2013 Year in Review

A Year of Challenges

I would definitely label this year as a year of challenges for my family and myself. The biggest event would definitely be selling our condo of six years and purchasing a house where we hope we stay at least until the kids move out. The condo where we were living (and is starting to feel like a distant memory now) is only a two bedroom. With our two kids sharing one bedroom and only getting bigger, I wanted to give them their own rooms. My son was also going into kindergarten in the fall, and I wanted to be able to move before he started, so that he wouldn’t have to go through changing schools. Mortgage interest rates were low and housing as a market was starting to recover, so it was a good time to buy. Unfortunately, condos, while on the rise, were by and large still depressed compared with homes and their recovery, so it was a bad time to sell a condo. That led my wife and I to make a difficult decision, as we would have to accept taking a loss on our condo and thus not being able to afford as much of a house as we would like, or deal with staying in our condo for several more years, where we might end up facing a similar situation years down the road anyway if housing rose faster than condos. So we decided to embark on the crazy ride of simultaneously selling and buying real estate.

On Selling

We decided to use Angie’s List in order to find a listing agent to sell our place. We definitely wanted to select someone from the area, who could easily represent Oak Park to anyone new to the area (and who would be familiar with the local market). After narrowing down the list and interviewing those remaining, we decided on Gary Mancuso. We chose him because we also weren’t entirely sure if we were going to sell or rent our condo, and he was willing to do either. Though after finding out from the bank what they would loan us if we kept our existing mortgage, combined with FHA and conventional loans rules when it comes to condo buildings that have a non-owner-occupied units, we figured that renting wasn’t a very viable option. Plus, I admit, I wouldn’t really look forward to becoming a landlord on top of everything else. Gary also beat out the rest because he strongly emphasized a good web presence, offered virtual tours with a floorplan, used a professional photographer, and charged the same rate as everyone else. I think he was definitely instrumental in us getting an offer less than a week after finally listing the place.

Before we could get to that point, however, we had to get the place ready. We had been in there for nearly six years and had two small children, so the place wasn’t in the greatest of shape (but fortunately nothing some Spackle and fresh paint couldn’t fix). There was also the benefit of the basement where we had a good amount of storage space, so we boxed up a lot of the stuff we didn’t need on a day to day basis and put it down there. A good rule of selling is to get rid of excess stuff, since the people buying the place aren’t going to get it, so they don’t need to see it. After spending about two months or so on nights and weekends repairing the little odds and ends and deep cleaning the place, we were ready.

Our first offer naturally came in less than what we listed for, so after a little bit of haggling, we eventually compromised in the middle. It was less than I wanted, but the first offer is generally the highest, and the buyers were solid in terms of the loan department, so I figured it was the best we were going to get. We were worried about how long it would take for us to find a house that we wanted and could afford, so we decided on a closing date that was several months out. The hope is that it would give us plenty of time to find a new home, since we couldn’t go looking officially until we got that offer on our place.

On Buying

We decided to go with a buyer’s agent on purchasing our home, since I was hoping that it would alleviate any potential conflicts of interest that a normal real estate agent would have. After checking out a few, we settled on Jeff Kropp. He was very helpful for us, though I am not quite sure how much of a benefit we got from him being a buyer’s agent. But he definitely worked with us and helped us through the stressful process.

The problem with buying while you are selling is that you are on a time-limit. Considering that we want to spend twenty years or so in the house we are looking to buy, only having a month to look for it is a bit nerve-wracking. We were able to get a little more time, however, by pushing the closing date for our condo out to a later date. But still, even with that extra breathing room it is a tense experience as the good homes get snatched up quickly so you don’t have a lot of time to think about your decisions. So that leaves a lot of sub-par houses sitting on the market that you can check out, which also isn’t encouraging.

One case where this hit us was with our first pick. After checking out the market for a week or so, the houses in our initial price range weren’t anything to be excited about. So we decided to stretch our budget a little more and this popped up a few that we would be happy with. After checking those out, and eliminating the ones that were okay in the photos, but horrible in person, we were able to narrow it down to two. Of these two, one was a very large house with a roof that was being sold “as-is”, and a smaller house with all the modern conveniences plus a lower listing price. Being a bit worried about what we could reasonably afford, I was leaning towards the smaller house. My wife, thinking of daily life and kids that were only going to get bigger with time, wanted the bigger house. After a few days of discussing it and visiting the homes again, I started to agree with her. So we went to put an offer on the house and found out that someone had beaten us to the punch. It was extremely frustrating since there was no indication that this had happened until after our agent spoke to theirs. For a brief moment we considered trying to engage in a bidding war, but came to our senses before it came to that.

So with our emotional wounds still fresh, we trekked back to look at new homes since we didn’t have time to wallow in self-pity. Fortunately, we came across a house that had only been on the market a week that was similar in layout as the smaller home we liked before (though fortunately a bit bigger).  Not wanting to be second place again, we put a bid on the house after only seeing it once. And once again, we found out that there was a previous bid already. Fortunately for us, the sellers weren’t entirely pleased with the first bid and hadn’t accepted yet. So we did find ourselves in a slight bidding war, but we put in an offer for the most we were willing to afford and stuck with that, which was thankfully accepted. We had a bit of back and forth after the inspection, as there were a few problems with the home, but after several weeks of negotiations, we were able to reach a compromise.

So with the condo ready to be sold and the house ready to be bought, we just had a wonderful task of packing up all our stuff and finding someone willing to move it. Fortunately, we had some friends to help us out with the packing, making that a bit easier in the final days (as we sealed the last box only hours before the movers were to arrive). And Under One Roof was willing to come by the day before we closed and pick up our stuff, then deliver it to our new place the day after we got the place. Overall, moving turned out to be one of less stressful parts of the experience, thanks to the help we got from everyone. Though you never quite realize just how much stuff you accumulate over the years (especially with two small children), until you try to move all of it.

On Owning

Now that we are proud homeowners of our own little place, we are solely responsible for maintaining it. It is nice no longer having other families that we have to worry about when our kids are being extremely loud, and I admit that I am glad no longer being the President of the Condo Board as well. However, there are always things that the house inspection doesn’t catch (and other things that just break anyway). Our first issue came with the garage door. After living in our place less than a week, after arriving home and parking the car in the garage, while we were getting out, we heard a loud snap and something hit my wife in the face. Our garage door was installed with extension springs, and one of these had just broken. Fortunately, the broken piece had lost all of its momentum by the time it hit my wife, so no damage was caused. I went the next day to the hardware store and bought some new extension springs to fix that up. Unfortunately just after doing so, the wire connecting to the garage door snapped, so I knew I needed to get some professional help. So after only a week at our new place, we had a new garage door, tracks, and torsion spring system installed.

One of the items that came up during the home inspection was that we had knob and tube wiring in our attic. While having original stuff on a 100-year old house can be desirable, wiring is not one of those cases. There were also a few other things that we wanted looked at while we had electricians out, such as fixing a few light fixtures, installing another light fixture in the utility room, and moving the light-switch from behind the refrigerator. The electricians thought that the knob and tube wiring would only be in a small area, but it turns out that most of the second floor was being powered by it. Upon replacing most of it and putting it on an actual grounded connection, the fuse box was being tripped repeatedly. So they had to come out two more times to finally fix that and get everything working again.

Winter this year also hit hard and suddenly, which stressed our heating system. I was aware ahead of time that the piping to our boiler wasn’t fixed properly when a new boiler was installed several years ago, but because of it there is excess water in the pipes which is causing several leaks on colder days from our radiators. Plus the radiator in our bedroom isn’t leveled properly so it is retaining water leading to loud banging. And finally, we discovered a crack in our backward radiator so that needs replacing. While we haven’t scheduled this work yet due to people who are without heat taking priority, it will be another chunk of change I wasn’t planning on spending. So add all the work to the house, the fact my car hit 60k miles and needed that checkup, plus the general holiday spending (which occurred before the heating issues), and it has been a rather expensive year. But I am confident we will get the remaining issues sorted and everything back to a better state.

On Next Year

So with all that mostly in the rear-view mirror, I am hoping that next year will be a bit more uneventful. Work has been and I expect it to continue operating mostly smooth. The kids are enjoying school and I hope they will continue to do so. I am not sure how we are going to handle the summer now that my son is in kindergarten and no longer in preschool, but we will figure something out. We don’t have any big plans since just getting a house was daunting enough, and with all the work done and soon to be done, money is definitely a concern. But I think that things should be smoother from here on out and that we have many good years ahead of us here. And with some downtime over the holidays, I was able to hang up most of the pictures of our family on the wall so that we can keep turning our new house into our new home.

Back in the Saddle

So I haven’t updated this blog at all this year, which definitely breaks my goal of posting at least once a month.  I had been busy teaching and hadn’t been much in the mood for writing.  But I’ve decided to start doing some game reviews for games that I finish, which I think will help me maintain some momentum and will give me something to go back to if I ever want to remember what I liked or didn’t like about a game.  Anyway, life has been busy and I’ll try to post a little bit more about what is going on with me as well.  So hopefully this place will have a little more life on it soon.

Starting this Blog

Why start this blog when I cannot really seem to be able to keep any of the various other blogs I have tried in the past updated?  I’m not sure really.  Perhaps it is because I am finally the owner instead of being on another site.  Maybe I enjoy the thought of this being my place where I can post my thoughts and ideas.

Why put it up here instead of just keeping a journal to myself?  Because I want to connect with people.  I want to be able to pass along some of my ideas and thoughts and experiences to others.  I also think being on the web gives it a little bit more of a permanence to it, even though it is just electrons and magnetic states in certain configurations.  Plus I think it would be useful to be able to look back on it over time, and see where I have come from and how far along it has been.

I also want to use it to improve my writing and hopefully my speaking and presentation skills.  I am somewhat shy and can be very quiet.  In conversations with lots of people I tend to keep to myself.  I can talk and discuss things at length if need be, but I prefer to watch and listen to the other people.  I’ll speak up if I have something relevant to say, of course.  So I think that this space can also be where I can speak my part.

This is just my tiny piece of the web.  I can post stuff of my own creation and maybe some people will find it useful and informative (or at least entertaining).  I view it as a playground for my imagination when I get the time to let it run around.  Just a peek into my mind and what it is doing and maybe even how it operates.  This is my little place to place my thoughts for those curious enough to read them.