my life

I hate to shop....

...almost as much as I hate spending money.

I spent yesterday with Sherry (as opposed to Shelly, although I could understand how you might confused them without facial recognition to separate them). The plan was to meet at an unoccupied house so she could "train my eyes." Remember what I said about her planning to be able to get me back out of the home I chose when the time came for me to move? She bloody well meant it.

We began where we would be undisturbed: in front of a bank-owned home. And...you start in the front. You look at the neighborhood, first. Is it clean, trashy, old, well-kept, falling down, overgrown? Even if you don't care, the next potential homeowners probably will. Much of what she taught me (crash course) to look for involves developing an eye for structural problems. Does the sidewalk or driveway at the home or other parts of the neighborhood buckle or sag? Have lots of these places been replaced recently? That could indicate the same problem. If you find a neighborhood that has lots of these sags, buckles or new sidewalk sections, odds are the home you're looking at shares the problem, as they're all sitting on the same types of soil.

Next, look at the line of the roof from far away. Look for sags or buckles. As you walk up to the house, check the lay of the land. It should move water away from foundation of the home. The home's gutters should do the same thing. If it doesn't, the water may pool under the foundation, which is more than likely sitting on clay that will absorb it and freeze. Just imagine the interesting things that can happen then.

As you stroll in, notice how well caulked and painted any cracks are along the windows, doors and eaves. This part should be kept up to protect from the ravages of weather, although most people don't. Go in and immediately notice the fung shui.

I'm not kidding. This is Sherry's way of saying, "How does it feel to you?" The home should be welcoming. The more open it is, the better it feels when you walk in the door. Again, this is something that will appeal to people's emotions without them necessarily noticing it. You want something that will make them happy.

Of course, you want something that will make you happy, too. In the best case scenario, you'll find both in the same home.

As you walk in, note how it feels and check the walls. Look for cracks that are not horizontal or vertical, but go in a diagonal direction at any point. This is akin to tearing a phone book in half and is an indication of severe pressure from somewhere. That pressure may be from the foundation settling too much in one direction or from twisted wood that cured after it was installed. Check for holes in walls and such, of course. These are common in bank-owned properties.

She suggested lots of nice-to-haves, such as vinyl windows and pre-installed sump pumps and teleposts in the basement. Thus, we went on our way, looking from home to home and training my eyes when the owner wasn't home to hear what we were saying. We only encountered one owner in about 12 houses.

It sucked much of the romance from the venture once I began to see all the drainage problems and dipping foundations and lumpy floors and uneven doorways and loose toilets, but it helped me rule out several homes and helped keep me from being overcome with unwarranted emotion with a location or pretty color, as women are wont to do, when the home itself was in bad shape.

She'd narrowed my search to homes that suited my desires: privacy, peace and quiet, and resale value, as well as homes that had a basement. ("Why do you want a basement?" - Because I like basements. Do I need another reason? - "I'm just trying to get inside your head so I can best find the place that will make you happy.") For "resale value" she'd cut off the birth date at 1978 to avoid homes with lead-based paint, as this is apparently a health hazard to children who peel it off the walls and eat it (and just eating regular paint wouldn't be?). Thus, I was in the "newer home" market.

I've noticed for years that most homes built within recent years are, well, not as well-made as homes from earlier eras. It seems like less of an art form and more of a cookie-cutter process these days. It isn't as though they plan to rip them down and start over in a few years, but they don't seem hellbent on not doing so, either.

I went into my share of "trophy homes" yesterday. These are those homes that look quite elegant, have lots of windows, and an interesting floorplan that often covers four different levels. These are the kinds of homes that people think they want, and apparently, millions of people get. As I went in, I noticed how much the homes that had been built as late as 2000 were already falling into disrepair and cracking in undesirable places, and how most of the basements were completely unfinished or had been finished by some "cowboy" (as Sherry put it) and weren't anywhere near being in code. But most of all, I began to realize, in home after home like this, how...cold they felt to me. I'm not sure how to explain it better. They sit in very nice neighborhoods that also feel cold. They just don't feel like home, somehow.

About half-way through, however, we meandered into a more settled neighborhood that had been built in the 80s. It's nice and quiet, with no industrial plants or city dumps or anything unappetizing nearby. The house we were looking at had a nice park kiddie-corner to the back lot. It looks like an ordinary home from the front, which I really dig. It has a sort of diagonally installed porch deck and a two-car garage (standard in these parts). There were no sags or dips in the concrete in the neighborhood, and no new spots, even. The home itself looked flawless from the outside to my recently-trained eyes (indeed...by this point, I was almost clinical in my appraisals of each place).

We went in--it has a funky lock on the front door--and found that the floor plan was open and inviting. The kitchen is large enough to actually cook in, too. I saw no cracks or fissures, and no awful wallpaper that suggested someone was covering something up. I went downstairs to the basement to check it. It had been completely refinished in tongue-in-groove pine. It's a bit like walking into a cabin to go downstairs. The basement went on and on, too. I looked at my spec sheet. This house was over 2500 sq feet--finished. It has a deck all the way across the back and friendly but not too close neighbors. It was built in 1982 and has no structural defects. It has been fully finished by a professional. They were asking $199,900 where the newer homes with unfinished basements and structural defects in cookie-cutter neighborhoods wanted up to $203k. I believe I was drooling furiously by the time we left.

This is no cookie-cutter neighborhood, and it has fully grown trees in it, no less. As we left, Sherry mentioned that this place has been on the market for two days.

Anyhow...off we went to rule out the rest of the houses. I had to make sure, you know. Nothing came close, but it seemed to take forever at this point to finish. I was chomping at the bit to get moving with the "make an offer" part, partly because of another home I'd seen the day before that looked fabulous in every way but went under contract before I could even schedule a showing. I didn't want this to happen again. This one was a find and I was ready to be the lucky one who'd found it first.

We went to Starbucks and spoke with Lisa, the finance lady, about my options, then Sherry took a while working the numbers, giving me estimates of how much escrow, hazard insurance, etc would be figured into the payments, then worked out how much of a tax writeoff I'd have in the first year or two for each so I could compare. Then she went back to the office and worked out the official offer. I met her at 6:30, read through everything, had some things explained to me, and signed furiously. We're offering $200k, but asking for most closing costs, which is pretty normal, but not a hard and fast rule. That's pretty much it.

Turns out the owners plan to move to another state in about six weeks, so we can plan the closing date for the end of May, should they desire to take us up on it, and let them move out slow should they desire to do so, as I won't be popping back into town until 29 June. Sherry's passing along my FICA score to sweeten the pot; apparently, people with good credit don't ask to buy your house every day. I'm hoping they'll be tickled to have this hassle off their minds, because I'm sure they have lots of other worries to attend to.

Cross your fingers. I find out today if they want to do business or...there's a chance they'll think, "Wow. That was fast. Maybe I should hold out for a better offer." We'll see by 1pm.

d