who knows what will happen.

We're getting much better at not getting our hopes up when we make offers. We are already discussing for which house we should make the next offer, sad to say.

We did our grueling 12.5 hour drive again today. It went fairly well. We were both tired from getting to bed much too late last night and we're both nursing mild colds. But luckily the trip was uneventful. Though the weather was odd. It was nice in Oregon, then started raining when we crossed over into California. Then it pretty much rained the whole rest of the trip. It's good to be back to our own bed where we can sleep with our dog child!

Another Hopeless Offer

We made probably another hopeless offer today. We found the fixer in Laurelhurst this week, on Multnomah. It needs a bunch of cosmetic work but the structure seems to still be in good shape. All of the woodwork has been painted and needs to be stripped. The house needs a new kitchen and I would put in a new bathroom attached to a bedroom to make a master. It was once a grand old house and could be again.