Off Topic Part Quatre

[trailmix 77]

no, it was the other way around..lol he called me ghetto so I put it there ...lol

Ohhhhhh!

[Marilyn. 340]

Ohhhhhh!

lol.. I guess I didn't make that clear in the other post...

[Marilyn. 340]

so there is some progress in the day shift position my hubby applied for a few weeks ago.. they have finally taken the posting down off their site

So we didn't get the fixer upper, an offer was put in yesterday and is now under contract... so we're putting an offer into the nice place.

This stuff happens so fast... I don't like it at all.

good luck on your house hunt..

[Sprailenes 47]

I don't like house hunting at all. I hate looking through listings and spending a saturday walking through peoples homes. We saw one place last week and the guy had a yankees mural on the wall... I couldn't see past it.

Paint over that monstrosity and then we'll talk.

[Hugglebuggles 60]

I don't like house hunting at all. I hate looking through listings and spending a saturday walking through peoples homes. We saw one place last week and the guy had a yankees mural on the wall... I couldn't see past it.

Paint over that monstrosity and then we'll talk.

We saw this place where the living room was all plants... everywhere... like a million different viney plants. AND the owners tacked the plants up the wall and across the ceiling so you thought you were in some ghetto green house or something. To make it even better, 3 rooms were painted lime green. Who knows if the layout or the space was nice... I couldn't get over the sea of green.

[trailmix 77]

We saw this place where the living room was all plants... everywhere... like a million different viney plants. AND the owners tacked the plants up the wall and across the ceiling so you thought you were in some ghetto green house or something. To make it even better, 3 rooms were painted lime green. Who knows if the layout or the space was nice... I couldn't get over the sea of green.

We have a Jonas brothers poster in ours

The Master bedroom is lavender (no we aren't talking a pleasing and lovely lavender) and one other bedroom has a medium blue paint colour on the walls.

Edited February 17, 2010 by trailmix

[Flames9_RN 358]

Ya, its amazing what you see when you go thru other peoples houses! Soem of it just amazes me! lol But one ahs to keep an open mind, some things can be fixed very easily and at a low cost, just requires a little elbow grease/paint/tender lovin care. Just takes a bit 0f time and if ya screw up, well its urs, anjd just do it over again,lol. But some things you can't over look. I went thru this one house in Victoria and wow, was it ever dirty! I mean filthy, I wanted to leave, but just had to see the rest of the house to see how filthy it was! NO way was I taking off my shoes (which I normally do) I swear that has had never been cleaned, words could not even describe it! And to top it off, they had meat thawing in the sink, and I looked at the expiration date, and it was like a yr over due,lol and it looked a bit funky. Just last month for shyyyt and giggles we went thru a foreclosure, easily a $700,000 house if maintained, but was listed at $475,000 and wow they did a nice job of wrecking the place. Scrapped the hardwood in many places, cracked the tiles,big gauges in the walls, etc etec, but the big kicker was i went downstairs and WHAMMO could smell cat pee and then I stepped on the carpet and squish squish, big time water problem! Soo sad. Such a nice house at 1 time but now, i wouldn't even take it if ya gave it to me. Well sure I would then, but then i would just tear it down. Amazing how people who go bankrupt and have to give up their house just wreck it!! Same goes for Short sales. people just dont do the upkeep,which I guess makes a bit of sense, since they can no longer afford it! BUT have read a few articles on the net and banks have gone after the (previous)owners to make up the difference in a short sale! 1 gal said she was surprised!! The bank (whoever has the mortgage) has to agree on the sales price, so she figured that was it! But she still had $60,000 on the mortgage, and she assumed the bank would just eat that, nope! They wanted that $60,000.

As with anything, when it comes to closing, READ IT ALL!!!!!! Don't just sign it, READ IT!!!! take your time and READ IT!!! Me, I'm lucky, I'm a dumb old guy and just sign away, BUT not my wife!! She reads everything, and I mean everything!! And I highly recommend you do that too and get the proper answers! otherwise you don't close, simple as that. 99% of the time closing goes well, but that 1% can really kick ur butt!!

And spend time going over that home inspection report!! Wish I had done that!! Our home inspector stated our complex has Polybutene pipes! he said it was no big deal (and so far it hasn't) BUT back in the early 90's there was HUGE lawsuits over this piping! If I had did a simple google search, I would have found that out!! And even though we enjoy it here, probably would not have bought!

I know i sound like doom/gloom all the time when it comes to housing, but it is a HUGE purchase and many just rush into it! No one,and I mean no one knows the right house for you, other than you!! A buyers Realtor still does not have ur true best interest at heart, she doesn't make any $$$$ until you buy a house! And a few times we have had to tell our realtor to back off in a very polite way,lol We told her up front, were not buying till Spring 2010 at the earliest (as my wife was and now is away till end of May) but she would try and get that buy buy jibe going,lol One has to remember who the boss is, and thats YOU!! The Realtor isn't going to be living there,nor making the payments! People get caught up in the excitement and don't do the research! TAKE UR TIME!!! lol And make sure you go knock on neighbors doors!! You would be surprised on what you find out. Not everyone is going to say they love the neighborhood!! Again using our situation as an example--my wife went and knocked on various neighbors in our condo complex ( I was in canada sipping tim hortons,lol) and many stated they were renters! THAT should have set off warning bells!! Luckily its very responsible renters! Just saying one really should take their time and do the research! If ya loose the house, oh well,their will be others. Many great home buying forums on the net, take advantage of them! Thats all,lol!!!!! Go Canada Go!! How about that Iginla!! 3 goals!

[Hugglebuggles 60]

Thankfully the previous owners painted out place to prep it for resale, but everything is all white. I'm definitely going to be attacking it with some paint next week!

Speaking of interesting paint, the basement at my inlaws place (aka where I live) is orange. Really orange. I'm not going to miss that...

[Hugglebuggles 60]

Since VJ was being mean and I couldn't edit my post, I'll just double post!

You're right flames, good advice! My husband signed a bunch of forms with our mortgage broker the other day and I had to stop him and get him to at least review what he was signing! I'm the meticulous one... maybe its the woman's role? For the inspection, we were there for the whole thing and followed the guy around, and read the report as well, and I'm really glad we did! Its important to see exactly what the deal is with the house. I think watching the process made me feel a lot better about it than if I was just to read a PDF later. Finding a Realtor that seems to be working for you is important as well, absolutely. I never felt pressured by our Realtor at all. He actually showed us a bunch of rentals as well, just to show us all the options. When we finally wanted to make an offer he encouraged us to think it through a little before we made the decision... I would really recommend him to anyone.

[Sprailenes 47]

Yea I couldn't look past a yankees fan...

I know all that room needed was paint but you painted a freaking mural... a YANKEES mural!

[Flames9_RN 358]

Thats cool! Like in any occupation--a good person is hard to find!! and when you find 1--keep in contact with him!! Since he did a great job for you, there is a 99.99% chance when it comes to selling that you would use him! BUT not all "buyer" Realtors make great "seller" Realtors, but most likely you would give him first crack at it!

Another example of the need for reading everything--is that back in the Fall of 2009 we refinanced our condo. Went to closing. As I mentioned before my wife reads EVERYTHING!!!!! And yep she found a mistake! People are human,they make mistakes! In this case it didn't save us any $$$ right now, but the terms that we had agreed upon where wrong! Was a very simple fix then, but down the road it would NOT have been! Again, we all get lost in the excitement of the process! keep in mind a few weeks later that excitement is probably gone,lol!!!

[Sprailenes 47]

Oh ya I was notified today by the events planner that her son-in-laws green card was approved. She like ran out after me when I was leaving and she was sooo excited.

Yay you guys totally got away with lying.

[OBX 51]

Thats cool! Like in any occupation--a good person is hard to find!! and when you find 1--keep in contact with him!! Since he did a great job for you, there is a 99.99% chance when it comes to selling that you would use him! BUT not all "buyer" Realtors make great "seller" Realtors, but most likely you would give him first crack at it!

Absolutely

I used the same realtor to sell my house last year that I used when buying ten years ago. Of course I had the misfortune to sell in a buyer's market, everyone was looking for a deal and there was a lot to choose from. While my realtor was great when I was buying she was next to useless when it came to selling. Not an experience I want to go through again any time soon.

Edited February 18, 2010 by OBX

[trailmix 77]

Absolutely

I used the same realtor to sell my house last year that I used when buying ten years ago. Of course I had the misfortune to sell in a buyer's market, everyone was looking for a deal and there was a lot to choose from. While my realtor was great when I was buying she was next to useless when it came to selling. Not an experience I want to go through again any time soon.

That's very true. The last house we bought we found this realtor and she was very chatty and very nice but when we went to sell the house we didn't call her - just didn't seem like a 'seller' real estate person - and that did turn out to be true.

My Sister hired her to sell her 2 houses, she did sell 1 - but the only reason is because I happened to be standing there when another realtor came to show some people through (I lived next door) - because they had the wrong code and couldn't get in.

ffwd a few years, my Sister goes to sell her other house - a year and a half later, still no sale - so she finally let her go.

[Revenesque 2]

BUT have read a few articles on the net and banks have gone after the (previous)owners to make up the difference in a short sale! 1 gal said she was surprised!! The bank (whoever has the mortgage) has to agree on the sales price, so she figured that was it! But she still had $60,000 on the mortgage, and she assumed the bank would just eat that, nope! They wanted that $60,000.

Yup, the Canadian mortgages are recourse compared to many of the US non-recourse mortgages. That partly explains why our foreclosure rate is contained compared to the rocketing US foreclosure rates. The US Banks carry the risk of property value fluctuation and suck up any losses.