Un-tile we meet again

The basement repairs are slated to happen at the end of this month. It will involve digging up the concrete along several stretches of wall, including 2 of the 4 walls in the finished room we'd given over to Ross for his visits. So to save the baseboards and tiles for reuse, I have spent the weekend prying them off. The contractor only wanted a couple of rows removed, but I did 3, to be safe. I hope we can glue them back down.

There is a small, but definite crack in the concrete floor in the closet, so I am hoping that is the source of the leak and not the wall. I will still cut out at least a section at the bottom of the wall to try and make sure. As well as to check the insulation for any mold.

Been starting to work on some of my hobbies lately too. I've sent for a few special postmarks for that collection and just received a postcard from Greece for my world postcard collection. My goal is to get at least one from every country.

I've also been drawing a bit with plans to do more. With the upcoming Sunday Funnies postage stamps has come some inspiration. I'll probably do 5 sets and have already got a couple of subjects complete. For Calvin & Hobbes I have done 5 different drawings. One with Calvin, one with Hobbes, and three with both together. Here's one of the envelopes:

I have been trying to find a bit I wrote some time ago. I came across it recently and decided I wanted to draw it using somebody else's characters. I've gotten the okay to do so, but now can't find the piece!

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Komputer Room

The computer room has its furniture and major organizational demarcations all set. Lots of smaller organizing still needs to be done and may undergo several waves of redoing. Above is the major computer desk with internet connection. Scanner to the left with all my USB cables hanging on the side. Most of our hand puppets are on the upper shelf, and our 3 big puppets are on the bookcase to the right. That case holds trading cards and autograph collections. I also have part of a stereo there. Eventually I will have a turntable set up so I can transfer a lot of vinyl to mp3 files.



This second photo shows more of the room continuing toward the right. The second desk currently holds the printer and second computer. Our 2 filing cabinets here hold mostly mundane files. Most of my art files are up in the studio where I'll be doing most of my drawing. The bankers box on top holds most of my postage stamps. On the wall next to the window is my uncut sheet of The Avengers trading cards. The shelves hold mailing materials as well as related collections of foreign and US postcards, first day covers, etc.

The closet on the right holds more than I want to keep there right now, but eventually it will be just for overflow clothes and supplies for this room's collections.

The bench on the right wall is where people will sit when doing Puppet Improv. We'll be opposite the computer camera set up so we can see what we're recording as we do it.

The rug is a bit of excess cut from the recent carpet installation in the studio.

Feeling Blue

We finally have a carpet on the studio floor! Much bluer than I thought it was supposed to be, but much nicer looking than I feared. We've started moving our boxes and boxes of books, comics, art supplies, and crafting materials up there. We might even have the living and computer rooms pretty close to what they're supposed to look like by christmas!

Back to the Land

Just a couple of photos of our back property.

Winterizing

Friday morning looking out the back door.

Greene House Effects

The front of the house:

The back of the house:
The back yard:

Click on a tree for a larger view.

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It Ain't Easy Buyin' Greene

Part 1

In spite of this story coming in chapters, it is still an abbreviated account. There was an awful lot of waiting on things to happen.


After looking at about a dozen houses each weekend for months, we finally had a list of five houses we thought met our needs, and the Greene house was one of them. But when we asked to take a second look, it had been pulled off the market because the owner had decided to rent it out instead of selling.

We went through the process of inspecting and bidding on two of the other houses, each failing in turn. The other houses also not viable for their own reasons. We then heard the Greene house was back on the market! We went back for our second look, got some more questions answered and reaffirmed our opinion that the house was a good fit and bid. We got outbid.

We started looking at more houses.

The other bid on the Greene house fell through. We negotiated and settled. Got the inspection and it passed easily. Were we buying a house?

Not yet. Before any bidding was done on any of the houses we had gotten a letter from our bank showing we were pre-approved for a mortgage loan in the approximate amount of our estimated maximum. Before we got to the bidding part of the Green house adventure, we got a letter from the bank saying very simply our loan application had been denied because we had insufficient credit history.

Carrie and I do not have, have never had, and do not intend to have credit cards. We don't have car loans to pay off because we both paid cash for our vehicles when we bought them. The only loan we'd ever had was the mortgage for our previous house in Mesa which we paid off early more than ten years ago. Ten years being the limit of what the credit reports see. Our credit is spotless because we have nothing there.

The letter we'd received didn't say the bank would like us to provide alternate credit information or let's try a different type of loan application. It just turned us down flat.

Of course I was on the phone trying to talk with the man who'd taken our application in the first place to get an alternative. We knew there was an alternative because how else would we have gotten our first mortgage? Carrie even went in person to the bank. What we finally ended up finding was that the first clerk could only handle ordinary straight forward mortgages. His supervisor was apparently even less versed. We had to talk to their specialized loan officer who worked the region and so was only sometimes in the bank.

Eventually we connected with her and found the info we would need to provide for the alternate mortgage application. Bank statements, recent paystubs, and letters of credit. Mostly they were interested in a full year's history of good customer with landlord and utilities.

A full year's.

We had not, at that time, been officially lodged in Maine for a full year.

Still, we got the letters from the landlord, the power company, and for our cell phone accounts. Mine was just over the one year point and Carrie's was even longer, so there was that one at least. We also got a letter from the local vet, since we'd already been going there, and got one from our previous vet in Arizona with its decades of our history. We also added the insurance company and AAA which were both respectable and long time. That, we thought, should do for their requirements.

When the time came, we brought all this in, after setting up an appointment with the wandering loan officer, along with the official signed agreed on price. The officer asked why we hadn't provided all this beforehand so we could have gotten the ball rolling earlier. Because we had only just gotten to the final signed agreed sale price, which per her email was one of the required documents. Oh, no, we could have provided her with the other stuff sooner. Why didn't she say so in the first place???

To be continued...

House Detectives

We're going looking at houses again on Sunday. We haven't absolutely lost this house, but if the people who offered a higher bid than we did follow through, that's it. So, back on the road hunting down a new place to buy.

On top of this, the realtor who has been helping us is backing out. We're looking in an area outside of her normal circle and making her cover a LOT of miles. And since we actually got defaulted to her by a realtor that we had recommended to us but wasn't available at that time, she has to give 20% of her commission to that other realtor. And the standard 50% to the company she works out of. So we're making her do a lot of work, spend a lot of money on travel, and would get very little in return. Plus, she has constantly felt bad that she didn't really know the areas we were looking in very well, so she couldn't tell us where amenities were or what the local market was like. So we have to find a new realtor.

Greene House Effect

One of the four finalists mentioned before came back on the market, so we have made a bid. None of the houses we looked at this past weekend were suitable. We still have plans to go look at more this coming weekend. Will that improve our chances with this one?

Changing Houses In the Middle of the Dream

The bottom line is, too many repairs and the sellers weren't willing to come down in price enough to cover them.

100th Post!

I hadn't realized how much we'd posted on our blog until I noticed on my "Dashboard" the number of posts. Before that, I was going to title this entry "Lighthouse Keeping" due to the content below. After I mentioned the number to Carrie, she suggested "Post Serial". But I decided to be plain and upfront about it just to blatantly point out this milestone.

Today we had some errands to run down Portland way, so we went a little further and saw the Portland Head Light again, just to check out the giftshop and museum, which were both closed the first time we visited.

Then, since the day was turning nice, we went to the nearby Spring Point Ledge Light, which is normally open to visitors on Saturdays, but wasn't this one. We even took off our shoes and splashed around in the water for a bit.

And finally we went practically next door to the Portland Breakwater Light, also known as the Bug Light, which is Carrie's favorite because of the ornamental work ringing the top. Click on Carrie's hat to enlarge the photo and see these details.

For those of you waiting to hear about our house in Augusta, well, we got the estimate for repairs to the roof, and it was not nice. We put together a brief of the worst things the inspector found, with an approximate cost to repair and sent in a request to the seller to drop that off the price of the house. We're now waiting to see if they'll accept, counter, or decline altogether.

Roof Un-Ready

The roof is only 10 years old and what we could see from the ground looked fine. But up on top of the house was a different story altogether. Going through the house carefully with the inspector, there was also a lot of supporting evidence that the roof needs to be replaced. And before winter. We hope we can convince the sellers to come down a little bit more now so that we can afford to get it fixed.

Burning Down the House

The furnace is old and will have to be replaced. We're hoping that's the worst thing the inspector finds when he does his thing for us tomorrow.

Closing Counters

We got a counter counter counter counter counter offer and gave them a counter counter counter counter counter counter offer which was accepted.

Saturday we have an official inspection by a certified inspector with us present. Afterward we'll go to the bank and present them with all our paperwork to show how they really should give us that mortgage. Then we'll go look at paint and carpet samples.

House It Going?

We put in a bid. We got a counter offer. We gave a counter counter offer.

Meanwhile, the bank has agreed that we can still try for a mortgage even though we haven't had a credit card or borrowed any money in the past ten years. We just need to provide, amongst other things, 4 "Letters of Credit" from places that we have accounts. Like the utilities and the landlord. We are going to try and provide as many as possible to stack the deck in our favor. I've already gotten hold of the electric company, AT&T, Verizon, the vet's (both here and back in AZ), and the landlord. Carrie has letters from AAA and our insurance company already in hand.


UPDATE

We got a counter counter counter offer and put back a counter counter counter counter offer.

Augusta Fresh Air

We think we'll be able to get this house. The price has already dropped into our acceptable range, it's been on the market for two years, and we know of no other people interested in it. We've put in a bid and will now wait for the counter offer. The difficulty will probably be in that it is currently jointly owned by four siblings.

Meanwhile, our bank has sent us an automated denial letter based on our empty credit history. We, by choice, don't have credit cards and have only borrowed money once before. That was to buy our previous house, and we paid that off in about seven years and that was ten years ago. Basic credit reports don't go back that far. We're trying to see if our bank won't do a real credit check to see we actually have enough in cash and other assets to buy the house outright as well as how reliably we pay our rent, utilities, etc. If they won't do that, we have a couple of recommended mortgage people as well as going to the Maine State Employee Credit Union (who I will be calling tomorrow.)

Bidding Adieu

We placed a bid on the Auburn house, but it, and the two that came in from others, was rejected. We placed a higher bid. It was rejected and we were told it was way below the other two bids. So, on to the other houses we were interested in.

As mentioned before, there were four places we liked. One was under contract even as we were contemplating the one we got outbid on. Another had its price go up and then it got rented out. So that leaves us with one.

The photo above shows the back of our new hope. It is in good enough shape to move right into, though we would prefer to replace the living room's shag carpet first, if only because it's in such sorry shape. We're going to take a second look at it tomorrow.

An interesting bit about these two houses is that the one in Auburn was built the year I was born and this one, in Augusta, was built the year Carrie was born.

Inspector Gadget

Expect Inspection Introspection

Another shot of the same room, but the dining part of it. The kitchen is just to the left and the back yard is just beyond the window.

So, the inspector report shows mold is not a problem. It also showed the problems we knew about, a couple of which are worse than we thought. For instance, not only does the roof need to be redone, it needs to be redone before winter (we'd hoped to put it off a year), the vents are leaking, and the rafters need extra support. The other possibly big problem we didn't spot is that the new furnace system not only isn't hooked up to the whole house, but it couldn't be started.

There are a lot of relatively minor things that, if it wasn't such a well built house to start with, would certainly have made us leery of purchase. But the inspector, as well as the contractor we had in earlier, both thought very highly of the structure. We'd looked at some houses that needed less work, but were not really worth the extra effort to fix up. We think this one is.

The bank just recently dropped the asking price which got more people interested in it. There are some who are already talking with the bank about buying it. We didn't have all our price quotes for repairs in yet, but we put together what we had with our bid for the house. We need to hope that it is high enough and our ability to close quickly (because we don't have to sell a house to raise the money and have already done an inspection so won't have an inspector escape clause) will be enough to get the house.

Waiting For A Go

Our real estate agent gives us hope that we might actually be able to get this place. She says the agent for the bank is keen to get rid of it, and has tried to convince the bank previously to let it go cheaply. He encourages us to get a detailed list of repairs to put with our bid to help the case. We have been pricing out some things like replacing the carpeted basement floor, but the first big thing to do is get the house inspected so we can get a detailed list of what's wrong. If there's mold, we stop and walk away. If not, we start contacting all the contractors about written estimates. Wednesday is the inspection.

Pictures this time are of the upstairs living room.