I've been busy today packing all my work clothes and loading them in the car. Brett's been busy making the property look pristine. There is a showing scheduled for tomorrow afternoon (crosssing our fingers that they fall in love with Aspen Meadows). We won't be here; we're leaving bright and early to drive to Sacramento. It will take the better part of the day to get there -- with lunch and potty stops, I'm guessing it will be an eight hour drive.
I will move into temporary corporate housing -- a fully furnished apartment provided by my new employer for 90 days. I start my new job on Monday and I am looking forward to getting settled into my office, meeting my assistant, and interacting with the team I am joining. It's going to be quite an adventure living in an apartment in Sacramento during the week and flying home on the weekends to be with Brett and the animals. I'm telling myself it will be an adventure and I'm hoping that I will be too busy at work to get seriously lonely. I'll be lonely without Brett, for sure, but I'm hoping that coming home on the weekends will keep it from becoming unbearable. I'm a pretty independent and self-sufficient person but I don't like being separated from Brett.
I'm not sure how often I'll be posting but I'm guessing that posts will be limited to the weekends when I am home. During the week it's going to be "went to work, ate dinner, called Brett, went to bed" -- not exactly fodder for interesting posts.
Brett is going to stay with me for the first few days in Sacramento. We are going to look at a property on Sunday and Brett may look at some additional properties Monday and Tuesday while I am at work. If we find anything interesting, I'll share for sure. The property on Sunday sounds promising -- it was a one time dressage training farm with a full size dressage court, a warm up arena and a barn. It's been vacant for awhile and grass is growing through the sand but it might, just might, be something we could fix up. The house needs work but I'm willing to live in a shack if I have a full dressage court to ride in...
Showing posts with label house hunting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label house hunting. Show all posts
Friday, April 26, 2013
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Desperation
At the end of yesterday's post, I left you in the parking lot of our realtor's office. Brett and I were hot, sweaty, dirty (climbing all those steep hills) and discouraged. We drove our rental car to Sacramento where we located my temporary housing complex. Starting this coming Saturday, it will be my home-away-from-home until we can be together, in our own place, in the Sacramento area. We sat on the terrace of an Italian restaurant, ate pizza, guzzled ice tea and talked about the afternoon.
After discussing the highs and lows of the properties, the mis-information on listings, and the inability of Google maps and Google Earth to give us a really accurate picture of terrain, Brett brought up the log house we liked so much. That property was relatively flat, with a barn, an arena, and two pastures. Other than the rotting wood and the out-of-touch-with-reality owner, it was perfect. Remember it?
We had a couple of hours to kill before our flight home so we drove up to El Dorado and cruised by the property. It was a beautiful drive and the land was as well organized as we remembered. Brett parked the car on the shoulder of the narrow road and walked along the street-side fencing. It was dusk and the house was dark. When we previewed the house last month, the owner told us that the water and gas were turned off. The house did not look lived it; most of the furniture was gone and there were cobwebs on the windows.
One of Brett's concerns about the house is a cement walkway that runs along the side of the house (the left side of the house in the picture). The cement is poured too high against the house and it didn't appear to have a way for water to flow off. It is also the area with the most wood damage. Brett wanted to take a look at the cement and see if it could be "fixed." The gate was ajar so we slipped inside. Brett strode purposefully across the front lawn towards the cement area. I followed, with less purpose, so a flickering from the inside of the house caught my attention. A TV was on. I told Brett and we high-tailed it back out the gate. Either someone was sitting in the dark house watching TV or the TV was on for security purposes. We didn't stick around to find out.
This morning I talked to the realtor that is helping us with our new home search. He advised us to not act out of desperation. He reminded me that this house is priced higher than the awesome kitchen house on the hill. It should be priced significantly less based on its lack of view, dark log interior, inspection issues, etc. The owner is not willing to be reasonable. He reminded me that we are dealing with an out-of-touch, unreasonable owner and it would not be wise to buy an overpriced home with lots of issues. He assured me that the right place will come along; that our place will sell; that it will all work out and that we don't need to make choices based on desperation. Excellent advice.
After discussing the highs and lows of the properties, the mis-information on listings, and the inability of Google maps and Google Earth to give us a really accurate picture of terrain, Brett brought up the log house we liked so much. That property was relatively flat, with a barn, an arena, and two pastures. Other than the rotting wood and the out-of-touch-with-reality owner, it was perfect. Remember it?
We had a couple of hours to kill before our flight home so we drove up to El Dorado and cruised by the property. It was a beautiful drive and the land was as well organized as we remembered. Brett parked the car on the shoulder of the narrow road and walked along the street-side fencing. It was dusk and the house was dark. When we previewed the house last month, the owner told us that the water and gas were turned off. The house did not look lived it; most of the furniture was gone and there were cobwebs on the windows.
One of Brett's concerns about the house is a cement walkway that runs along the side of the house (the left side of the house in the picture). The cement is poured too high against the house and it didn't appear to have a way for water to flow off. It is also the area with the most wood damage. Brett wanted to take a look at the cement and see if it could be "fixed." The gate was ajar so we slipped inside. Brett strode purposefully across the front lawn towards the cement area. I followed, with less purpose, so a flickering from the inside of the house caught my attention. A TV was on. I told Brett and we high-tailed it back out the gate. Either someone was sitting in the dark house watching TV or the TV was on for security purposes. We didn't stick around to find out.
This morning I talked to the realtor that is helping us with our new home search. He advised us to not act out of desperation. He reminded me that this house is priced higher than the awesome kitchen house on the hill. It should be priced significantly less based on its lack of view, dark log interior, inspection issues, etc. The owner is not willing to be reasonable. He reminded me that we are dealing with an out-of-touch, unreasonable owner and it would not be wise to buy an overpriced home with lots of issues. He assured me that the right place will come along; that our place will sell; that it will all work out and that we don't need to make choices based on desperation. Excellent advice.
Monday, April 22, 2013
More House Hunting
Sunday morning Brett and I drove to the Ontario airport to catch our flight to Sacramento. We got to our gate and, funny thing, it said the next plane (at the wrong time) was flying to San Jose. Hmmmm. Maybe they changed the gate? We checked the board and our flight did not exist. Brett was pacing in circles around me by this point. I looked at my boarding pass... whoops!... we were supposed to be boarding a plane in Sacramento, not Ontario. I totally flip-flopped the flights. Brett's jaw got very tight. In fact, his whole face got tight. I don't think there were any wrinkles anywhere. The smile lines were gone for sure. Fortunately, the ticket agent (I love Southwest) was very nice and got us on the next flight to Sacramento. I told her she saved my marriage. Brett tried to smile but he was still decompressing.
We went to Sacramento to look at one house in particular although we had four on our list. One had sold the night before so that brought it down to three. We went to the "particular interest" house first. It was advertised as great horse property, in an equestrian community that has miles of trails within the community and links to trails going to Lake Tahoe, Canada and Mexico. The house was one story and just the right size for two people with occasional visits from children and friends. It was also priced low enough that we could make an offer without selling Aspen Meadows first. The kitchen was clean, bright and cheerful.
In fact, the whole house was clean, bright and cheerful. I loved the house. The trouble was that it was sitting on a very steep slope.
There were stairs to get into the house from the garage, the deck and the front door. You could not get into the house without going up a long flight of stairs. The "pasture" was slope so steep and overgrown that you could hardly walk it.
The only horse amenities were a run-in shed and a small tack room.
We spent over an hour at the property trying to make it work. There was no place to park a horse trailer or Brett's utility trailer. There certainly was no room for an arena. We threw in the towel and moved on to the next house.
This house was at the end of a quiet road that climbed a sloping hill. They did not advertise as "horse property" but the kitchen was to die for and it was enough land that we thought we could make it work. Brett loved the house. Me, not so much. The kitchen was gorgeous but the house felt chopped up to me, split between three floors. But, the views.... awesome!
The land sloped gently down from the top of this hill. We could have made it work and it would have been beautiful. However, the house had been on the market only three days and there had already been 15 people to see it. The price was high enough that we couldn't swing it until Aspen Meadows sold. I'm sure it will be sold to someone else within the week.
The last house was, again, horse property. By the time we got there in the middle of the afternoon, it was pushing 90F. There were ten acres on this property. Plenty of room for horses and pasture, right? Wrong. The house was fine but the land consisted of an acre or so of usable ridge-top that dropped steeply down on both sides. The usable land was being used by a hodgepodge of garden, orchard, vineyard and waaaay in the back at the bottom of the property a postage stamp sized area for two horses. Definitely not.
Our realtor dropped us off back at our car. I'll tell you about the rest of the evening in my next post.
We went to Sacramento to look at one house in particular although we had four on our list. One had sold the night before so that brought it down to three. We went to the "particular interest" house first. It was advertised as great horse property, in an equestrian community that has miles of trails within the community and links to trails going to Lake Tahoe, Canada and Mexico. The house was one story and just the right size for two people with occasional visits from children and friends. It was also priced low enough that we could make an offer without selling Aspen Meadows first. The kitchen was clean, bright and cheerful.
There were stairs to get into the house from the garage, the deck and the front door. You could not get into the house without going up a long flight of stairs. The "pasture" was slope so steep and overgrown that you could hardly walk it.
The only horse amenities were a run-in shed and a small tack room.
We spent over an hour at the property trying to make it work. There was no place to park a horse trailer or Brett's utility trailer. There certainly was no room for an arena. We threw in the towel and moved on to the next house.
This house was at the end of a quiet road that climbed a sloping hill. They did not advertise as "horse property" but the kitchen was to die for and it was enough land that we thought we could make it work. Brett loved the house. Me, not so much. The kitchen was gorgeous but the house felt chopped up to me, split between three floors. But, the views.... awesome!
The land sloped gently down from the top of this hill. We could have made it work and it would have been beautiful. However, the house had been on the market only three days and there had already been 15 people to see it. The price was high enough that we couldn't swing it until Aspen Meadows sold. I'm sure it will be sold to someone else within the week.
The last house was, again, horse property. By the time we got there in the middle of the afternoon, it was pushing 90F. There were ten acres on this property. Plenty of room for horses and pasture, right? Wrong. The house was fine but the land consisted of an acre or so of usable ridge-top that dropped steeply down on both sides. The usable land was being used by a hodgepodge of garden, orchard, vineyard and waaaay in the back at the bottom of the property a postage stamp sized area for two horses. Definitely not.
Our realtor dropped us off back at our car. I'll tell you about the rest of the evening in my next post.
Friday, April 12, 2013
Onwards
We're back to square one finding a house in the Sacramento area. The owner countered with a whisker drop in price and an unwillingness to correct any of the problems identified in the inspection and pest report. The reports showed significant, and I mean expensive, significant, can't get a loan without correcting - issues. He wanted to sell the house "as is" -- and the inspector hadn't even been able to check everything because the water and gas were turned off. So, we decided to pass. We could have ended up with a real can of worms. Sigh. Such a pretty house, too. But we will find something. Of that, I am sure.
We've been running around fixing little things here and there on our place. Brett spent all day outside mowing. I ran errands and hid the clutter in the house. Dinner was simple. I made a dressing with fresh raspberries, blue cheese, pecans, raspberry vinegar and olive oil.
Then I tossed together some spinach, the dressing, more raspberries, cheese and nuts. I topped it with chicken I had roasted. While I was cutting up the chicken, I pulled off the crunchy skin and shoved it in my mouth. I just love crispy skin. Fresh bread on the side and a bottle of pinot noir.
This relocating business is a lot of work. I can't even escape at night -- I dream about offers on homes and temporary apartments and my new job... all night long.
We've been running around fixing little things here and there on our place. Brett spent all day outside mowing. I ran errands and hid the clutter in the house. Dinner was simple. I made a dressing with fresh raspberries, blue cheese, pecans, raspberry vinegar and olive oil.
Then I tossed together some spinach, the dressing, more raspberries, cheese and nuts. I topped it with chicken I had roasted. While I was cutting up the chicken, I pulled off the crunchy skin and shoved it in my mouth. I just love crispy skin. Fresh bread on the side and a bottle of pinot noir.
This relocating business is a lot of work. I can't even escape at night -- I dream about offers on homes and temporary apartments and my new job... all night long.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
What a Weekend
I took a couple days off of work last week to attend a Wine and Food festival with my dad in Carmel. Every year he goes and he treats one of us kids, or our spouses, to a ticket. This year was my turn. Brett planned to hang out with my mom and sister when he wasn't chauffeuring my dad and I to the affair. About three hours into our drive to Carmel, my dad called and said he wasn't feeling up to going. We swung by my parents' house and picked up both tickets. Brett and I went together and feasted on amazing food (big name chefs from all over the country) and wine (the big wiz bang wineries from Napa, Paso Robles and Washington). That was Thursday.
Friday, we decided to take a small detour to look at horse property in the gold country east of Sacramento. It was a good three hours to the real estate office in Roseville. Once there, we climbed into the realtor's car and she drove us through the windy roads, up and down the hills, crossing the American River numerous times. We found a house that we liked. A house that we REALLY liked. We're going to make an offer on it but I don't know if it will be accepted since it will be contingent on our place selling. Living at the top of a mountain is a bit... unique. There aren't any properties like ours on the market. Will it take a week or a month or ?? I guess we'll find out.
What do you think of the house?
And the barn?
and the big fenced pastures?
There's an arena, a hen house, an orchard... pretty nice.
After finishing up with the property hunt, we climbed back in our car and drove to Paso Robles -- another five hours. How crazy is that? We were wiped when we got to our B&B.
Saturday, we attended a party at a winery we like and picked up some wine. My dad was feeling better so he and my mother met Brett and I at the party. We sat at a table, in the winery owner's backyard, by a pool, sipping wine and nibbling on pizza fresh off the BBQ. For dinner that night, my son Kyle met us at my favorite farm-to-table restaurant, Thomas Hill Organics. Lori Skoog asked me to take pictures of our food. I almost forgot (sorry, no pictures of the appetizers).
I had scallops and Manila clams in a wonderful broth with black rice and bok choy.
Brett had Hawaiian monchong (fish) with kumquats and oranges and all kinds of colorful fruits. He said it was amazing.
Kyle had the hanger steak (college boy - hollow leg - going for the steak) with avocado and ... I forget. He cleaned his plate in nothing flat.
Sunday, we drove home. And collapsed. It was a good weekend but exhausting, to say the least.
Friday, we decided to take a small detour to look at horse property in the gold country east of Sacramento. It was a good three hours to the real estate office in Roseville. Once there, we climbed into the realtor's car and she drove us through the windy roads, up and down the hills, crossing the American River numerous times. We found a house that we liked. A house that we REALLY liked. We're going to make an offer on it but I don't know if it will be accepted since it will be contingent on our place selling. Living at the top of a mountain is a bit... unique. There aren't any properties like ours on the market. Will it take a week or a month or ?? I guess we'll find out.
What do you think of the house?
And the barn?
and the big fenced pastures?
There's an arena, a hen house, an orchard... pretty nice.
After finishing up with the property hunt, we climbed back in our car and drove to Paso Robles -- another five hours. How crazy is that? We were wiped when we got to our B&B.
Saturday, we attended a party at a winery we like and picked up some wine. My dad was feeling better so he and my mother met Brett and I at the party. We sat at a table, in the winery owner's backyard, by a pool, sipping wine and nibbling on pizza fresh off the BBQ. For dinner that night, my son Kyle met us at my favorite farm-to-table restaurant, Thomas Hill Organics. Lori Skoog asked me to take pictures of our food. I almost forgot (sorry, no pictures of the appetizers).
I had scallops and Manila clams in a wonderful broth with black rice and bok choy.
Brett had Hawaiian monchong (fish) with kumquats and oranges and all kinds of colorful fruits. He said it was amazing.
Kyle had the hanger steak (college boy - hollow leg - going for the steak) with avocado and ... I forget. He cleaned his plate in nothing flat.
Sunday, we drove home. And collapsed. It was a good weekend but exhausting, to say the least.
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