Office Monkey

I am extremely, extremely displeased. I am, to put it simply, very annoyed. Not “my cat is pushing me off the side of the bed” annoyed, more “you did what?” annoyed. Maybe it’s more “furious” than “annoyed.” Technicality. I hate my insurance company.

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I was going to put this under “Living,” but given that the topic is actually “Death” I decided to simply file this under “Real Estate.” The two are related.

Last night and again today (I’m “working,” okay?) I’ve spent a great deal of time going through snail mail that has piled up over the last few months. Between work-work and house-work, I haven’t had a great deal of time to separate the wheat from the chaff. I was given to understand that it would be a very good thing for me to think about doing, so instead of actually being productive last night (did I mention I want to write an extension for Word to serve as a Wiki engine? Offline, for now… Oh. I needed a hobby.), I went through piles of mail.

PILES.

You see, I am, and always have been, a packrat. I just have a strong desire to KEEP things. This would explain why my bedroom at my parent’s house still is full, while my new house is similarly full. I have clothes that haven’t fit me in ten years, but I just can’t justify getting rid of them, for sentimental reasons. My jacket from Space Academy I (aka, Space Camp for Slightly Older Kids), for one, is still sitting in my closet. I digress, however.

I have mail from when I was in college. Some of it is kept out of sentiment — cards my mother sent me, for instance (and she sends me a lot of mail!). Some of it is kept because at the time I couldn’t bring myself to throw them away (a birthday card from an exgirlfriend, for instance), and now don’t know where they are (If you’re reading this, don’t worry, I’m not talking about anything YOU gave me). Boxes of mail have tended to move with me; I just rarely have the time to do anything about it.

Last night, however, I made some time. However, all I did was go through mail received since I bought our lovely house (for the record, I have a bunch of pictures. I just haven’t had time to sort them yet… This is a theme, isn’t it?). The mail, with a few exceptions (most of which weren’t addressed to me) fit into depressingly few categories. I had some mail at work from the same time period which I’m going through while waiting for a build to finish, and I’m discovering the same repetitive themes:

• Mortgage refinancing offers.
• Debt refinancing offers.
• Credit card offers.
• Items from my real estate agent.
• Life insurance offers.

This strikes me as being fairly ironic. On the one hand, I’m sure having a new mortgage and the associated effects on my credit score must trigger some set of automatic behaviors when lenders process credit information. On the other hand, though… Let’s reexamine that list:

• Please! Redo the hundreds (slight hyperbole) of pages of paperwork you’ve already done! Rates have gone up, but you’ll still save money!
• We’ll throw money at you! It’s so much cheaper than the current credit card bills you’re paying! Either you don’t have to have a house to back the loan, or you do! We’ll tell you how much we’ll actually lend you and at what rate after you actually apply! Don’t read the small print that says you need to have a FICO of 900 and a Loan-to-Value ratio on your house (if applicable) of under 10 percent (slight hyperbole)! We know you just bought a house and don’t possibly have that great of a LTV, and we know that the interest on this loan will not be entirely tax deductible, but still! Let us lend you money for you to pay back over a longer period of time at a lower interest rate, so you just think you’re saving money!
• Congratulations! You’ve just spent several hundred thousand dollars you don’t actually have! What are you going to do next? “I’m going to go further into debt!” (No trip to Disneyland or World required)
• Come on, you bought one! It was a lot of fun! Why don’t you take up house buying as an investment strategy? After a few hits, the pain of signing over your life fades to a dull ache!
• (At this point, I picture a gaunt man in a black suit, sitting with his hands clasped on his desk, while you’re sitting across from him, waiting for the receptionist to hurry back with the cup of tea you said you would like in place of coffee.) So. You’ve just bought a house. You know, you’re going to die. Soon. Have you thought about your death yet? It’s an interesting question to ponder. Will you suffer long? Will you die suddenly in a terrible and inexplicable accident involving glue and rubber cement? Will you be “rubbed out,” to put it colloquially, by someone who you annoyed by snoring through part of Der Ring des Nibelungen? Will you die from too much artificial sweeter accumulating in your body? But I’m sadly off topic. Ah, here’s your tea. Sugar? Aspartame? No? Here you are then. After you die, you still will have to worry. You can’t just slip silently into that dark night. You have bills left to pay! Your house still to pay off! What will those who expect to extract cash from your corpse think when suddenly, all your money has gone to your old expenses, and you still have debts left over that they’ll then have to resolve? Come now, wouldn’t it be far better for you to start handing us money now? After all, you’re going to die really soon, so it’s a sound investment strategy. You give us money, you die, we give some back. (I see him leaning forward, with a quill pen and scrollwork parchment to sign.) Just sign here… (This has some elements in common with other issues proposals that require bloodwork…)

I don’t think reading the mail is good for my moral.

I did, however, come across a package addressed to Glitch that contained samplers for “Greenies for Cats,” which Glitch hates. Pixel and Bit, on the other hand, went bonkers for them. So all was not lost, and my last thoughts of the day did not dwell on my own mortality. Instead, they dwelt on the blasted kittens who decided to wrestle ON me. Can’t win…

Zillow is a neat idea — personally I’ve found their values a bit flaky, but it’s still a worthwhile concept.

I just plugged in my own address; on a whim, I wanted to see if my house has accumulated any value since I bought it. Low and behold — it has! According to Zillow, the price has gone up almost 10% since I bought it! Admittedly, Zillow’s estimated value is still lower than what I paid for the house, but now…

I just checked the most recent sales data for the house — aka, when I bought it.

I pulled down my own house’s value. The way the sale was written up for the seller, there were actually two separate deals. Half of what I paid went to the woman, half went to the estate of the husband. Which means there were two simultaneous sale contracts, each half of what I actually paid for the house. Guess what! That lowers the value of the house, as it’s now considered to have sold at that 50% mark. DOH!

So I’ve been absent for over a month, now.

I’ve been busy.

Short version: Mandrina and I closed on our new house (see an old picture, above), on March 27, 2006. As of today, we’re more or less moved in.

The long version includes such side quests as “Nightmare Electrician: Upgrading the Electrical in a 96-Year-Old House,” “Moving 101: Or Why You Don’t Want To,” and “Your Bed Doesn’t Fit Up the Stairs.”

They’ll be posted eventually. But right now, I have a cat who’s scared of this big, strange house, and a ton of boxes that aren’t going to unpack themselves.

There will be pictures once we unpack.

It slipped my mind, I’m sorry to say.

On Wednesday, February 15th, 2006, I entered into contract to buy a 1910 “pre-Craftsman” (as described by Mandrina) in south Everett.

It’s a longer commute than I really wanted, but I can deal with that. It has a garage in the basement; an unfinished basement for us to finish in the long run; 3 bedrooms (although I count 2 legally); a wood-burning fireplace; an ancient bathtub Mandrina is obsessing over; a mostly-flat and large backyard; AND an intact roof and foundation!

It’s being sold by a guardianship in trust of some old lady — there’s a backstory containing some research I dug up that’s rather endearing about her recently departed husband — so it’s taking longer than it otherwise would to close, but come March 27th, we’ll be closing on the house.

Okay, so the electrical system needs to be completely redone, but the unfinished basement is making that a $3000 job, rather than a $10,000 job. Even needing to buy appliances, I think we’re going to be happy there. Glitch might not, as he won’t have any good windows, but what can you do.

Want to see? I took this picture (it’s not as good as anything Jonathan takes, but hey, I’m lazy and busy. =])

Cute, huh?

So my friend and coworker Iuli decided last week to think about buying a condo. She checked her finances (apparently, her husband’s finances are dreadful, but hers are phenomenal), and they were good. She found a condo coming available in her property. She took a look.

She’s already planning on buying it, it’s FSBO, she has a friend as an agent, she has plans for what improvements are needed…

Meanwhile, Mandrina and I still haven’t managed to find a house.

We went looking again on Tuesday(? — it may have been Monday), up in Everett. There was one house Manda had really wanted to look at, and Charles had pulled a few others that might interest us. And we were interested in two of them.

The first one we looked at that day, and the last.

But for what they’re asking, they’re just not worth it! The one house is trying to include a 800 sqft unfinished basement in the price, and although the built-in garage is something that appeals to me, as does the downstairs half-bath, the tiny lot size, commute, and general location just didn’t hold much appeal for me. Don’t get me wrong, it was a nice house (no, you can’t have the address), aside from the unfinished basement. The finished parts Manda loved, for a change. She hated the aluminum siding, which is to be expected.

The other house need fencing as well, and while it felt smaller, the lot was larger, and the house was about the same size. The yard was not 100% useful, but a sledgehammer could get rid of some of the pavement. However, at least part of the upper floor wasn’t insulated, and neither Mandrina nor I LOVED the place. So… why hurry to enter into contract on it before leaving for the holidays?

There is a house we’re still kinda looking at. It’s a 1900ish Victorian that at least appears to be in good shape. It has storage in the attic, 3 bedrooms, and a clawfoot tub downstairs, and 3/4 bath upstairs. The master bedroom is huge, but the 3/4 bath is off one of the smaller rooms. I think the attic was empty for storage purposes. Stained glass windows, people!

So, what’s it’s problems? a) It’s just been rezoned for commercial. It’s still a residential community at the moment, within walking distance of Snohomish downtown, but… who’s to tell what comes next? But that pales behind the other issue.

The owners of the property bought part of the lot behind this house’s lot. They’re planning on taking some land from each plot to build a duplex townhouse. Okay, fine.

Only problem, said duplex has no road access.

So what are they doing? A fifteen-foot wide easement on what would be MY property for a driveway from the street to the back lot. I’d pay taxes on it. I’d have to sell it with my lot if I were to sell. And it’s priced including the easement, which costs us over 1200 sqft of lot size.

I like the house. It has at least a comparable commute to Everett, maybe better. But I’m not buying a lot to pay taxes on land I can’t use!

BLEH. Some people find a condo in three days, I’m going on four months. This is just not fun!

Um. We’ll leave it at that the inspection of Mandrina’s much loved house didn’t go over so well…

It took longer for me to get a mortgage preapproval than to find a house. I should be making an offer on it later today, although it’s a question as to whether or not they’ll accept it.

I know that there have been no offers on the house in the last month that it’s been listed. So… *shrug*

It’s a bit far away — Everett-Redmond is about a 45 minute commute. Which on a daily basis is a hassle and a half. But it’s not that much farther than Bothell.

Here’s the miscellaneous links — reply fast, people!

Floorplans — I made them myself, don’t criticize too much. The exact placement of rooms might not be exact, but room sizes and relative positions should be fairly accurate.

House listing

Pictures:

PhotoMax, which might not work

Flickr, which might work, is below.

Here I first wrote about applying for a mortgage.

Today, I finally signed the paperwork to get preapproval. *sigh*

This weekend we might be able to start looking…

I’m having flashbacks to applying for college. You spend an awfully large amount of time filling out paperwork to say, “I’d like to give you money for somewhere to go for the next four years, and then a piece of paper at the end.” And then you spend a long time waiting for a reply.

Matter of fact, they are very similar…