A New Dream

I've been lusting after this house for months now. It's nowhere to be found online, but I am not complaining... less chance of it being sold by the time we offload the "pig". We don't even know if it's in our price range. We just know we LOVE it. We're trying not to think about it though, so back to our regularly scheduled programming.... :)

Seriously... You want to do WHAT to our deck?

These are words I wish I had said to our foundation repair estimator on Friday. Since we moved into this house in March we have noticed a number of hairline cracks grow nasty and more aggressive. Since July they have been absolutely incredible and really had us scared.

The plan was for my mom and step-dad to take a look at them when they were in town to let us know if we would be able to fix all of them while they were here. (These cracks had clearly been here for a while, and looked as though the seller had simply patched them for sale... the Band-Aids have started to lose their stick and now we have gaping wounds on every wall in every room of the house).

After some discussion we decided that the cracks were far too many for us to properly correct while they were in town and it was decided that the best use of their time would be to help us with the deck -- besides, we had the wood standing in our front yard already!

We decided to call in the foundation company who had done the most recent foundation work on the house. We bought the home with a double lifetime warranty as you may remember... the house had had to separate lifts in it's life. Once at the back and once up front... each of these lifts has a lifetime warranty. We finally had our guy come over on Friday.

He was a great guy, and very sensitive to our first-time-home-buyer-low-cash-high-stress-freak-out situation. He explained that after the last lift he had advised the previous owner to have the plumbing pressure tested to make sure that the property shift had not displaced anything under the house. He stated that he had told the previous owner that the warranty would be voided if he did not take care of the pressure test, and repair any plumbing leaks that may have occurred. He told us yesterday that looking at the giant cracks in our walls, it would seem that the previous owner did NOT take care of this... the middle of the house is sinking and the edges are bobbing up....

You can see where we're going with this can't you...

We quickly asked if that would affect our warranty? I mean... the foundation was the biggest question in our minds when we looked at this house. I still have copies of numerous emails back and forth to our agent and the sellers agent discussing our fears, and asking questions. We were finally told that there was a warranty on the foundation, and we were put in touch with this company who assured us that whatever may come down the road, we were covered as far as the foundation was concerned... cosmetic repairs were our own problem. Fair enough right? Well after taking some time to think about it we decided "better the devil we know (and have a warranty for) than the devil we don't know"... this is Central Texas and foundation issues exist everywhere in our area... at least this way we would go in knowing that it would be a problem, but having the warranty to cover the $20-50K foundation repairs that could be incurred. In all we decided it was a safer bet for us.

Fast forward to yesterday. We stood dumbfounded as Isaac explained that the warranty COULD be voided if the previous owner did not make necessary repairs to the plumbing. He suggested that we get a pressure test done to the plumbing before calling him to come back. We turned white as sheets and I swear I thought I was going to have a heart attack.... when finally he said, "Well, I mean I know this is not your fault. I just needed to mention that this is in the contract so that you know... if you were not such a nice customer I wouldn't need to make the repairs if the plumbing hasn't been seen to, but since it's not your fault and had nothing to do with you, I can tell you that I WILL fix it as part of the warranty and if necessary I will just go after him myself." It was at this point that Peter added, "If he didn't make the repairs (repairs never mentioned in the sellers disclosure) WE will go after him too!"

OK. So enough doom and gloom right? Let's say he DID have the plumbing repaired. Let's say this is just a shift in the foundation and they need to repair it. How do we do that? What are our options?

"Well," began Isaac, "we have two options. First, we could go around the edges where everything is raised and remove shims so bring everything down back in alignment... but if there is an issue in the middle it would continue sinking and might not be the best option. Or, we could rip up all of your floors, go through the concrete foundation and reach all the piers under your house and make necessary adjustments to level them. Of course, this would require that you move out of the house for 2 weeks. I would recommend that we just do the edges... but oh... I don't think that deck was there when the warranty was written up... Uh, geez... the deck needs to come off. We need to access the piers down that side of the house, and certainly when we lift the house the deck (which is attached by bolts to the concrete foundation) will lift with it... Yes. The deck will need to go."

!!!!!!!



Isaac leaves... we sit down and begin to panic. Naturally we each call a parent to share the disturbing news. My mom is understandably hysterical about the impending death of the new deck... We beat around some ideas for alternatives and come up with something... Moving out for two weeks is the least of our problems, we would be happy to do that. The deck cost nearly $7,000 plus a week of labor in mid-July Central Texas summer... i.e. H-O-T!! The $6,000 doesn't include the 3 cases of water, hospital bills incurred from my foot accident nor any of the other incidentals we picked up... I think ultimately we were closer to $10k invested in that deck... no WAY were we giving it up.

I left our plans with Isaac on his voicemail and he called us back with another option. He says that since the corner where the deck is is on the high side, we COULD just bring everything else up to match that side of the house. ANd to avoid needing to access that side of the house, we could just pull up the carpet (YAYYYY!!) and go throught he floors. Perfect!

So where are we now? OK. We have to pay for a plumber to come out and do a hydro pressure test on the pipes. (Around $500). Once we have the results of this test we will decide on next steps. If there is a leak under there we will need to have that fixed once the foundation is lined up again... and we will have two VERY mad people trying to find a certain Mr and Mrs G. Martin of Austin for answers... Hopefully it is simply a matter of getting the piers sorted out and we're good to go again... oh... well after we get the drywall patched, taped and painted...

We're learning a LOT about this whole house buying thing. I know for sure that the next time we are trying to buy a house we have many more questions we want to ask... and honestly, I don't think we will buy anywhere near this area again. We asked Isaac if he has much business in the area. He told us that our street is one of the busiest as far as foundation repairs. We asked, "Where do you NEVER have to go?" He said North-West Austin where he lived is pretty solid. SInce AUstin is out of our price range and Peter starts a new job in the town of Leander soon I asked about Leander... Isaac says he rarely if ever has any calls out there... sounds like a solid place to buy! haha We'll see how it goes.

What we have discovered is that the previous owner here just had the foundation repaired, brought some cheap labor in here to slap patches over the cracks, spray in some paint and lay cheap carpet and then get this baby on the market. Peter keeps saying that we should just "put the lipstick back on the pig and get the hell outta here!" I still think we could make it work and really make this a nice place for the next person. Besides... we're not going anywhere until the market starts picking up again.

And So We Found a Newer House...

... we closed on March 24th, 2009. We LOVE it!

Mortgage Misery

We've decided how we're going to fund the house purchase... there are some first time home-buyers assistance programs as well as incentive programs offered by Matagorda County to encourage young people to move to the area. These additional programs will make this whole process much easier on our wallets, but pretty difficult for our mortgage broker.

We have decided to ask around this time and get recommendations before we just go with someone. Last time we were burned with an awful guy first, followed by one who definitely kept us in the loop, but honestly he wasn't interested in helping us fund our low-income house and wasn't prepared to spend too much time on it at all.

This time we want to find someone with the following:

1) Experience working with FHA loans
2) Experience working with additional funding sources
3) Experience working on securing funding where one of the parties is not a citizen
4) REALLY want to get people into homes,
5) Not just worried about what his commission is worth.
6) Keeps you informed of what's going on with the applications

Our realtor doesn't have anyone that meets these requirements, but someone in her office recommended someone who worked with her on a recent sale involving all kinds of government aid as well as an FHA loan so we've given him a call. Of course, we called him on Friday morning and haven't heard back from him yet.... NOT a good sign.

Oh well, we will continue our search next week and see how it goes from there.

Upon Further Research...

We got home and raced to check both "Lucas" and "Johnson" out. We found slideshows online and pored over them one by one. Again, Ros preferred Johnson.

Click on the picture of each house below to be taken to the -- slightly dodgy -- slideshows.

500 Lucas

409 Johnson

We researched the Palacios ISD, the Palacios civic data, town history, future developments, financial assistance for first time home buyers and we actually got a kick out of being such grown-ups. We now know things like -- what is expected behavior at Palacios schools, what are the class sizes, what is the town's median income, what is the town's population, what sorts of property developments are planned in the future that could affect our property value negatively or positively and last but by no means least what kind of aid programs are out there that will make our first home purchase easier and less daunting financially.

Over all, we're happy with all of these areas of research. This is the right place for us to raise our family, and a great place for us to invest our money -- long-term. Most of all, we just love that the town is small enough for now that we will be able to make a mark on it. People are so friendly and welcoming that we cannot wait to make new friends in the area and really start living the sea-side life. (We're even thinking of buying a boat some day... we'll keep you posted, it's going to be a while...)

We finally got to the point where we wanted to share pics of the houses with family and friends. Ros posted them on her blog, Peter talked family through the slideshows online. Everyone was enchanted with the small town look and feel of Palacios, but it seemed that everyone had conflicting opinions on which house looked best.

For the most part, feedback was pretty tough. They're old houses, they need a lot of work.. we realize that.. but in exchange for a little sweat, we would be getting a brilliant house, in a great town that we can potentially live in forever. In the end, the "realists" agreed with Ros about 409 Johnson looking like a more solid investment, while the "dreamers" took one look at the red door on 500 Lucas and were as smitten as Peter was.

Ros' mom made one comment that really struck a chord with Ros, "Get the most house you can for the money." <-- now, what she meant by that was, by the nicest, most put together house you can afford on your miniature budget... but what Ros heard was, "Take another look at that big one... you KNOW you love the red door."

So she promptly did. Here's what she thought... The Johnson house is move-in ready and -- while it could use, new paint, new carpets and new fixtures in some rooms... for the most part it's cute and ready for action.

The Lucas house is a wreck... it needs a lot of work, but dammit won't it look incredible when you're done with it? Lucas is the house we can really make our mark on. Johnson is already "marked" with someone else's taste.

The Johnson house has just enough bedrooms for us to squeak by with an office and a bedroom for a baby if we get that far in the next couple of years. But once we're dealing with a toddler it will be time to move again.

The Lucas house is more house than we will need for a while, but it could easily accommodate two adults and potentially two teenage boys if needs be. It won't be overly spacious, but it will do.

The Johnson house has a room for a guest, or couple to stay over with us. With Palacios being a vacation town we are hoping that family and friends will all come through at some point and stay a while with us.

The Lucas house has enough room for a couple of guests to stay a night or two. In fact... with a day bed in the sun room, we could probably accommodate 3 or 4 couples and or a bunch of kids.

The Johnson house is more "modern" and in fact because of it's layout Peter refers to it as "the mobile home house" because the layout resembles a mobile home to him.

Lucas on the other hand has so much character it hurts. Ros can't stop thinking about how great it will be to peel back those wallpaper layers, rip up that carpet to see what lies beneath, replace the 1980's light fixtures and fans, and completely and utterly demolish every inch of that kitchen and start anew.

At the end of the day we know we aren't handy people -- well, we wouldn't really know even if we were... we've never challenged ourselves in such a big way. But we like the challenge of Lucas at this point, so we're going to go for it!! (Well, after we've actually seen the inside in person that is... *blush!*) We're scheduling viewings with Sheila for May 17th and we are starting the search for the perfect mortgage guy to help us with funding.

Meeting Sheila (and the first home contenders)

Our trip to Palacios was a short one unfortunately. We got to town at around 11am and drove the town center end to end, popping down a few side roads to see what we could find. We stopped at the Outrigger Restaurant where we chatted with the waitress -- who instantly identified us as "out-of-towners" and asked us how we liked Palacios.

After chatting with her about everything from the school system, to housing, to how she -- as a transplant from Montana -- liked the town. She raved about it, telling us about the great activities for kids, music events, outdoorsy things for people to do. One thing she did mention as negatives were that there's only one grocery store nearby and it's closing soon for renovations, and there aren't a whole lot of young people.

We left the restaurant and took a walk down one of the piers into the bay to see how the town looked from the water. TOOO cute!! Seriously wish we could afford one of those water facing properties... they aren't actually too pricey for what you're getting, but unfortunately, they're a little above our budget.

After our trip out on the pier we stopped by the only realtor's office we had managed to locate online. There was only one lady in the office (odd for a Friday at lunchtime I thought), but she was so warm and welcoming you'd have thought there were three of her.
Sheila Valcik of Re/Max Coastal Properties [Now Full Stringer Realty] was definitely the realtor for us.

She took the time to talk to us about the area. She discussed the school system, the community, her experiences being born and raised there. She also took the time to give her husband a call to chat with me about the internet service options that are available in the area. She handed us a pamphlet with their active listings, and a map to guide us around town. She showed us slideshows of various properties online and talked about some of her newer listings.

Before we knew it, we'd been in there for about 40 minutes and could easily have stayed another 40 with pleasure. But there were houses to be seen and pictures to be taken, so we set off map in one hand, listings sheet in the other and camera... uhm... in another set of hands...

Our drive around town brought two clear favorites.
500 Lucas (Peter's fave), 409 Johnson (Ros' fave). Here are the stats.

500 Lucas

Beds: 4
Baths: 2
Misc: Sun Room, 2 Storey (sp?), 1940
SQ FT: 2,083
Lot Size: 75' x 150'
Price*: 95%
(*Relative to our budget limit)

409 Johnson

Beds: 3
Baths: 1
Misc: Screened Porch, 1960
SQ FT: 1,008
Lot Size: 100' x 150'
Price*: 80%
(*Relative to our budget limit)

We each immediately picked a favorite (based solely on the exterior).
Peter chose "Lucas" because it has lot's of rooms and he thinks it would be excellent to have rooms we don't use much. He loves the look of the building as it's similar to homes in Buffalo and Kent that he saw growing up. It's a block or so closer to the bayfront than the other. He liked the thought of having a larger home so we wouldn't need to move for a long time.

Ros chose "Johnson" because the exterior is freshly painted with new-ish roof tiles and a well maintained yard. The yard is big. It is one block away from the only Elementary school in town and would be convenient when we have kids. It is a single storey (sp?) home so no lugging laundry baskets up and down stairs. It has just the right number of bedrooms and no unnecessary rooms that need cleaning.

After checking out some other more "desperate Dan" houses in the area we headed home to upload and review the pictures we had taken.

Next we will show you some inside shots of these places, and how more thought and research changed our minds a bit.

Palacios Pictoral

1. P1050582, 2. P1050577, 3. P1050564, 4. P1050557, 5. P1050560, 6. P1050561, 7. P1050553, 8. P1050552, 9. P1050573, 10. P1050547, 11. P1050588, 12. P1050592, 13. P1050565, 14. P1050578, 15. P1050587, 16. P1050590, 17. P1050560, 18. P1050584, 19. P1050588, 20. P1050586, 21. P1050580, 22. P1050554, 23. P1050556, 24. P1050567, 25. P1050570, 26. P1050591, 27. P1050562, 28. P1050555, 29. P1050550, 30. P1050545, 31. Back, 32. P1050544, 33. P1050575, 34. P1050543, 35. P1050548, 36. P1050549

Click on the mosaic tiles above to see larger pictures, or on the corresponding picture number to view it in Flickr.

Let's Start at The Very Beginning...

A very good place to start, indeed.

We've always agreed that one day, our ultimate dream is to buy a home near the sea -- any sea... for that matter ANY large body of water would do. A few weeks ago, out of interest, Peter enlisted the help of our old friend Google, (we call him "G"), and used the maps to scour the Gulf coast searching for little po'dunk towns that may possibly be affordable places for us to live, (even if we couldn't afford to buy a home of our own).

Peter hit paydirt in March when he discovered Palacios and took a cruise through some local real estate sites, and discovered that... hang on... that is TOTALLY do-able! We can afford that house! He called me over to look at some of the properties he had found and I believe my first words were, "OMG that house is the cutest! That price can't be right? What's wrong with it?"

So Ros jumped on the phone -- doing what she does best -- and called the realtor's office to get more info. Nope she said, nothing major wrong... it could use some updating, but otherwise it's in good nick.

Now... we have been planning a trip down to Houston since January because Peter bought us tickets to see In Flames so we decided to swing through Palacios on our way home.

We think our pics from the trip deserve their own entry, so Ros will post those next.

Thanks for stopping by,