It's official! We have finally divested ourselves of property interests in Ohio. The last property we owned was sold on October 28, 2016. Over 10 years and many hundreds of credit score points later, we only own our own house where we currently live.
In 2005, Carly and I were getting serious and I was getting tired of living in my little apartment. We found a house in North Hill, Akron, and bought the thing. Even though I was basically an unemployed law student. That was the housing bubble.
A year or two later, our neighbors, a kind of odd Akron hillbilly type family (last name, "Dick") were foreclosed on and no one was surprised. Since we thought we were going to stay in Akron forever, Carly and I bought the place thinking that we could renovate it, turn it into a rental, and maybe, eventually, a law office. We got it for a great price and a line of credit for renovations and repairs.
All of this money came from Portage Community Bank, the bank from my old hometown where my father owned stock and I knew the president and his kids. They rode the wave of the housing bubble just like everyone else, so two houses for a law student with no appreciable income was no big deal.
We rented the one house to friends and lived in the other. Things were peachy. Then Carly got a job in her hometown and I failed the bar exam. We moved to Mount Vernon and rented our house out to some people.
They wrecked it. Dog peed all over the place, boyfriend cut holes in 100-year-old solid wood doors to make a "music studio." Girl stopped paying rent and we asked her to leave before we evicted her. After that, our friends were getting a divorce and decided to stop living in our second property, also. So we got a management company to fill the places.
We went through a series of renters that we hoped would pan out, and each time, they did a little more damage to the house. Or a lot of damage. My cousin, Ricky, and his friends put basketball sized holes in the walls. Police were called to the property a few times. In the other house, the family stopped paying rent entirely for a few months, and then their daughter died from a heroin overdose. After almost a year of not receiving rent, we had to evict them. The last renters in the second property were resettled refugees. When they finally left, the house was so filthy there was an inches-deep cockroach infestation and the woman I hired to clean the place got sick a few feet inside the front door and refused to go back.
Good news is, we eventually sold both properties. Both of them were sold with massive losses and for less than we owed. After the housing bubble collapsed in 2008 and 2009, and while Carly and I were relocating to New Jersey, we tried to get the bank to foreclose on the properties. We really really wanted to abandon them and let them slide, but the bank convinced us to stay on, reduced our payments, and "helped" us by charging off some of the loans.
Unfortunately, by writing them off, they stayed on our credit report as charged-off debt that was not satisfied, so for six years we had to make payments on the charged off amounts until the bank considered them satisfied. They still contend they did the best thing for us. I think it was for them. But, due to them kind of screwing us on the charged-off amounts, they were more amenable to agreeing to sell the properties in modified short sales, and now we just have to pay off remaining balances of the loans rather than take the tax and credit hits of short sales.
The losses on the properties are mitigated by the awfully complex tax code. Since we didn't live in the houses and treated them as rentals, the costs of selling the houses and the losses we incurred are deductible expenses. We will recoup about half of our losses just in tax returns last year and next year. It's not the best thing in the world, but it helps.
So today I was checking to make sure we got all the final bills for our utilities at the last property we sold, and found that on the property records, my current address in Maryland is still listed as the mailing address. After three phone calls to the Summit County Fiscal Office, I found that I have no ability to change the record because I don't own the property. The new owners have to do that. And since the transaction was all arms' length, I don't have a way to reach them. So... best to hope for is that our agent can call their agent and get them to fix it. Otherwise, their tax bill goes in the trash! Hooray!
By this time next year, all of our obligations on the properties should be gone. All the debt paid, all the notices updated. I won't have any fiscal ties with Ohio any longer. That'll be nice.
Monday, November 28, 2016
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
The Terrible Threes
(EVERYONE WITH KIDS CAN NOD ALONG THROUGH THE WHOLE THING)
The Wolf has been on a kind of roller coaster lately. He's super, super, super sweet most of the time. He's funny. He uses voices to play characters in his little games. He likes to dance and jump on things. He's learning to spell. But when he's hungry or tired or upset, he's a fucking demon.
He's learned how to shriek. That's no surprise, right? Kids learn to yell. He's got a banshee quality that sounds like souls being ripped apart. It's a horrid sound. We are learning to tune him out.
He requires that things happen a certain way. It started with, "No! Mama can help me [put on pants, get out of the car, take a bath, whatever]!" and it was so rare it was odd. Now it's, "I want to go down the stairs first!" and screaming ensues if you're already downstairs. The same with opening the door, turning on/off lights, sitting in chairs, getting into/out of the car, pressing the doorbell at school, getting the mail, taking out the trash, reading a book, reading a different book, moving the stool around the house, opening/closing/flushing the toilet, and many other issues. Screaming.
Some days, he doesn't want to do anything. Kid goes limp or stiff as a board when it is bathtime, or time to go to school, or put on pants, etc. One day, I had to literally wrestle him into his clothes before school. By the time we got there, he was fine, but shaky. In the afternoon, while riding home, he told me "Daddy, you put your leg on my head?" I said, "yes, I put my leg on your head." (Full disclosure: I had him in a scissor hold to keep him from flailing while I pulled his socks on him and my lower leg was pressed against his face; it worked pretty well). His response? "DAT'S FUNNY!"
He has narrowed his choices of food that he will consume to sugar and chicken. He seems to be healthy enough, so we're just doing that now. He has also gone back to demanding milk at bedtime, which is annoying, but probably a sign that he's going through another growth spurt, so I cave more often than I don't.
He's mostly potty trained, but just won't poop in the toilet with any regularity (hah!), so he wears diapers to bed. Diapers--plural--because he sometimes barely waits until his bedroom door is closed to poop up the one we put on him at bedtime. He only pushes one out on the toilet when he really, really wants a cookie. Then he poops up his diaper 20 minutes later.
Most of his tantrums fall into a cycle of I want that/I don't want that. "I'm hungry!" so we present him with food--his favorite food--and he screams, "I don't want it!" Nothing works. We say we have to go and he doesn't want to go. Goes limp. Goes stiff when you try to pick him up. When we say we're staying home, he runs to the door to get into the car, screaming all the way. It takes a while to talk him down, and sometimes he's so worked up we just have to throw him in his room until he calms down.
We're at the crossroads of wanting to leave his door open at night so he can get up and go potty at night and locking the little bugger in, because if you don't, he won't go to bed until 10 or 11 and the next day will be fucking useless. The Wolf is a precocious thing, but he knows he can rely on us for some basic services. And since we don't like cleaning up pee-soaked sheets and we like for him to be reasonable and well-rested and well-fed when we can get him to do those things, we relent and give him the milk at bedtime, or let him slam the door and reopen it so he can go first, etc.
The parenting blogs tell us that he'll grow out of it. In the meantime, never shake the baby, never shake the baby, never shake the baby, never shake the baby...
And now, this:
The Wolf has been on a kind of roller coaster lately. He's super, super, super sweet most of the time. He's funny. He uses voices to play characters in his little games. He likes to dance and jump on things. He's learning to spell. But when he's hungry or tired or upset, he's a fucking demon.
He's learned how to shriek. That's no surprise, right? Kids learn to yell. He's got a banshee quality that sounds like souls being ripped apart. It's a horrid sound. We are learning to tune him out.
He requires that things happen a certain way. It started with, "No! Mama can help me [put on pants, get out of the car, take a bath, whatever]!" and it was so rare it was odd. Now it's, "I want to go down the stairs first!" and screaming ensues if you're already downstairs. The same with opening the door, turning on/off lights, sitting in chairs, getting into/out of the car, pressing the doorbell at school, getting the mail, taking out the trash, reading a book, reading a different book, moving the stool around the house, opening/closing/flushing the toilet, and many other issues. Screaming.
Some days, he doesn't want to do anything. Kid goes limp or stiff as a board when it is bathtime, or time to go to school, or put on pants, etc. One day, I had to literally wrestle him into his clothes before school. By the time we got there, he was fine, but shaky. In the afternoon, while riding home, he told me "Daddy, you put your leg on my head?" I said, "yes, I put my leg on your head." (Full disclosure: I had him in a scissor hold to keep him from flailing while I pulled his socks on him and my lower leg was pressed against his face; it worked pretty well). His response? "DAT'S FUNNY!"
He has narrowed his choices of food that he will consume to sugar and chicken. He seems to be healthy enough, so we're just doing that now. He has also gone back to demanding milk at bedtime, which is annoying, but probably a sign that he's going through another growth spurt, so I cave more often than I don't.
He's mostly potty trained, but just won't poop in the toilet with any regularity (hah!), so he wears diapers to bed. Diapers--plural--because he sometimes barely waits until his bedroom door is closed to poop up the one we put on him at bedtime. He only pushes one out on the toilet when he really, really wants a cookie. Then he poops up his diaper 20 minutes later.
Most of his tantrums fall into a cycle of I want that/I don't want that. "I'm hungry!" so we present him with food--his favorite food--and he screams, "I don't want it!" Nothing works. We say we have to go and he doesn't want to go. Goes limp. Goes stiff when you try to pick him up. When we say we're staying home, he runs to the door to get into the car, screaming all the way. It takes a while to talk him down, and sometimes he's so worked up we just have to throw him in his room until he calms down.
We're at the crossroads of wanting to leave his door open at night so he can get up and go potty at night and locking the little bugger in, because if you don't, he won't go to bed until 10 or 11 and the next day will be fucking useless. The Wolf is a precocious thing, but he knows he can rely on us for some basic services. And since we don't like cleaning up pee-soaked sheets and we like for him to be reasonable and well-rested and well-fed when we can get him to do those things, we relent and give him the milk at bedtime, or let him slam the door and reopen it so he can go first, etc.
The parenting blogs tell us that he'll grow out of it. In the meantime, never shake the baby, never shake the baby, never shake the baby, never shake the baby...
And now, this:
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
The Blue Couch of Sleep
When I was young, I could stay awake for days through sheer force of will. It didn't take much, really. I've been an insomniac since I was 12. Around the time the worst of my parents' problems started to simmer down, I stopped sleeping regular hours. I might have had trouble before, but I can't remember. I know I have been a night owl most of my life, but before we moved out of the trailer park, I remember sleeping. Sleeping deeply. Sleeping without caring. Oblivion because I needed it to escape all the things I knew were around me. It was a world of dreams and long, slow breaths.
But from about 12 on, I barely slept. Four hours a night most weeks, less some. I used that state to engage in a sleep experiment when I was 15. I stayed awake for six and a half days. When I finally went to sleep, I was hallucinating. When I woke up, I ate half a refrigerator. When I woke up again, I started to mythologize. I might have made it all up.
For all this time, I barely dream. Or if I do dream, I don't remember it. Sometimes I do. Vivid things that are way too close to reality. But most of the time, I just close my eyes and open them again a few hours longer.
I still don't sleep well, but I do sleep. Now I'm closer to 6 or 7 hours a night. Last night, I went to bed at 10 and woke up at 7. My alarms went off around 6 am, and I remember that, but I was only going through the motions. I woke up for real around 6:48. My two alarms are songs. "Head On (Hold Onto Your Heart)" by Man Man at 5:51 and "U.R.A. Fever" by The Kills at 6:13. Beep beep. Beep. Doooo--Beep.
And we have this blue couch. I picked it out and bought it on credit after we got the house. It's the style Carly likes. Fake mid-century modern. Blue like I like. They called it "azure." It's blue. Blue like lapis lazuli. Just wonderful blue. It's not super comfortable--the back is stiff and inflexible. You sit on it, not sink into it. It's a foam-stuffed board. But I fall asleep on it if I don't pay attention. I never fall asleep on the couch, but this couch, I fall asleep on it twice a week.
I had to wake up to write this. Now I'm going to try to finish watching this episode of "Hannibal" and go to bed after.
But from about 12 on, I barely slept. Four hours a night most weeks, less some. I used that state to engage in a sleep experiment when I was 15. I stayed awake for six and a half days. When I finally went to sleep, I was hallucinating. When I woke up, I ate half a refrigerator. When I woke up again, I started to mythologize. I might have made it all up.
For all this time, I barely dream. Or if I do dream, I don't remember it. Sometimes I do. Vivid things that are way too close to reality. But most of the time, I just close my eyes and open them again a few hours longer.
I still don't sleep well, but I do sleep. Now I'm closer to 6 or 7 hours a night. Last night, I went to bed at 10 and woke up at 7. My alarms went off around 6 am, and I remember that, but I was only going through the motions. I woke up for real around 6:48. My two alarms are songs. "Head On (Hold Onto Your Heart)" by Man Man at 5:51 and "U.R.A. Fever" by The Kills at 6:13. Beep beep. Beep. Doooo--Beep.
And we have this blue couch. I picked it out and bought it on credit after we got the house. It's the style Carly likes. Fake mid-century modern. Blue like I like. They called it "azure." It's blue. Blue like lapis lazuli. Just wonderful blue. It's not super comfortable--the back is stiff and inflexible. You sit on it, not sink into it. It's a foam-stuffed board. But I fall asleep on it if I don't pay attention. I never fall asleep on the couch, but this couch, I fall asleep on it twice a week.
I had to wake up to write this. Now I'm going to try to finish watching this episode of "Hannibal" and go to bed after.
Monday, August 1, 2016
Shackleton
When I started working for the federal government in 2008, there was this new program that the Bush administration had rolled out called the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. Under the program, if you worked for a governmental or non-profit organization for ten years and made all your regular payments, your federal student loans would be forgiven. Erased. Gone. Tax-free benefit.
At the time, I had about $110,000 in student loan debt thanks to the bait-and-switch of the University of Akron School of Law and, well, the high cost of higher learning anyway. This seemed like the thing. I checked the rules--the program required that you are making regular, standard payments or that you were enrolled in an income-based repayment plan. At the time, Carly and I had a pretty low communal income, so I qualified for a lower payment under the income-based plans. I enrolled, and off we went.
The first year went fine. Made payments, did my job for USCIS. The second year, magically, my payments spiked--almost doubled. I called to inquire. There had been some rules changes. Now, your income-based plans are based on your total household income. I argued, that was absurd! My wife only made a little more than I did, and she had crippling student loans also. So her payments would double, also. How can we fix that? Answer: file our taxes married-but-separate. This felt wrong. People do that when they're getting divorced, or one of them is being audited. So we took the risk, filed our taxes goofy, and payments went back to tolerable levels.
The following year, there were rules changes again--this time, income-based repayments were still pegged to your total income, but would be offset by your spouse's student loan debts, also. Great! Back to filing jointly.
Three more years pass and I finally get about to being admitted to the Ohio Bar. I wanted to maybe make good on that legal education and got certified so I could apply for some lawyer jobs. Part of the new lawyer training required by the state of Ohio included a seminar on financial management. I chose the one about repaying student loans--I figured, why not? Should be an easy one and maybe I will learn something. I did.
Under recent rule changes (around 2012), certain types of loan programs that had been discontinued (and I don't know the reasons) were not eligible for loan forgiveness. And I had one of those loan programs. Brilliant... five years of payments out the window. How to fix it? Re-consolidate the loans. Get on the proper payment program.
I re-consolidated and asked a lot of questions. Will this payment plan be eligible? Is this the correct kind of loan? Yes, yes, yes. At the time, one of the income-based payment plans was the extended loan term--25 years instead of 10 years. We had just had the Wolf, and Carly was out of work, so our income was low enough to qualify for that extended plan. We both rejiggered our loans and thought that was great.
Then, last year, in hopes of making federal loans easier to pay back for everybody, Congress passed an amendment to the program to allow any person to get an extended loan term, regardless of income. So this payment plan was no longer income-based. Which means that I was no longer in the loan forgiveness program. Another three years down the tubes.
I called my loan servicer and asked what I could do. Under the current rules, with my income, I would have to pay at least double my current payment in order to qualify for the loan forgiveness program. And that payment would be higher than if I was under a standard, ten-year payment program. So, effectively, they're telling me I should be paying off my loans before the term is due, based on my income.
Essentially, I have been hedged out of the program. I've been working in the government for almost 8 years and one of the incentives I had to start is just... gone. Sure, I have a great job. I get paid plenty. I have little to complain about. But I feel cheated. Maybe I could have gone over to the private sector a long time ago, gotten more significant experience, started working on things that I really want to do instead of the things I've kind of fallen into. It's disheartening at a time when I don't need to be disheartened.
At the time, I had about $110,000 in student loan debt thanks to the bait-and-switch of the University of Akron School of Law and, well, the high cost of higher learning anyway. This seemed like the thing. I checked the rules--the program required that you are making regular, standard payments or that you were enrolled in an income-based repayment plan. At the time, Carly and I had a pretty low communal income, so I qualified for a lower payment under the income-based plans. I enrolled, and off we went.
The first year went fine. Made payments, did my job for USCIS. The second year, magically, my payments spiked--almost doubled. I called to inquire. There had been some rules changes. Now, your income-based plans are based on your total household income. I argued, that was absurd! My wife only made a little more than I did, and she had crippling student loans also. So her payments would double, also. How can we fix that? Answer: file our taxes married-but-separate. This felt wrong. People do that when they're getting divorced, or one of them is being audited. So we took the risk, filed our taxes goofy, and payments went back to tolerable levels.
The following year, there were rules changes again--this time, income-based repayments were still pegged to your total income, but would be offset by your spouse's student loan debts, also. Great! Back to filing jointly.
Three more years pass and I finally get about to being admitted to the Ohio Bar. I wanted to maybe make good on that legal education and got certified so I could apply for some lawyer jobs. Part of the new lawyer training required by the state of Ohio included a seminar on financial management. I chose the one about repaying student loans--I figured, why not? Should be an easy one and maybe I will learn something. I did.
Under recent rule changes (around 2012), certain types of loan programs that had been discontinued (and I don't know the reasons) were not eligible for loan forgiveness. And I had one of those loan programs. Brilliant... five years of payments out the window. How to fix it? Re-consolidate the loans. Get on the proper payment program.
I re-consolidated and asked a lot of questions. Will this payment plan be eligible? Is this the correct kind of loan? Yes, yes, yes. At the time, one of the income-based payment plans was the extended loan term--25 years instead of 10 years. We had just had the Wolf, and Carly was out of work, so our income was low enough to qualify for that extended plan. We both rejiggered our loans and thought that was great.
Then, last year, in hopes of making federal loans easier to pay back for everybody, Congress passed an amendment to the program to allow any person to get an extended loan term, regardless of income. So this payment plan was no longer income-based. Which means that I was no longer in the loan forgiveness program. Another three years down the tubes.
I called my loan servicer and asked what I could do. Under the current rules, with my income, I would have to pay at least double my current payment in order to qualify for the loan forgiveness program. And that payment would be higher than if I was under a standard, ten-year payment program. So, effectively, they're telling me I should be paying off my loans before the term is due, based on my income.
Essentially, I have been hedged out of the program. I've been working in the government for almost 8 years and one of the incentives I had to start is just... gone. Sure, I have a great job. I get paid plenty. I have little to complain about. But I feel cheated. Maybe I could have gone over to the private sector a long time ago, gotten more significant experience, started working on things that I really want to do instead of the things I've kind of fallen into. It's disheartening at a time when I don't need to be disheartened.
The House in the Woods, Part 2.
Wow. So... four months later. To resume:
We called our realtor and asked her to set up showings of these three or four houses we hadn't had the chance to look at. They had all been on the market for a while and hadn't had open houses during the time we were looking. One of them she ruled out immediately--the house had a fire in recent history and regardless of how well it might have been repaired, "you never know." Another one she ruled out because it had an offer pending, but also some cryptic things where she didn't get a good feeling about it. The other two were scheduled, and just about all of them were in the same general area as COCKTAIL PARTY HOUSE.
The first one we saw was THE HOUSE IN THE WOODS. It was listed by a solo practitioner realtor and owned by an arcane real estate company based in Potomac, MD (Potomac is the venue for the latest "Real Housewives" franchise). The house itself was in great shape. Amazing, actually. Built in the 70's on a quiet road in a wooded neighborhood. The property hadn't been tended well (grass was nonexistent, weeds and strange growths taking over the lot, bees had eaten a flower box to bits) but it had hallmarks of a solid flip. The kitchen and appliances were all brand new. The floors and bathrooms had been replaced. There were deer in the yard. We saw a fox run through when we were hanging out. It was... pleasant.
It felt right. It felt like an empty space we could make our own. We could carve paths out of the wild backyard, fix some windows, and plant new stuff in the yard. It seemed like a place were the Wolf could have adventures; where we could sip tea on the porch; where we could live for a long, long time.
We set off to the last property--a staid old brick thing in another sleepy neighborhood which resembled a WANNABE FARMHOUSE. It was built in the 50s and had the hallmarks of catering to a builder who grew up in a farmhouse. The rooms were square and small. Showers were apparently a luxury, because the two we found resembled those you might imagine on a Cold War-era submarine. Attempts to update the kitchen were haphazard, unplanned, and appeared to be fixes for ancient problems. It was a good, solid house with a ton of rooms. The realtor said, "this is a lot of house... that needs updating." She frowned at the price (which was below market), and said that it should come down quite a bit before it will sell, but in any case, before we should buy it. We were equally skeptical. It was another one that felt like someone else's house. It wasn't ours.
While the realtor locked up the WANNABE FARMHOUSE, we had a quick conference. Carly and I knew, it was THE HOUSE IN THE WOODS. By the time the realtor met us by the car, we had agreed that we'd put in an offer on THE HOUSE IN THE WOODS. We set a time in the next few days to sign documents and plan out the rest of it.
The next month was a crazy back and forth with the owners. Details aside, they just didn't want to negotiate with us. They stonewalled on the most reasonable things, and argued with us over the quality of electrical upgrades (including loose outlets, exposed wiring, light fixtures just kind of sitting, loose, on top of insulation, never installed). It came down to the day of closing, where the seller showed us photos his workers emailed to him during the meeting.
Turns out that the company doing the flipping has two owners who fundamentally disagree on how to go about flips. One wants to do enough work and sell as is. The other wants to make sure the buyers are happy, but not lose money on a sale. In the end, the latter partner explained that they did lose some money on this sale, but it was acceptable. He seemed like a nice businessman who really took on the American Dream--an Indian immigrant who sold his IT business to Amazon logistics or something and decided to buy nicer jackets and trade real estate for fun and profit. Once we put a face on him, the tension of the negotiations faded.
Moving in took a few weeks. We had to break our lease, get movers, get radon inspections (and mitigation), a few other odds and ends. After a few months, we replaced those awful old aluminum windows. We've purchased so much new furniture. We've scraped up so many leaves and sticks. We've cut down trees and branches. I have all the yard tools I need now, including a chainsaw (more on that later). We've settled into a great house and can't wait to die here.
We called our realtor and asked her to set up showings of these three or four houses we hadn't had the chance to look at. They had all been on the market for a while and hadn't had open houses during the time we were looking. One of them she ruled out immediately--the house had a fire in recent history and regardless of how well it might have been repaired, "you never know." Another one she ruled out because it had an offer pending, but also some cryptic things where she didn't get a good feeling about it. The other two were scheduled, and just about all of them were in the same general area as COCKTAIL PARTY HOUSE.
The first one we saw was THE HOUSE IN THE WOODS. It was listed by a solo practitioner realtor and owned by an arcane real estate company based in Potomac, MD (Potomac is the venue for the latest "Real Housewives" franchise). The house itself was in great shape. Amazing, actually. Built in the 70's on a quiet road in a wooded neighborhood. The property hadn't been tended well (grass was nonexistent, weeds and strange growths taking over the lot, bees had eaten a flower box to bits) but it had hallmarks of a solid flip. The kitchen and appliances were all brand new. The floors and bathrooms had been replaced. There were deer in the yard. We saw a fox run through when we were hanging out. It was... pleasant.
It felt right. It felt like an empty space we could make our own. We could carve paths out of the wild backyard, fix some windows, and plant new stuff in the yard. It seemed like a place were the Wolf could have adventures; where we could sip tea on the porch; where we could live for a long, long time.
We set off to the last property--a staid old brick thing in another sleepy neighborhood which resembled a WANNABE FARMHOUSE. It was built in the 50s and had the hallmarks of catering to a builder who grew up in a farmhouse. The rooms were square and small. Showers were apparently a luxury, because the two we found resembled those you might imagine on a Cold War-era submarine. Attempts to update the kitchen were haphazard, unplanned, and appeared to be fixes for ancient problems. It was a good, solid house with a ton of rooms. The realtor said, "this is a lot of house... that needs updating." She frowned at the price (which was below market), and said that it should come down quite a bit before it will sell, but in any case, before we should buy it. We were equally skeptical. It was another one that felt like someone else's house. It wasn't ours.
While the realtor locked up the WANNABE FARMHOUSE, we had a quick conference. Carly and I knew, it was THE HOUSE IN THE WOODS. By the time the realtor met us by the car, we had agreed that we'd put in an offer on THE HOUSE IN THE WOODS. We set a time in the next few days to sign documents and plan out the rest of it.
The next month was a crazy back and forth with the owners. Details aside, they just didn't want to negotiate with us. They stonewalled on the most reasonable things, and argued with us over the quality of electrical upgrades (including loose outlets, exposed wiring, light fixtures just kind of sitting, loose, on top of insulation, never installed). It came down to the day of closing, where the seller showed us photos his workers emailed to him during the meeting.
Turns out that the company doing the flipping has two owners who fundamentally disagree on how to go about flips. One wants to do enough work and sell as is. The other wants to make sure the buyers are happy, but not lose money on a sale. In the end, the latter partner explained that they did lose some money on this sale, but it was acceptable. He seemed like a nice businessman who really took on the American Dream--an Indian immigrant who sold his IT business to Amazon logistics or something and decided to buy nicer jackets and trade real estate for fun and profit. Once we put a face on him, the tension of the negotiations faded.
Moving in took a few weeks. We had to break our lease, get movers, get radon inspections (and mitigation), a few other odds and ends. After a few months, we replaced those awful old aluminum windows. We've purchased so much new furniture. We've scraped up so many leaves and sticks. We've cut down trees and branches. I have all the yard tools I need now, including a chainsaw (more on that later). We've settled into a great house and can't wait to die here.
Sunday, March 27, 2016
The House in the Woods Part 1
And so we are closing on a new house in about three weeks.
We have been talking about buying a place ever since we fled from the disaster that was our apartment on Georgia Avenue (the one on the third floor that flooded repeatedly? Yeah, that one). We got settled in our jobs and we knew that we were going to stay in the DC area indefinitely. We wanted to actually settle down and start the life that our kid needs--one that is as stable as we can make it and still leave it fun. We just wanted something where we could paint it and bang holes in the walls and not worry about returning it to white in a year or so. We wanted a permanent address.
The lease on our townhouse ends in October, so we thought we'd start the process of actually looking at places to buy starting in January. We hashed out some priorities and parameters and started scouring Zillow for likely prospects. We went to a few open houses--if anything just to rule out floorplans and neighborhoods. We talked to some friends about how they went about buying their houses. I started budgeting and projecting and figuring out finances.
Then, about a month ago, we decided to hit four open houses in a day. It felt Serious. These houses looked like good places, things we wanted to live in. Two of the three were amazing--AMAZING.
One of the houses was the COCKTAIL PARTY HOUSE. It was kind of mid-century modern. Designed like a cube with windows sticking out of it, a roof that was (designed with energy efficiency in mind) reminiscent of a Pizza Hut, it had a screamingly cool backyard with bamboo and deer and firepits and things and a CrossFit gym in the basement. The owner was, apparently, a hardcore XFit trainer. And it was just a cool space, man... like some kind of space-age cave. The whole thing. I wished I had a better credit score, a better budget. Despite that, we had a conference in the backyard and determined that it was a possibility. We'd go and see these other two houses and maybe, at the end of the day, put in an offer on the thing.
The second house was SOMEONE ELSE'S HOUSE. It was big, in a quiet neighborhood, and well-appointed. It had an expansive set of closets and a massive master bathroom. There was even a Harry Potter Room under the eaves. It was great. But it wasn't our house. It felt like the owner, apparently a successful, self-made single mother or divorcee, had infused her soul in the place, and it would never be my house. It was just... not for me. Carly liked it, but she knew why I didn't, and it didn't matter because the thing was off the market by the end of the day.
The fourth house was HIDDEN HAIR SALON HOUSE. It was being sold by the original owners who had, apparently, archived the smell of every dinner in their house. It wasn't bad, but it was distinct. There were quirks with the layout that felt like someone had simply been accustomed to that I found challenging. Why is there an outlet here, in the middle of the floor? Why is the kitchen counter angled like that? Why does the backdoor open to, well, open air (I called it the "mother-in-law door")? The best part was the hair salon in the basement. Like a full business put together in 1989 and never updated. The smell, it turned out, wasn't food... it was hair chemicals and food.
The realtor at HIDDEN HAIR SALON HOUSE was a little off-putting. Kind of an uptight middle-aged bitty who talked down to her younger, black associate. She just stood there disapproving when I said things like, "this is overpriced." She made some comments like she's a deep-boned racist. I dunno--it really put me off the place.
The third place was PERFECT, NORMAL HOUSE. It was on a quiet cul-de-sac, not too old (built in the late 80's) but intelligently renovated and redecorated. It felt right, when we walked in. The kid ran around like it was his private play room, and everything about it hit the right notes in our must-have or wish-to-have lists.
After the open house at PERFECT, NORMAL HOUSE was done, we just hung around and talked to the realtor. Turns out, she wasn't really representing the sellers in that one, just covering for her friend. She gave us a really straightforward and honest rundown of the market and advised us on what to do if we wanted to put in an offer on that house. We got a plan together and agreed to take her on as our agent. It... was going to be a busy week.
We spent the next few days finally going out and getting a pre-qualification letter from Bank of America (that was its own blog post, more on that another time), fully exploring the depths of our finances, and getting excited about it.
By the next weekend, we were ready to put in an offer on PERFECT, NORMAL HOUSE, but something was bugging me. We hadn't really played the field. We got lucky--we found a great house basically by accident. It would be perfect, but... we didn't really know. So we called up our realtor and asked her to show us a handful of houses that we had sitting on our Zillow saved homes lists.
And that's how we found it. The HOUSE IN THE WOODS.
Going to see SAVAGES tonight. Enjoy this:
We have been talking about buying a place ever since we fled from the disaster that was our apartment on Georgia Avenue (the one on the third floor that flooded repeatedly? Yeah, that one). We got settled in our jobs and we knew that we were going to stay in the DC area indefinitely. We wanted to actually settle down and start the life that our kid needs--one that is as stable as we can make it and still leave it fun. We just wanted something where we could paint it and bang holes in the walls and not worry about returning it to white in a year or so. We wanted a permanent address.
The lease on our townhouse ends in October, so we thought we'd start the process of actually looking at places to buy starting in January. We hashed out some priorities and parameters and started scouring Zillow for likely prospects. We went to a few open houses--if anything just to rule out floorplans and neighborhoods. We talked to some friends about how they went about buying their houses. I started budgeting and projecting and figuring out finances.
Then, about a month ago, we decided to hit four open houses in a day. It felt Serious. These houses looked like good places, things we wanted to live in. Two of the three were amazing--AMAZING.
One of the houses was the COCKTAIL PARTY HOUSE. It was kind of mid-century modern. Designed like a cube with windows sticking out of it, a roof that was (designed with energy efficiency in mind) reminiscent of a Pizza Hut, it had a screamingly cool backyard with bamboo and deer and firepits and things and a CrossFit gym in the basement. The owner was, apparently, a hardcore XFit trainer. And it was just a cool space, man... like some kind of space-age cave. The whole thing. I wished I had a better credit score, a better budget. Despite that, we had a conference in the backyard and determined that it was a possibility. We'd go and see these other two houses and maybe, at the end of the day, put in an offer on the thing.
The second house was SOMEONE ELSE'S HOUSE. It was big, in a quiet neighborhood, and well-appointed. It had an expansive set of closets and a massive master bathroom. There was even a Harry Potter Room under the eaves. It was great. But it wasn't our house. It felt like the owner, apparently a successful, self-made single mother or divorcee, had infused her soul in the place, and it would never be my house. It was just... not for me. Carly liked it, but she knew why I didn't, and it didn't matter because the thing was off the market by the end of the day.
The fourth house was HIDDEN HAIR SALON HOUSE. It was being sold by the original owners who had, apparently, archived the smell of every dinner in their house. It wasn't bad, but it was distinct. There were quirks with the layout that felt like someone had simply been accustomed to that I found challenging. Why is there an outlet here, in the middle of the floor? Why is the kitchen counter angled like that? Why does the backdoor open to, well, open air (I called it the "mother-in-law door")? The best part was the hair salon in the basement. Like a full business put together in 1989 and never updated. The smell, it turned out, wasn't food... it was hair chemicals and food.
The realtor at HIDDEN HAIR SALON HOUSE was a little off-putting. Kind of an uptight middle-aged bitty who talked down to her younger, black associate. She just stood there disapproving when I said things like, "this is overpriced." She made some comments like she's a deep-boned racist. I dunno--it really put me off the place.
The third place was PERFECT, NORMAL HOUSE. It was on a quiet cul-de-sac, not too old (built in the late 80's) but intelligently renovated and redecorated. It felt right, when we walked in. The kid ran around like it was his private play room, and everything about it hit the right notes in our must-have or wish-to-have lists.
After the open house at PERFECT, NORMAL HOUSE was done, we just hung around and talked to the realtor. Turns out, she wasn't really representing the sellers in that one, just covering for her friend. She gave us a really straightforward and honest rundown of the market and advised us on what to do if we wanted to put in an offer on that house. We got a plan together and agreed to take her on as our agent. It... was going to be a busy week.
We spent the next few days finally going out and getting a pre-qualification letter from Bank of America (that was its own blog post, more on that another time), fully exploring the depths of our finances, and getting excited about it.
By the next weekend, we were ready to put in an offer on PERFECT, NORMAL HOUSE, but something was bugging me. We hadn't really played the field. We got lucky--we found a great house basically by accident. It would be perfect, but... we didn't really know. So we called up our realtor and asked her to show us a handful of houses that we had sitting on our Zillow saved homes lists.
And that's how we found it. The HOUSE IN THE WOODS.
Going to see SAVAGES tonight. Enjoy this:
Sunday, March 6, 2016
Another Permanent Address
Every few years, I post something called "Another Permanent Address." It's a reference to a song by Chroma Key, a weird little solo project from one of the founding members of Dream Theater. Goes like this:
I bloody love that song. It has a specific kind of place whenever we're looking at moving. This time, we're looking at moving to an actual permanent address--somewhere we'll stay for an indefinite period.
A SHORT HISTORY OF MY ADDRESSES, CA 1989- PRESENT.
~1989 - 2001 - Lived with my parents in Castle Boring, on a State Highway in Ravenna, Ohio.
2001 - 2003 - Thayer Ave, Akron--lived with my best friends in the apartment over the owners of a Christian gift shop.
2003 - Back with the parents for about 8 months.
2004-2005 - Back to the Thayer house, but in the apartment my ex-girlfriend shared with her high-school friend. I lived there alone until I met Carly, we got a dog, and eventually moved in together on...
2005 - 2007 - East Glenwood house. We got this thing thinking we'd be there forever. It didn't work out. After law school, Carly got a job in her hometown in Mount Vernon. So we moved to...
2007 - 2008 - Sugar Street. I was unemployed, but somehow we bought a historic house for $80,000 or so. I loved the house, hated the town. Couldn't wait to get out. So I looked far afield and dragged Carly to...
2008 - 2010 - Lincoln Park, Newark NJ. The apartment we lived in was in a renovated former bordello and probably crack house. It was great, for a time. There was Jodi, the weird hoarding yoga instructor. There were the car break ins, and Clement Price... but ultimately the neighborhood failed to improve so we took off for the bright lights.
2010 - 2013 - Paulus Hook, Jersey City, NJ. This was one of my favorite places to live. Yeah, the rent was steep and it wasn't the most up-to-date apartment, but it was good enough for us and it was close to all the things we loved.
2013-2014 - That apartment complex in Wheaton, MD. This would have been great if we weren't overlooking the busiest road in the greater DMV, flooded four or five times despite being on the third floor, and generally kind of hating it.
2014-PRESENT - That townhouse in Wheaton, MD. This place has been a pretty good home, but we knew when we moved in that it would only be for a limited time. It would have been better if we found it when we first moved to DC, but at that time it was occupied by people who didn't care much about the cockroaches in the walls and under the carpet and everything.
NEXT, we think we found a place. More to that later.
I bloody love that song. It has a specific kind of place whenever we're looking at moving. This time, we're looking at moving to an actual permanent address--somewhere we'll stay for an indefinite period.
A SHORT HISTORY OF MY ADDRESSES, CA 1989- PRESENT.
~1989 - 2001 - Lived with my parents in Castle Boring, on a State Highway in Ravenna, Ohio.
2001 - 2003 - Thayer Ave, Akron--lived with my best friends in the apartment over the owners of a Christian gift shop.
2003 - Back with the parents for about 8 months.
2004-2005 - Back to the Thayer house, but in the apartment my ex-girlfriend shared with her high-school friend. I lived there alone until I met Carly, we got a dog, and eventually moved in together on...
2005 - 2007 - East Glenwood house. We got this thing thinking we'd be there forever. It didn't work out. After law school, Carly got a job in her hometown in Mount Vernon. So we moved to...
2007 - 2008 - Sugar Street. I was unemployed, but somehow we bought a historic house for $80,000 or so. I loved the house, hated the town. Couldn't wait to get out. So I looked far afield and dragged Carly to...
2008 - 2010 - Lincoln Park, Newark NJ. The apartment we lived in was in a renovated former bordello and probably crack house. It was great, for a time. There was Jodi, the weird hoarding yoga instructor. There were the car break ins, and Clement Price... but ultimately the neighborhood failed to improve so we took off for the bright lights.
2010 - 2013 - Paulus Hook, Jersey City, NJ. This was one of my favorite places to live. Yeah, the rent was steep and it wasn't the most up-to-date apartment, but it was good enough for us and it was close to all the things we loved.
2013-2014 - That apartment complex in Wheaton, MD. This would have been great if we weren't overlooking the busiest road in the greater DMV, flooded four or five times despite being on the third floor, and generally kind of hating it.
2014-PRESENT - That townhouse in Wheaton, MD. This place has been a pretty good home, but we knew when we moved in that it would only be for a limited time. It would have been better if we found it when we first moved to DC, but at that time it was occupied by people who didn't care much about the cockroaches in the walls and under the carpet and everything.
NEXT, we think we found a place. More to that later.
Wednesday, February 10, 2016
On the rhythms of things
I just noticed--I tend to take a long hiatus from about September to March or April. A hibernation, I guess.
I never felt like I was the sort of person to suffer seasonal depression or whatever that is. So many people claim that the winter brings them down that I'm inclined to think it's a form of mass hysteria rather than a bona fide syndrome. But I digress...
I finally went to see a shrink recently. I've not been happy with my reactions to certain kinds of stressors. I have been more explosive than usual, and the carefully constructed mind I've built has been showing wear. So, time for maintenance.
The shrink has determined that I'm mildly depressed (dysthymic), and that a bit of self-examination and talking can probably dislodge the things that put me in that state. Part of the process has been to delve into my memories and lay bare the things that have ground me down over the years: childhood traumas, school regrets, work disappointments, things like that. None of them are terribly bad in the objective sense, but I've been carrying a lot of shit around for so long that it's just a mess in that old skull of mine.
So anyway, depression and me. My sister did one of those genetic tests last year and discovered that we're basically just German. A little Welsh in there for color, but basically straight-up German, all the way down to the follicles. I hated that determination. I was raised thinking that I had a relatively diverse (albeit mainly just plain white) genetic profile--Irish, German, Russian Jews, even a few native Americans and Africans thrown in for good measure. "Friendly ancestors," is how I described it. Turns out, though, it was bunk. I'm basically just German. If some ancestor of mine boned a native of whereverthefuck, it was just someone in festive dress.
So anyway, depression and me. It turns out, I'm not exotic or interesting in any fundamental way. All the bizarre shit I've dredged up is pretty middle-of-the-road, and even my kind of sociopathy is mild. I'm just a kind of unsympathetic, Anglo-Saxon jerk. And apparently, I suffer from the same bullshit seasonal bum-out that a bunch of armchair psychiatrists self-diagnose themselves with every time they want it to be warm and sunny and it's just not.
So I'm genetically just German. And it's overcast and raining tomorrow (I hope).
I never felt like I was the sort of person to suffer seasonal depression or whatever that is. So many people claim that the winter brings them down that I'm inclined to think it's a form of mass hysteria rather than a bona fide syndrome. But I digress...
I finally went to see a shrink recently. I've not been happy with my reactions to certain kinds of stressors. I have been more explosive than usual, and the carefully constructed mind I've built has been showing wear. So, time for maintenance.
The shrink has determined that I'm mildly depressed (dysthymic), and that a bit of self-examination and talking can probably dislodge the things that put me in that state. Part of the process has been to delve into my memories and lay bare the things that have ground me down over the years: childhood traumas, school regrets, work disappointments, things like that. None of them are terribly bad in the objective sense, but I've been carrying a lot of shit around for so long that it's just a mess in that old skull of mine.
So anyway, depression and me. My sister did one of those genetic tests last year and discovered that we're basically just German. A little Welsh in there for color, but basically straight-up German, all the way down to the follicles. I hated that determination. I was raised thinking that I had a relatively diverse (albeit mainly just plain white) genetic profile--Irish, German, Russian Jews, even a few native Americans and Africans thrown in for good measure. "Friendly ancestors," is how I described it. Turns out, though, it was bunk. I'm basically just German. If some ancestor of mine boned a native of whereverthefuck, it was just someone in festive dress.
So anyway, depression and me. It turns out, I'm not exotic or interesting in any fundamental way. All the bizarre shit I've dredged up is pretty middle-of-the-road, and even my kind of sociopathy is mild. I'm just a kind of unsympathetic, Anglo-Saxon jerk. And apparently, I suffer from the same bullshit seasonal bum-out that a bunch of armchair psychiatrists self-diagnose themselves with every time they want it to be warm and sunny and it's just not.
So I'm genetically just German. And it's overcast and raining tomorrow (I hope).
February Again
Very short update:
It's late, and I'm basically alone in the house. My dog is here, and my housemates are downstairs (I can smell the end of their dinner, wafting up the stairs). Carly and the Wolf are away, visiting family and attending the funeral for Carly's uncle, who died somewhat suddenly--of natural causes--last week.
It's 12:44 AM on a Wednesday and I'm basically alone in the house. It's a busy, strange, awful week. I have an interview for a job I really want this week, but I think I'm a middling candidate. I have a dentist's appointment. I am working some overtime so I can take some time off later. I am considering seeing a movie by myself for the first time in a long, long time. I think it was "Lost Souls" with Winona Ryder, Kent, Ohio, ca. 2000. Strange that I should remember that so clearly.
I also have my first old man injury--a torn rotator cuff. The likely cause is 25 years of repetitive motions, using a mouse/computer, printing t-shirts, etc., exacerbated by throwing around my 35+ pound toddler. Fun, yes, but ultimately debilitating.
"That's it," said the comedian, "it doesn't get better. This is my shitty body. I'm stuck with it."
While I was SO OVER ennui by the time I was 17, I figure I will move on. And now, the prettiest piece of music I've found lately:
ADORE - SAVAGES
It's late, and I'm basically alone in the house. My dog is here, and my housemates are downstairs (I can smell the end of their dinner, wafting up the stairs). Carly and the Wolf are away, visiting family and attending the funeral for Carly's uncle, who died somewhat suddenly--of natural causes--last week.
It's 12:44 AM on a Wednesday and I'm basically alone in the house. It's a busy, strange, awful week. I have an interview for a job I really want this week, but I think I'm a middling candidate. I have a dentist's appointment. I am working some overtime so I can take some time off later. I am considering seeing a movie by myself for the first time in a long, long time. I think it was "Lost Souls" with Winona Ryder, Kent, Ohio, ca. 2000. Strange that I should remember that so clearly.
I also have my first old man injury--a torn rotator cuff. The likely cause is 25 years of repetitive motions, using a mouse/computer, printing t-shirts, etc., exacerbated by throwing around my 35+ pound toddler. Fun, yes, but ultimately debilitating.
"That's it," said the comedian, "it doesn't get better. This is my shitty body. I'm stuck with it."
While I was SO OVER ennui by the time I was 17, I figure I will move on. And now, the prettiest piece of music I've found lately:
ADORE - SAVAGES
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