Inspection

Well, we have another house with another inspection. Fingers crossed this inspection goes better than our others.  Maybe just maybe this could be our new home. 

We are going to try house hunting again. On our way now in fact.

P.S Doesn't just looking at these ity bity photos make you not want to house hunt? I dread today but I am trying to be positive.

Housing update

We set out on a what we thought would be a fun house search in February. Our lease ends at the end of July. Our goal was to be moving into a new place the last weekend in July. No such luck.

My husband has physically been in over 100 houses and is exhausted not to mention that I am sure our Realtor is super annoyed with us.  But to be fair, we've made offers, we've even had a signed contract but the inspection has failed us.

When we went into the house hunt, we were told it was a buyers market. We totally got our hopes up. Now this may be true for some parts of the country but this is not the case in Chicago. First problem, people are so upside down on their mortgages that even though their house is one price, they will not sell it unless they get what they owe. This makes the house cost more money, not less. How does that make this a buyers market? Second problem, we find houses we like that are pre-forclosure, when we go back to look at it, it's clear the occupants have been forced to leave. How do we know? Well, floors have been removed, things have been pulled out of the walls and ceilings leaving very little to be desired. And guess what? The banks won't lower the costs of the house at this point. Again, how is this a buyers market?

So if you're a seller in the west suburban area of Chicago and your reading this, please check out where I blogged about our wants/needs and email me if you have a house that you REALLY want to sell. And by REALLY I mean you aren't going to list it as the price you actually want for it, because I am not going to lie, when I see the list price, I think there's room to negotiate. This listing your house for exactly what you want to get paid is getting a little out of hand and it's wasting every one's time - PS maybe that's why your house has been on the market for 200+ days, just a thought.

And as a note to any home buyer, if the seller doesn't send you a disclosure for mold and takes awhile to sign the contract it probably mean there is 20% moisture in the walls with lots of mold and other issues in the roof. The hubs and I learned this the hard way which also wasted 3+ weeks of our house hunting.

OK enough complaining and moping, so now here's where I come in and be super positive (it's the Leo in me, I can't help it), are you ready for it? Summer is almost over in my books and the hubs and I have done very little to enjoy it outside of house hunting. So we're going to take a week and weekend off and enjoy ourselves (partly because our Realtor has decided to take a week's vacation to try to get away from us, not really but the thought does cross my mind) We are super greatful and truly blessed for a healthy family, jobs we enjoy going to (well heck just for even having jobs) and for our fabulous friends. We are greatful to even be in a position of looking at houses especially after only having our wedding a year ago.

Cheers to a fun summer activity filled weekend!

Buyers Beware

Remember this little house we were trying to make our very own?

Well we got the contract signed, finally. Good news right? WRONG! We had our inspection 2 days later and it was a major bust.

Back to the drawing board, I mean house search list....efff

When To Know When To Walk Away

We've been in negotiations for over 2 weeks. On Friday we reached an agreement. Early Saturday we signed our part of the contract. Since Saturday we have been waiting for the seller to sign the contract. As of now, no such luck. The selling Realtor has hardly even spoken with our Realtor, hence the 2+ weeks of negotiations. Do we keep waiting and hope that everything is going to work out? We haven't even had an inspection yet that could still go horribly wrong. At what point should we be willing to walk away from a house? To what point should we continue to pursue it?

House Hunting is not fun.

House Negotiating - HELP!

I write this with nothing except frustration running through my mind. We have made 2 offers on houses now and both the sellers have refused to negotiate down from the list price. One seller came down a a tincy tiny little bit and the other refused to get back to us for 3 days to even let us know that they were so offended by our offer. I thought I heard somewhere that that is illegal, but maybe not. Anyway...

Do other people go through this same thing? Is it all part of buying a house? Have any of you even had a seller willing to negotiate or as a potential and hopeful homebuyer should the hubs and I only be offering what the list price is? I'd love to hear what you all think because we are really at a loss.

Please help,
not so cheerful me

A Yello Tuesday

Not sure why but my office area (AKA the Annex) broke out to a bump bump chicka chicka session just a bit ago. Whatever happened to Yello anyway?



While you're watching that we're still house hunting. Apparently the house sellers haven't read my message to them, found here. When they do answer and we start to get excited, negotiations don't go well and the selling Realtors can be real PITAs.

Dear Home Sellers

Dear Home Sellers,

Please help us a find a house that meets these requirements:

Price: We are looking up to the _____ range however we have 2 different price criteria in mind. 1. If the house is on the higher end price, we want it finished; live in ready with no/very little repairs/updates that would be needed. 2. We would prefer something on the “low” end of the price spectrum so that we can afford to make updates on our own and we have more flexibility with the updates that we want/need to make. (please don't try to sell me a house with no walls, no floors and mold at the high end of our price)

Location: one of us has a job in the city with the other in Downers Grove. We need something that will be a “fair” drive for both of us. (as much as I want to move west to get a larger house with a nice yard, the Chicago construction has my commute already at 2+ hours each way. The cops that pull people over on the part where the expressway is down to 1 lane isn't helping)

Size: We were married just less than a year ago and hoping to find a home that we can live in as a starter home as we plan on looking to have kids in the next 5 years. So we’re looking for a 2+bedroom 1.5+ bathroom (a kids toilet in the closet doesn't count as a half bathroom and a jacuzzi in a bedroom doesn't make it a master bathroom.)

Yard: Having a back yard is very important to my husband, and when I say yard he wants something that he can mow (a yard that is full of a rotted molded out pool does not count)

Allergies: My husband is deathly allergic to cats. If the house has/had cats living in it, we would need to do a lot of work (new wallpaper, new flooring, ect) to make it livable for him. (so please don't show us a house that has cat poop and vomit all over the stairs, the breakfast bar ect.)

Basement: A basement isn’t a must but it is something that would be a great treat for us and definitely a buying bonus. (a crawl space doesn't count as a basement.)

Lastly, I don't like haunted houses.

Thanks!

Softball Update

Yup, it's Thursday which means I should have a softball recap, right? Wrong. Yesterday was an intense day. The hubs sent an email voicing concerns that he's over heard everyone complain about over the past 3 years, and especially in the past 2 weeks and apparently the email didn't go over so well. Personal attacks got made and no one would even admit that they were as unhappy as they claim to be during most games. Unfortunately, the hubs got so upset by it, he withdrew us from the team. I love the group we play softball with so it is going to be a difficult transition.

On a brighter note, I am thinking this will give us more time to house hunt? By the way, house hunting in the Chicagoland area is exhausting. We want somewhat of a yard, 2 bedrooms and at least 1.5 bathroom, apparently that is very hard to come by in our price range. Anyone have any Chicagoland tips for us as far as house hunting goes? Right now, we feel like this:

Photo Found Here

Valentine's Day Weekend

This year Valentine's weekend came and went so fast. The hubs had to work on his truck, so he made another trek to Indiana, leaving me and the doggie all alone in Chicago. It was sad not to spend the entire weekend with him, but don't worry Minne and I made do. There were plenty of Valentine's day cards to go around.

Cards from Aunt Em and Uncle Ryan

With everything Minne likes, she ate them

We started the weekend out by watching the 2010 Winter Olympic Opening Ceremonies with my middle sister. They were awesome. I think we all got a little geography lesson and we really enjoyed the special effects. Especially, the when they made it look like whales were swimming around in the middle of the arena. SO cool.

Saturday was an adventure. After working our, I met with my old badminton coach (go ahead and laugh, yes I played badmitton in high school) to catch up on everything. We talked about friends, family and careers. She is now working with a law firm and she is doing some relestate so it was a great way to kick off house hunt 2010. Yup, the hubs and I may be interested in starting the house hunting process. We don't anticpiate it happening this year but we should probably start looking at some point.

After lunch I was able to get some much needed errands done and then started family time. I was able to go to my HS almamater to watch a HS basketball game and, more importantly, my little sister cheer! I hadn't made it to one basketball game all year and was pleased I was able to make it to one. It was a shame the team got slaughtered, but my sister nailed all her stunts:


Sorry my phone camera did not work well with the lights in the gym

I was then talked into a girls night with my sister and her best friend from forever ago for her friend's Birthday. Let's just say the night looked a little something like this:



The next day, I got up super early to work out and go to work. Luckily work went fast and I was able to get out at a decent time because I had gotten great news, the hubs was back just in time for my cousins dual Birthday celebration! We ended our big "Valentine's Day weekend" with Portillos so neither of us had to cook, oh and the best part? My husband let me wear sweats!