Updates

I've been a bad blogger.

But anyway, we're set to close on August 13! We're signing the loan documents on Thursday morning, and we've signed all the insurance paperwork. We have an insurance agent--I feel like such an adult. I just called PG&E, Comcast, and the trash company to start all those accounts, and I'm about to call the electrician and the roofer to schedule that work. My favorite part so far was picking out a phone number--we haven't had a landline in so long. I picked a number with a lot of 8s and 4s b/c I think those are lucky numbers.

We gave our 30 day notice on our apartment, and it's kind of fun to see it listed on Craiglist already. For $400 more a month than we're paying; $500 more a month that we started paying three years ago. That's a 35% increase in three years. I don't think they're going to get it, personally, but that's not really my business. Our landlord was nice and gave us the key to an empty storage room on our floor so we can put the boxes there as we pack. That helps us b/c it's not fun living amongst boxes, but it also helps them b/c a box-less apartment looks nicer for showing.

Mr. EBB is currently trying to figure out the final closing costs amount and how much money we'll need to deposit into escrow. The $7500 credit from the sellers is helpful, but it's still a huge number! I couldn't imagine being an escrow agent--it seems like such a stressful, demanding, "everyone is in a rush all the time" kind of job.

We're going to buy appliances this weekend. If anyone has any recommendations, please let me know!

My Hair is Frizzy Enough Already

Knob and Tube Wiring.
Dum Dum Duuuuummmmmm.

From my internet research (which I do think has been fairly extensive--I've read lots of electrician forums and other articles), I've learned a lot about this ancient wiring system. It's the original wiring system--and I mean original, like Ben Franklin-esque--that hasn't been used, fortunately, since 1940 in most places. In some more rural areas you might find it in structures built as recently as the late 1940s or 1950.

It is completely unsafe and a total fire trap and you will die if you plug anything into it.

Just kidding. Mostly.

But not entirely. Knob and tube is a system where the wire is covered with cloth (for real) and strung through the studs and connected with little ceramic knobs. There are only two wires (so no grounding). Over time and with manipulation as wiring is added, the cloth can fall away and the ceramic can become brittle and break, exposing the live wires.

We can see the knob and tube in the crawl space and in the attic, where there is insulation over it. Bad idea--insulation? Over a live wire? No thank you. Which is why the absolute very first home improvement measure we'll be taking will be to have the wiring replaced underneath the house and in the attic. Fortunately, 1/3 of the house is an addition from the late 1980s, so that has normal, grounded, modern wiring. We'll be keeping our computers and TVs in that part of the house, so really the only big worry after the crawl space and attic is the kitchen.

Replacing the wiring in the kitchen could be a major, major project. I can't decide if we should just bite the bullet and do it along with the crawl space and attic, or if we should wait. Replacing it means putting holes in the walls at every outlet and potentially ripping out part of a wall to get to the studs. I am not looking forward to this, in terms of finances or the disruption it will cause. Any thoughts?

Negotiating

We've been moving forward little by little, and it's nice to be back in ping-pong stage with the sellers rather than stuck in the limbo of waiting for inspections to be done. The engineer hired by the sellers decided that the foundation does not have rotation, which is excellent news. The sellers responded to our credit request and were surprisingly reasonable on most items. We still are fighting over some minor structural stuff and new copper pipes (they claim the low water pressure in the master shower was disclosed, we say not so much), but I think we're going to have a deal soon!

I think our realtor is kind of amazed that we're planning to do so much work so soon after buying the property, but I feel like every day that we don't do it is a day that we're wasting. If we have the money, why shouldn't we get every day's worth of enjoyment out of a fixed roof possible? Ha. I've been thinking about the repairs, and I believe my priorities are:

1. remove knob & tube wiring from basement and attic (before we even move in, if possible)
2. minor roof work
3. necessary structural work
4. new furnace
5. new water heater
6. new pipes

The k&t is the killer for me (hopefully not literally). I'll do a post next about k&t and the East Bay and why being "conservative" can be a good thing.

Finding a Realtor

Typical ways to find a realtor are to ask friends, family, and neighbors for recommendations. We're the first of our friends to buy a house, we don't have any family in this area, and all our neighbors live in an apartment. So in finding a realtor, we were on our own.

I think I've mentioned that Mr. EBB is a financial analyst for a bank and I'm a lawyer. To be a bit more specific, he works in commercial real estate lending and I focus on real estate and land use. You'd think that might give us a bit of a head start in buying a home, and you'd be right--in terms of having a vocabulary of "points" and "PMI" and "escrow" and "fee estate." But that's about as far as our degrees and work experience could take us--to navigate the listings, process, and paperwork, we needed a knowledgeable and patient realtor. I say knowledgeable because we had very limited awareness of neighborhoods beyond the ones we had lived in, and patient because we both had lots and lots of questions--Mr. EBB questions everything having to do with price and mortgages, and I question everything having to do with a contract. It's been particularly jarring for me to see how little of what I learned in my law school property and real estate classes actually comes into the real world.

We started browsing open houses pretty soon after we got married in early October. At first it felt awkward to just walk into someone's home and wander through their rooms and open their closets, but we adjusted. It was fun just being in houses with multiple rooms and doors and made returning to our little apartment all the more painful. We never really engaged with the listing agents--they all seemed so overeager and overconfident in the market.

Toward the end of November, we visited a beautiful home in a just-okay neighborhood, and we had the place to ourselves. While I poked around upstairs, Mr. EBB and the agent started chatting. They were still chatting when I came downstairs, and I could tell that they had a good conversation going. Mr. EBB was talking about interest rates and whether the market had reached bottom, and the agent didn't seem to be disabusing him of the notion that prices could still fall and waiting to buy might be wise. She seemed calm, non-effusive, and like she didn't really care if we didn't buy the house if we didn't love it. She was the antithesis of the "look at these spacious rooms!" agents that creeped us out in person and make us giggle on HGTV. We loved her.

I signed up to receive automatic email updates from her twice a week with properties that matched criteria we could enter. I set up a separate email account so as not to clog up my regular account with house emails, and I checked it occasionally. I slowly built up a list of "saved" properties and then just as slowly watched those properties sell. The agent called me once in January and emailed once in April to check in; both times I responded that we were still just browsing--don't call us; we'll call you.

In early May we began looking at the open house pages in the Sunday paper with a bit more interest. We began going to more open houses--six or seven each weekend when we were in town. When we'd see one we liked, we emailed the agent we'd met back in November, and she'd get us more info on the property. If we asked her about a property that she thought wasn't in a safe area or that was overpriced, she told us. Slowly we developed a rapport, and we trusted her. There was never even the slightest hint of artifice, and in all our open houses we never met another agent who made us feel so comfortable.

We've now been through several rounds of negotiations with her at our side, and I'm so glad we met her--totally by chance. I would never have considered buying a house without an agent, and with no one to recommend one to us, I think we did okay!

Where We Are Now

While Mr. EBB and I wait for the sellers to contemplate our credit request, I'll let you see where we currently reside. These pictures are from when we moved in three years ago--no way would I show pictures now with all the crowded mess! Three years is by far the longest either Mr. EBB or I have lived anywhere since graduating from high school and moving into the dorms. When we do move out, I'm sure I'll be finding lots of lost earrings and pens!

This is the view from the balcony. We're on the third floor in the corner, so we only share one wall. Definitely a plus!
Here you can see the main living area. The front door leads into a hallway that immediately opens into the dining area and then the kitchen. The kitchen table and chairs are a nice find off Craigslist--yay for solid wood over Ikea particle board!
This was taken in the "office" area looking toward the living room. You can see the sofa that's opposite the love seat that was visible in the previous picture. The sliding glass doors (best part of the apartment) lead onto the balcony. We get great afternoon sun. The closet in the den is where we store all our camping stuff. On the back wall (imagine turning 180 from the perspective of this picture) is now the wedding gift wall--you can see it in the masthead for the blog. :)

The kitchen--note the lack of dishwasher and the dated cabinets, stove, and countertop. (The fridge and microwave are opposite.) I really don't mind doing dishes, but I am looking forward to having more than 2 feet of countertop. Although I have pulled out some pretty impressive meals out of that kitchen, if I do say so myself.

Here's most of the bathroom. It's really not a bad size, and it has decent storage. There's also a linen closet.

I'm so proud of Mr. EBB for making the bed before he took these pictures. My dresser is on the other side of the bed, and there is a closet that spans the whole opposite wall. The wedding gift wall has spilled over to the windows by Mr. EBB's dresser, and his "good" bike lives there now too. (The "okay" bike lives in the apartment complex bike room.)

All in all, it's really not a bad apartment. Our rent is about 1/3 what our mortgage payment would be, and our landlord will be re-renting the place for $600 (at least) more in rent than we pay, so we have a pretty good deal too. We also certainly can't complain about the location. But....it's an apartment. We can't paint the walls, we can't retile the bathroom, we can't update the kitchen (and boy does it need it). On the other hand, if the sink drips or the screen rips, one call gets it repaired, free. I think I'm ready to give that up though in exchange for building equity and exchanging a "this is decent enough" to "this feels like home."

$tructural & a Field Trip

Yikes.
Our general inspector was pretty optimistic about the condition of the foundation. The sellers' disclosures didn't mention anything about problems with the foundation. Our agent didn't see anything wrong (not that she's an engineer or a contractor, but she's seen a lot of foundations).
But the guy who came out to give us a bid for the earthquake retrofit....
he saw $10,000 worth of rotated foundation and drainage problems.
That's on top of the $10-12k it will take to actually do the retrofit.
Mr. EBB is completely freaked out. We're submitting all the paperwork from our inspections and bids to the sellers with the news that we want $15k in credits toward closing costs. I hope they'll dislike that less than the news that they were living in a house with a foundation that one of the best structural contractors in the East Bay called "failed." Not to mention that they'll have to disclose that to any future buyers....

After the fun of the foundation, Mr. EBB dropped me off at the Oakland City Permit office. Our agent told us we could research the permit history of the house, which we wanted to do so we'd know when the owners prior to the sellers put on the addition. And as someone interested in land use and local government, I volunteered for that project. I did not have high expectations--Oakland does not have a reputation for running like butter, and I don't know of many local governments whose bureaucrats are known for their efficiency.
Imagine my surprise at the lovely experience I had. I received a little sticker at the Visitor's desk and headed up to the Permit office. The man at the information desk gave me a number, and not a minute later my number was called. The woman behind the counter asked for the address of the property, and in short order I was holding a printout of all the permits filed for the property since the mid-1980s. She asked if I wanted to see the permits on microfiche from the 60s and 70s, so I spent a couple minutes fiddling with the knobs on the microfiche machine. As I was leaving, the info desk man asked if I wanted to know if there had been any complaints filed against the property, and he directed me to another counter. A minute later, I was told there weren't any complaints (I didn't think there would be!) and I was out the door. The whole thing took less than half an hour.
So thumbs up for Oakland!

An Intermission of Shopping

I ran through five open houses today just to see what else is on the market. I went to three houses that were within our price range, one that was $150k above our price range, and one that was double our budget. It was very educational, and I came home feeling really happy with our house and our price.
The three that were in our price range: none were as nice as "our" house--all were smaller, all had definite oddities re: layout, and all (like ours) need some definite system upgrades. Of course, all three were also in a more "central" location--two in Rockridge and one in North Oakland. But I definitely liked our house better.
The one that was less out of our price range was gorgeous. An HGTV-esque kitchen, a beautiful yard, and lovely details. There was some layout funkiness with the bedrooms, and it was right by BART = loud. As I was leaving, a man asked if I was seriously considering it. I told him why I was there, and he laughed and said Mr. EBB and I should just bid what we could afford and see if the sellers jumped. He lived two doors down and said he knew they were desperate. Ha, probably not $150k desperate though!
The house double our budget--wow. Immaculate, tons of updating, beautiful exterior and yard, and tons of exquisite Craftsman details. But again--it would need new systems! I totally do not understand how people can have a multi-million dollar house and not care if it has a crumbling foundation or an old inefficient furnace. Are Mr. EBB and I the only people in the Bay Area who care about buying a house that has had structural work done on it??