Not All That Glitters Is Gold

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Smelly Danielly

Well, Sunday was a wake up call.

We did our first real tour of houses yesterday. There were 2 houses that we had picked and a few more our Realtors pick just to throw in some variety and to show us what was out there. We definitely were not expecting to find what we did.

When we first talked about areas we would like to live in we divided it as follow…

Burnaby- We would love to but that isn’t going to happen unless we win the lotto
New West – Possibility, but there are some sketchy neighborhood we were scared of
West Coquitlam – Ideal in terms of price points
East Coquitlam – Pushing it
Port Moody – Possibility

CoquitlamCenter, Pitt Meadows, Maple Ridge,Port Coquitlam, or anything over a bridge - Not Happening

So we set out to view houses in Coquitlam, the city I thought I wanted to live in the most.

House # 1 a.k.a “Asian Crack Shack” – We had picked this house to view based on its location. The pictures made it look like it was definitely a fixer-upper, but it seems like something we could live with for a little while. Yea, big mistake. The house was not maintained at all. The counter tops in the kitchen were broken; there was a leak in the roof which they tried to hide behind pieces of Christmas wrapping paper. The basement was a disaster. There were air vents everywhere that made no sense. The wiring was all wacky and everything you looked at was falling apart. This house was close to the top of our price range and the entire thing needed to be gutted if not knocked down. The house was just so gorss. Clearly it did not make our short list.

House # 2 a.k.a. “Squatter Central” – Our realtor had sent us this house for it’s location, but when we looked it up on MLS there were no photos of it, which right away made me think bad things because the only reason you wouldn’t post pictures of a house is if the house is a piece of trash. Well, the house was a piece of trash. The outside looked worn, but we had no idea what we were about to step foot into. Clearly the owners had #1 been smokers and #2 had pets because the whole house was covered in carpet, which they ripped out and didn’t replace. We were walking on plywood. The kitchen had a solarium attached to it which was wood paneled, except the roof had leaked and the wood was rotting. There were holes in the walls from people kicking it. Everything was falling apart. The house smelled so bad I could barely breathe. Someone, however, was living in the basement, amidst piles of crap covered by sheets. I was honestly waiting to find a dead body or something, the house was that sketchy. I could not get out of there fast enough. We thought the 1st house was bad but clearly we were wrong. That house was listed at the top of our price range. Yea, let’s spend $600,000 to buy a house only to have to knock it down and spend some more money to build a new one! 600 k for a crack shack with squatters. Welcome toVancouver!

House # 3 a.k.a “The Money Pit” - We stumbled upon this house en route to another appointment. They were having an open house so we just stopped to check it out. It was owned by an older man who had lived in it for 10 years and had recently begun to renovate the whole thing. Only problem is he didn’t have any permits to do so, so when the neighbors called the city, they shut him down forcing him to spend roughly $15,000 to get engineers and architects in to approve all the work he had down. After that ordeal he realized he was sinking too much money into the place and was just going to sell it as is; gutted. $650,000 for another gutted house. Clearly this was way out of our league, but it was at least neat to check out. Note to self, get city approval before renovating a house.

House #4 a.k.a “The Confused Tree House” – Another showing our Realtors wanted us to see, further out then we were expecting, this house was essentially split into two suites, the upstairs and the downstairs. The house was nice and well looked after, but the layout didn’t really make much sense. The house was built on the side of a cliff surrounded by trees so given that they couldn’t really have a traditional backyard; they build all these tiered wooden decks around the trees which was really cool. It kind of reminded me of the tree houses they have at theCapilanoSuspension bridge. Over all the house was nice but not for us. It seemed like it was having an identity crisis with the two oddly laid out suites.

House #5 a.k.a. “The Dreamy One” – This house was in New West. The good part of New West, right between my ZiosChurch and my Zias house. The photos made me fall in love. It looked to be a bit on the small side but I was willing to give it a try. It was dreamy. Dreamy and old school. Dreamy and old school and a bit too tiny. There were only 2 bedrooms on the main floor. The master didn’t have an ensuite, and asChad pointed out, the master closet was too small. It mentioned that it had an in-law suite which essentially meant someone could live downstairs but it was open to everything, so you could only rent it out to someone you knew, like your in-laws, because they would have access to your whole house. Out of everything we saw, this one was the closest to what we were looking for. We toyed with the idea of adding a 3rd floor master loft, but then we realized that the house just didn’t work for our needs so that would really be a waste. This one was dreamy, but not the one.

So after our adventurous day of crack shacks and vintage houses we came to these conclusions. We are actually much more comfortable in New West as appose to Coquitlam. It’s closer to everything we want and it ‘feels’ like home. We are definitely on the look out for a vintage home with that heritage feel.Chadlikes the size of them better then giant 70s homes and I am so obsessed with the look of them. I also found out, because it was never explained properly to me, that if you buy a house with a basement suite, your mortgage lender counts that as income, and therefore you qualify for a bigger mortgage, sometimes up to $200,000 more. Umm hello! Why wasn’t I told this before!? So, we are now officially on the look for a house in New West with a basement suite in our ideal neighborhood, and you know what, I think we are actually going to be able to find something!

Store Age

Posted on October 27, 2011 by Smelly Danielly

We went out on Sunday to book a storage locker for all of our stuff. You read online about all the different size units they have and what they hold and you think, oh yea that’s more then enough space. And then you go there and you see it for yourself and you start to think, where the hell is everything going to go?

We are renting a 10 x 10 locker at Public Storage. A 10 x 10 locker is supposed to fit all the contents of a 1 bedroom apartment minus appliances. Yea, we’ll see if that actually happens or not. I guess the only good thing is, if we have extra boxes and things that wont fit, at least they can go in someones basement, right?

The month is looking pretty busy. This weekend we are having the ‘Last Supper’ as it were, and then we are celebrating my Moms 50th Birthday. Next weekend Pat and Aimee are in town for the Banquet, the weekend after that we are in Vegas, and the weekend after that we MOVE! Yea, talk about timing.

I got it in my head that since we started paying for the storage locker on Sunday we should probably start packing everything and moving it over this week. I don’t know why I decided to add stress to my life! A lot of the dishes and things are still going to be needed for dinner on Saturday, but I was able to pack most of our glassware and decorative items. Chad is going to take a load over tomorrow night while I madly clean the house and prepare as much food as I can for Saturday. It would not be like us if we didn’t plan for a million things to happen all at the same time. Actually Ryan predicted that we would have to move all of our stuff around the time we leave for Vegas back when we booked the trip. Wouldn’t it be funny if…yea, not so much! Oh well, this is all good stress.

Speaking of which, Chad and I still have to prepare all the photos and slide show for the banquet. I don’t know when thats going to happen but we are running out of time!

So, in other words, the next month is going to be filled with a lot of stressfill, moving-esque blog posts. I plan on documenting everything. I know you are excited!

Where Are We Going To Live?

Posted on October 25, 2011 by Smelly Danielly

And so the search for a new home begins.

I was put back on the real estate email list this weekend. I took myself off of it months ago because it was torture being sent house after house that I could do nothing about because we were not ready to move. Now the homes are slowly starting to trickle in.

If this whole processes has taught me anything it is to have patience. That and people are friggin picky, so why the hell aren’t I?

I guess part of me gets so excited about things that I tend to block out any sort of negativity surrounding it. For example, finding a house that could work, but its in a bad neighbourhood. I will do everything in my power to convince myself and everyone around me that its not that big of a deal and it will be fine, instead of looking at it realistically and thinking, is it really worth it to buy a house in a neighbourhood I’m not comfortable in? All I want is the house and I get so focused on it that I will do anything I have to, to get it. That, and I guess having family members in every sort of trade makes me thing that if anything is wrong with the place, I’ll just get someone I know to fix it, instead of thinking, is this really worth it?

Now, I am looking at things in a new light. I’ve almost come full circle and have become so picky that I don’t know if anything will make me happy! I’m not sure if that’s going to hinder my ability to find a house that fits all our needs, or if it will pay off because I will truly find what I am looking for and won’t just settle for something that will kind of work.

At least I know I have the perfect gauge of balance in Chad. I tend to come up with wacky ideas, and running them by him is like running them by the government of reason-ability. If he looks at me like I’m crazy then I know I am actually crazy, but if he looks at me like I’ve got a good idea, then I know, however out there it seems, it could actually work.

I guess the challenge now is finding something we like, that will fit our needs, within our budget. Everyone struggles with this when looking for a home, but I think it’s going to be a bit more difficult for us, because of how unbelievably picky I have become. I think reading design websites for the past 6 months has screwed me over with expectations!

I also find myself struggling with making a decision on whether or not to view a house. In my head, if I am sent a house that I think has potential for us, then I feel OK making an appointment to go view it. But if I find a house that has positives and negatives I feel almost guilty for making an appointment to view it, because the likely hood that we will actually like it enough to put in an offer is slim. I mean, in all reality, can you really tell everything about a house by a few pictures and some spec info? No of course you can’t, but you can get a good sense of whether or not the house can work for you. I guess that’s what I’m kind of relying on, pictures and info to sell me, when in reality, pictures can make things look way better then they actually are, and you really can’t make an educated decision with out seeing a house with your own eyes. Plus, over 30 people came to see our apartment before we got an offer, so I should be the last person to feel guilty for ‘wasting someones time’ and booking a viewing. I guess the reality is, you never know until you view it.

So, we have booked two viewings so far, for two compeletly different houses in two compeletly different areas. And so the adventure beings!!

It’s A Reality

Posted on October 21, 2011 by Smelly Danielly

It has been a stressful two weeks, more stressful then usual.

The morning of Thanksgiving we received a phone call from our Realtor informing us that someone wanted to put an offer on our apartment and they wanted to meet with us that evening. Whats that, a Thanksgiving MIRACLE!? We were excited but nervous, given the way everything had turned out until this point, we really didn’t want to get ahead of ourselves. Knowing our luck, the deal would fall through before the offer was even put on the table. All day we waited anxiously for a confirmation call of when this would all go down. We had to rearrange our family dinner and prepared ourselves as best we could.

Since dinner was at my parents house, our Realtor met us there along with the Realtor representing the other couple wanting to buy the apartment. Now, I’ve watched enough HGTV to know how this whole thing plays out, or so I thought. The Realtor presented us with an offer, which wasn’t that great of a deal, and instead of laying it out and letting us decide what our next move was, he began to present us with this pile of information that essentially told us this offer was the best we were going to get because our apartment wasn’t really worth that much and the market was just going to go down even more so really, since his clients weren’t in a rush to by anything and since the markets were just going to continue to go down, he was doing us a favour with this offer. I wanted to punch this guy in the face so badly it took all my strength not to move from the couch.

Thankfully our Realtor quickly shewed him out of the house so we could talk in private about what we wanted to do. I was super annoyed with this guy but Chad just brushed it off as him ‘doing business’. I’m sorry, but there is no reason for you to be an ass hat. Present us with the offer and let it be. I know everyone had a budget of what they can and can’t afford. I know that people always want to try and get a deal when buying a place, so there is really NO reason why you have to give us a speech on how our situation is hopeless and you are doing us a favour. UGH.

Anyways, the deal went back and forth and back and forth a couple times until we finally agreed on a price. It was no where near the price we had in our minds when we put our apartment up for sale, but we had to accept it for what it was. We had been on the market for 6 months with NO offers, there were TONS of other apartments in our area that were also for sale and not selling, the markets HAD gone down, and in reality, this really was our only way out. Do you sacrifice money if it removes stress from your life? In this case, yes. We were more then ready to move on, but we were stuck and couldn’t plan or do anything until the apartment sold. So, this was our way out.

You’d think we’d be elated once we had signed the deal, but our feelings were very much the opposite. We were bitter and frustrated, sad and worried. We never thought it would turn out like this. Yes we had an accepted offer but we never thought we would sell it for what we did. We struggled with how ‘unfair’ the whole experience had felt. I am not one to wallow in self pity and I try very hard to accept things for what they are and believe that everything in life happens for a reason, but this whole apartment selling business just seemed ridiculous.

The next step, after we accepted the offer, was to wait for them to book an inspection. I was feeling pretty confident because I knew there wasn’t too much that could be wrong with a small 1 bedroom apartment, plus Chad and other members of the Strata Council work so hard to make sure everything in the building is working and up to par that I doubted there was anything they could find that would break the deal. That was until I realized that if for whatever reason this couple had decided that they didn’t make the right choice or if they changed their minds, they could essentially pick out anything from the Strata Minutes or the Inspection and say ‘Yea, we don’t like this, this is a deal breaker’. When I realized this I started to really worry.

The inspection took over two hours long, which was a far cry from the inspection we did when we bought the place. I guess maybe we should have actually hired an inspector instead of getting my Godfather to walk through the building checking things out in exchange for a bottle of Martini & Rossi. HA! When I got home I could tell everything has been looked at. Furniture was moved and there was drywall dust all over the floors from him taking apart switches to see how they were hooked up. I just wanted this to be all over and done with.

It wasn’t until this past Monday that we found out the inspection went well. The only thing that came up was something about our plugs and switches not being installed properly, which was our fault when we bought new ones and changed them all out. They wanted us to fix everything or they were going to take $1000 off the price. Humm…fix it for $200 or take $1000 off the price. Yea, that’s a no brainier.

The electrician is coming tomorrow to fix everything, then we have to present the bill with all the changes listed to the other Realtor. In the mean time, the accepted offer was finalized which means we are no longer owners of our little apartment, which is just sad to think about. I know it was time to move on, and I know I complained a lot about the building, but I love our little apartment and I am going to be sad to see it go.

Now, we have the challenge of organizing everything. We have to be out of there in exactly 1 month, which clearly does not give us any time to find a place and move into it, but we really weren’t planning on doing that anyways, which is why we agreed to these dates. So, we are putting 95% of our stuff into a storage locker and the other 5% of our stuff into my parents house where we will be moving into. That should be interesting!

So the deed is done. This chapter of our lives is coming to a close. We still aren’t excited, about it. There is a lot of work that needs to be done, but hopefully once the move takes place and we start seeing some homes we actually like, the excitement will come back.

Bring Your Axe and Saw

Posted on October 19, 2011 by Smelly Danielly

Saturday night we were invited to a Lumberjack party. Why Lumberjacks you ask, well, because Lumberjacks are AWESOME!

I got our outfits ready Saturday day and was so happy to find our suspenders tucked away in one of Chads drawers. You really can’t be a Lumberjack with out suspenders!