Updating....

Part of me wants to keep putting off updating--- because its been a couple of months since my last post, but i guess with everything you have to start somewhere eh?


Buying a House!?!?

While Rob was in vietnam, I started passing the time looking at Har.Com--- real-estate listings for the city of houston. Rob and I always go back and forth: should be buy? Or should we still keep renting? Finally, we reached a point where is didn't look so bad to buy-- interest rates were super low-- like all time historic low, rob had been working for almost two years, we were starting to grow out of our 2 bdrm apartment-- I was really sick of sharing a room with Vera, etc. So we decided to get more serious about looking.

The thing is, we feel strongly about Rob not having a huge commute (aka: hardly any). Houston traffic is a nightmare at rush hour, and having had to commute out to Katy while I was teaching in Houston, I don't blame Rob at all. Also, we didn't want a car payment, and the cost of gas can get a bit pricey on the budget. So the challenge was finding something that was in our price range, not in a flood zone (which is like impossible) and close to work.

Houston is a big city-- I think maybe the 5th largest in the USA. So finding a region of the city of where we would want to live is hard.

Anyway, here is a condensed version  of our "trying to buy a house" adventure which basically consumed our lives from the month of July to Oct:

House #1. "The Rat-a-tat House"


We found this great neighbourhood-- beautiful! 20 min bus ride to work, closer to the temple, near family= PERFECT House right!?!?! Not so, after a very stressful negotiating experiences, we finally got to the inspection... Everything looked great, except when we got to the attic... Apparently the house had a major rat infestation-- not mice, but RAT! Crazy right? I mean this house was a NICE house, in a nice neighbourhood. Our inspector can't tell us legally not buy a house, but the fact that he kept on repeating, "make sure you check the health department websites, and other info on stuff like that on rat infestations." Kind of was a red flag. After we decided NOT to buy the rat-a-tat house, our inspector later told us that "It was the worst rat infestation that he had seen in his 30 years of work." What!?!?!? Sick right? And this guy worked in industrial buildings as well.


** So we found another house in the neighbourhood in a better location with a bigger yard-- perfect right? Not so, after a source told us to google this neighbourhood using the term "oil refinery", after some hard searching we discovered that this whole neighbourhood use to be an oil refinery/dumping ground for toxins ect, and that there were reports of oil seepage and other nasty stuff.... 

So our search started again...

House #2. "Put a crack in that!"

So, we decided to look closer in the city-- more expensive but manageable if we lived outside of the loop. So the search started again, and then we found this great neighborhood, great schools. The thing is, alot of these homes were 3 bdrms, smaller---- like less than 2000 square feet, and the ones in our price range would be like "1950's Original!" As in: Original plumbing, original electric, original carpet"-- which wouldn't be too bad i guess, but rob and I don't really have any experience with dealing with a total remodel--- inside and out, and I don't think we could afford it since homes in the city are way way more expensive--- like 50-100 grand more than the homes we were looking at in the burbs.


But, we found this foreclosure that had almost everything done.... it was beautiful... probably the most beautiful house I've seen-- the previous owners did not spare any expense. The finest cabinets, the finests granite (Rob, the geologist was enamored with it). Rob loved this house. I liked it, but was hesitant because of the massive cracks in some of the walls and that all the fancy appliances were taken out of the house. But, apparently with homes this old you will have some settling/movement. Inspection went great--- in fact our inspector was impressed with the work that had been done. We just needed to find out how much the foundation repair would cost....  the bank provided an estimate, but we wanted a real estimate how bad things really were...

Since we live in Houston, and because of the drought, the foundation repair companies were booked solid till November. We wanted to get an estimate before our option period was over, but no one was available to come out. Finally, we were able to get a hold of the guy who did the estimate.  Its like a conference talk. In a nut shell: "walk away from that house!" What!?!?!? Apparently, all the work that had been done was done with the broken foundation, cabinets were not square, ect---- and if you were to fix it? The house would fall apart.


** sad story: so while we were tick or treating last monday, we met this nice young couple who had just bought a house. You could just see it on their faces... the nightmare it had been. apparently they had done a ton of work on it-- only to experiences a ton of problems-- topping it off with their ceiling falling through... I felt so bad for them...


So, with a week before our lease was up, we decided to rent a house (for 6 months) barely outside of the loop. Its a great little  neighbourhood-- will be buy? Hmmm... I don't know.... part of me never wants to buy a house in Houston. But for now, as crazy as this is, if you are going to live in the city where we are living, its still cheaper to rent... And rob is only a 7 min drive from work and still can bike to work. Who knows what we will do next....


Lessons learned:

1. Rob and I know how to pick em! Honestly, I just don't think, for whatever reason, we are not supposed to be buying a house right now.... even though logically it does, for some reason we're not. I mean Houston is great place to live, and lots of people find great homes, I think just for us, we just need to sit tight and trust in being patient! And from my limited experience, there is a reason... if we don't know what it is just yet.

2. I know way to much-- more than I ever wanted to about what could be wrong with a house... to make the process of buying a house a "magical experience."


3. Homes in houston may be cheap --- but weather, environment is hard on them-- We met a guy a few weeks ago, who was telling us not to buy a house here-- why? In the past year his house has been hit by lightening, and his foundation cracked. How old is his house? 6 years old, and looking at a 20 grand or more repair.

3. Our home inspector has our business for life! our inspector was amazing! He is so thorough. He spent so much time-- almost a whole day on each house. I can not stress enough, how important it is to have a great inspector!!!!


4. How much I loathe HAR.com -- I almost want to puke just thinking about looking at it! I think Rob and I learned that next time we decide to look for a house, we need to have better balance and not let it consumer so much of our time and lives.

Most importantly:

5. A House is just that, a House: We can basically live anywhere and be happy. A house is just a structure/covering. What makes a home is the people who live in it! As fun as it is to decorate, buy things for it, dream about it, fix it up ect, it is not the most important thing in this life.

the end.

B is wanting school time, so I better run, but I will post less sarcastic and more happier things later :)