Not much is happening on the housing front right now. Glenn has had several interviews this week and is still applying for jobs. His roommate will be moving out on Tuesday, so I will be moving in on the following Saturday. Moving twice in one month is fun!
I decided (from Glenn's suggestion) to put up our photos from Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters ride at Disneyland. The ride consists of getting on little cars in the manner of the Haunted Mansion, but you get laser guns that look like travel sized hairdryers to shoot at targets. At the end of the ride you can email yourself a picture of you on the ride along with your score. So I'm going to post pictures here and you can keep track of our progress ( I am posting pictures of all the times I have ridden so you can see where I started).
Here is my first time on the ride. I don't know how many times Glenn had ridden before he went with me:
Here is the second time. This was later in the same evening as trip one:
And our latest trip last Friday:
This past Saturday Glenn, my mom and stepdad helped me move out of my apartment and into storage. The weather was not the best for the move, but it's over for now. I am settling into my aunt and grandma's house once again.
Unfortunately on Friday Glenn was laid off from his job as a programmer for a general contractor. The jobs started drying up and the company let Glenn go. This means we won't be looking for houses again until Glenn lands a job. So if anyone knows of any programming jobs in central Orange County, let me know. Hopefully Glenn won't be out of work for long and we can reassess our plans.
This past Saturday, Glenn and I looked at more houses with my aunt. Again, the quality of the homes we saw was good like the previous weekend, except for one house that was right on a corner of a busy intersection with a stoplight. After looking over the list of houses we saw over the past two weekends (and dismantling my bed for the move), Glenn and I settled on a short list of five places
On Sunday after having a Mother's Day lunch of pizza and cheesecake and/or brownies at my grandma's house, Glenn, my mom, my aunt and I went to see the short list. After a lot of thought, Glenn and I decided to make an offer on a 3br, 2.5 ba condo in Irvine. The location is great and there is enough room for the two of us. It is a short sale, so we won't know for at least a month if our offer is accepted. The agent will submit the offers (there are two others at the same amount) this week. For now, we can continue to look until we hear something.
I am mostly moving out this weekend. My lease is not up until the end of the month, but by moving out now, I'll have time to clean and patch up the holes from my pictures and do any other work on the place. Of course, it's supposed to be 100 this weekend. I had to use my umbrella to get into work this morning because the fog was so thick. Great timing.
With my move and Memorial Day weekend following, I'm not sure when we will next look at houses. More and more are coming on the market, so I'm not worried about missing a weekend or two. I'm looking forward to relaxing over the holiday and spending time with my mom on her birthday. My Spanish final is Tuesday night, so Wednesday, Thursday and Friday will be all packing.
My aunt sent us a list of places to see this Saturday. Some of them seem promising, including a few in Irvine. Glenn and I met for dinner last night to see what we wanted to do at this point. We decided to look this weekend and not put out any offers until later. We still like the top four from last week, but I think we can wait a week or two.
My mom came up yesterday and packed up my kitchen (except the food) and the pictures on the wall. She left some wardrobe boxes for me and some plastic bins for my clothes. I got started on that last night. I have to pick out the clothes that I will live with until we finally move. Unfortunately, the weather is not cooperating with me as the temperature fluctuates between low 60s and high 90s. Long term planning is difficult if it's summer on Sunday and winter on Wednesday. These past few days have been quite chilly for May. I will have to live with layers.
We didn't look at 15 properties, but we did spend five and a half hours looking on Sunday. The properties we did see were generally good. We narrowed our focus to four: a condo in Tustin, a condo in Aliso Viejo and two SFRs in Lake Forest. Glenn and I need to decide if we want to make offers on any or all of those. Three are short sales or foreclosures, so it may take awhile to hear back from the banks; therefore, putting offers on several is optimal so we don't miss out on one, because we were waiting to hear about the other.
My aunt gave us an update for the weekend. Two of the fourteen house on the list have gone into escrow, however, the agent for one of them feels the escrow is weak and may fall out. My aunt found two new houses to add to the list, including a short sale in Woodbury, the neighborhood that Glenn lives in. So, I think we'll be looking at fifteen houses.
Glenn and his roommate will throw their party at 11am on Saturday and I will spend the evening studying for my Spanish test that will be on Tuesday.
This past weekend Glenn and I took advantage of the heat and went to the pool in his neighborhood along with some of his Magic friends. We also played some Magic and other games. I picked up some frames and a table for my new office at work. We both enjoyed not looking for a week. I think we needed to recharge.
This week I'm focusing on packing. So far I have 15 boxes packed and donated my small bookcase that I got from Target in 1998 to someone in my complex. I set it out by the trash and two hours later it was gone.
We have a long list of properties to look at on Sunday. We'll be looking in Tustin, Lake Forest, Aliso Viejo, Laguna Hills and Mission Viejo.
My aunt sent us an update on a short sale in Lake Forest that we liked. It's still available, however, when I was looking over the details again, I noticed that the roof is listed as being made of wood shingles. Since Orange County is fire country, this is not good. We'll probably go back to check it out one more time, but a new roof would be very expensive, especially since the fire season would begin in the fall.
I'm going to try to keep a blog about my house hunting experience, even though Glenn and I have been looking for over a month already. Melissa suggested I do this, so here goes.
Yesterday, we went back to a SFR in Irvine that is listed at $449k to get Glenn's dad's opinion about the work involved to make the property nice. Basically, this house would need a new everything. At that price we wouldn't have much cash left over for the work we would need done before we could even live in the house. Glenn's dad thought it would be too much for us, and we agreed. It might be the only shot at a SFR in Irvine, but the market is still weak, so we'll see.
We made an offer last week on a 4br 2.5ba condo in Laguna Hills. They countered, we counter-countered, and another bid came in. The other bidders have $300k for a down payment, so most likely the sellers will choose them over us, since we can only put 10% down.
After looking at well over 50 properties in the past month and a half, Glenn wanted to take a break this weekend. We'll be going out again a week from Sunday to look at more properties and hopefully find something else on which to make an offer. Now, I need to start packing since my lease is ending on May 30. I have seven or nine boxes packed so far with many left to go.
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Laomedon said:
[this is good]Hey hey. Where are the updates? 6 days old, what ever to do. read more
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