Tuesday Troubles

At 4:30am my cell phone rang.  It was Todd.  He was standing at the door to my hotel room.  It had taken him until 3:30am to unload the trailer by himself and then he drove the hour back to North County.  How, I have no idea, he looked like one of the people from the movie Night of the Living Dead.

I let him in and we were both asleep in minutes.

At 7:30am I started coaching calls, enjoyed a shower, then left at 10:45am for what was supposed to be a 10-minute walk-thru at 11am with the property manager, but turned into an all-day event because I hadn't cleaned the stove and he was going to charge me an outrageous minimum if he had to bring in a cleaning crew for ANY reason and he seemed to be nit-picking for a reason to do so--commenting on the water stain line in one of the toilets, noting a quarter of an inch line of soap scum on the edge of the glass shower door, and saying the inside of the freezer didn't look like it had been cleaned.  I was happy I had been so particular when doing the inital walk thru with him or I'm positive I would've been charged for things that were there before I had moved in.

I had to drop by the hotel to check out and put all of the perishable items I'd taken from the fridge and freezer into Todd's car since they didn't fit the night before.

A trip to the Dollar Store for cleaning products (and Rubio's for lunch since I was so sick of  Subway) since we'd already moved all of ours.  Four hours later I finally left my townhouse for good.  After all the issues I'd had there--with the inital mold and then the massive contruction the past several months, I will not miss that place.

(Photo is of rotten wood in entry steps of old townhouse.)

Technical Difficulties

Technical Difficulty #1:
In the haze of moving, I had forgotten to plug in my phone.  Phone service was scheduled to be connected on Friday, May 21 and AT&T had assured me there was no reason for a technician to come out.

Monday morning before my first coaching call I plugged in the phone and checked for a dial tone--none. I systematically raced through the house plugging into every jack--nothing, nothing, NOTHING!!

Thank heaven for my iPhone and a number of clients who interestingly needed to reschedule their appointments for that morning (tell me things don't happen for a reason!)

AT&T was so helpful is letting me know they could send a tech out between 8am and noon on Wednesday.  This worked perfectly since this was also when the propane people could send someone out.

Technical Difficulty #2:
Todd had gotten the TV hooked up and cable was working fine--not that we had time to watch TV.  The Internet was another matter.  First, we couldn't find the box with my router in it, then when we hooked it up it didn't work.  Todd didn't have time to troubleshoot, so I resigned myself to a day without Internet.

Temporary Solution
Looking at another afternoon of moving, an evening of cleaning my old place for the walk through the next day and facing no phone for the next day's coaching calls and no shower, I booked a room at the Encinitas Howard Johnsons.

It turns out there was a lot more stuff still to move at the townhouse.  Todd and I packed it in every nook and cranny of his truck and trailer and stacked it higher than probably recommended.

My neighbors across the way popped over bringing us a delicious dinner of steak for Todd and butternut squash mango soup for me with sides of homemade fries, garlic bread and creamed spinach.  After several days of Subway and potato chips, the meal was a welcome gift!

Then it was back to work. He tied down and I cleaned. As I cleaned, I made another vow:  I will hire professional cleaners the next time I move.

We finally got the truck ready to roll around 11pm.  He headed to Alpine and I headed to HoJo.

Day Three: Of Bird and Bathing

he uneventfulness of move days 1 and 2 were appreciated.  Nothing fell off the truck or broke (that we know of).  No one got hurt.  It was, for the most part, mundane moving.

Then came day three.

Todd and I got up and headed back to my townhouse for yet another day of just the two of us moving items out.  There were a couple larger items and several items that were lightweight but took up a lot of space.

We packed all these items on the truck and trailer and as we were unloading into the new house a bird flew in.  First, it flew into the room that would be my office.  We tried to direct it out the door, but instead it flew down the hall and into the living room.  The living room has amazingly high ceilings.

Picture Todd with a broom and me with a big broken down box trying to shoo this poor tiny little bird out the door.  Every time we'd get it close to the opening, it would fly up and bang itself against the big picture window.

I put the cardboard in front of the glass, then it flew into the room to be Todd's office.  It was in here that we covered it with a box, slid a piece of cardboard under it and carried it outside to freedom.

Approximate time:  30 minutes
Materials:  Broom ($10), box ($2.50)

Entertainment Value of seeing two adults running around the house looking insane:  Priceless

Todd and I figured there was only one load of stuff left at my house and he had agreed to take Monday off to meet the carpet cleaners there anyway, so we decided we deserved a shower and some sleep.

I went into the bathroom and ran water--only cold water was coming out.  I ran it a little longer--still cold.  I figured the pilot light must be out.

Todd investigated to find that the gas had been unhooked.  Apparently, when you have a propane tank for gas they unhook it if the house is going to be empty.

Although the icy cold washrag rubdown I gave myself was invigorating after a day of moving, it didn't hold a candle to a hot shower.

Moving Day 2

N-E-V-E-R doing that again (sleeping on a camping pad). Not only did I not sleep very well, I woke up sore and stiff.

We decided to start the morning making our last trip to the local Leucadia donut shop.  I hadn't frequented there, but they knew Todd well.  A half dozen donuts to share and a cup of coffee for Todd and we were on our way!

Day two of moving was just Todd and I.  With one truck and trailer, sore muscles and items that still needed to be packed and carted down from the third floor, we took our time knowing we still had one day left.

The day felt long and many times I cursed choosing to live in a three story townhouse. 

I vow: No stairs ever again.  :-)

We rolled into Alpine with load three around 10pm.  Once unloaded, we threw the mattress on the floor and crashed.  It felt like complete heaven and I slept like a baby.

Moving Day 1!

Grateful to have had the amazing help of my friend Diane and Todd's friend's Rich and Ron, we started the process of moving me out of my townhouse around 1pm.

It's surprising to me how much stuff we accumulate over our lives.  I had purged quite a bit when I moved from Maryland to San Diego, but not quite enough.

Diane and I packed and gabbed while the guys focused on loading the two trucks and trailers.  It took until 5pm to get loaded. 

The guys then took the first two loads to the house while Diane and I escaped for an evening of fun at Girl's Home Happy Hour hosted by Bevey.

So that we could get an early start the next morning, I came back to my place and Todd and I crashed on the floor on a camping pad.

Cleaning, Cleaning and More Cleaning...

Given that the house was so dirty from having sat empty, I decided to hire some help and get it cleaned before we moved in.

I estimated it would take two people about three to four hours to do everything--clean bathrooms, wipe baseboards, clean inside cabinets and drawers, vaccuum, mop and wash the windows.

I've never lived in a house this large.  Silver Spur Estate is 4,400 square feet--that's A LOT of space.

It took the two women seven hours to complete almost everything.  They were here an hour when the lead told me they wouldn't be able to get everything done and we slashed the windows off their to do list.

I understand now why people with big homes have live in maids.  Cleaning this place is going to be a second job for me!

As I walked around the house, I realized I need to put together a cleaning schedule so I can do a little something everyday and it won't be daunting.

Eventually, I do want to hire some help, but right now, we need to spend our money on some essential and urgent home items.

Signing Day!

We met Ron at the house at 5:30pm to sign papers and take possession of our BIG new responsibility.

Afterward we stood in the driveway and watched the sun go down.

The Waiting and the Miracle

I'm cool waiting in line at a store.  I chill when waiting for friends who are late.  I don't even mind waiting in traffic.

However, for me there's nothing worse than waiting for something that was supposed to already have happened.  Getting the documents to move into this house fell into this category.

Being the planner that I was, I had worked out a schedule which would have us cleaning up the new place the first weekend, moving my items into it the second weekend of May and moving Todd's items in the third weekend in May.  This plan would get me out of my townhouse by the required date and get Todd out of his place and more importantly, his storage units before he was charged to rent them another month.

May 1 came and went.  I practiced patience.

May 7 came and went.  I practiced patience, but nervous energy was busting out everywhere.  I was tapping incessantly and tossing and turning and gritting my teeth at night.

If this think didn't happen the next week, there would be no way to meet our schedule, not to mention, if it fell through we had no back-up plan--nowhere to move.

The whole next week the seller's attorney had the paperwork.  We kept being told, he'll look at it tomorrow, then when tomorrow came, we'd hear that it would be tomorrow again.  This repeated from Monday until Friday.  On Friday, we were told he'd have it to us by the end of the day.

Since our attorney would still need to review it one last time, we were going to miss out on another moving weekend.

May 14 came and went.

Todd and I thought the attorney was just busy, but then we began to get paranoid.  We later found out it was because the guy who had foreclosed on the house wanted it, not for himself, but he apparently he had a buyer and was trying to keep her from renting it to us so it would go into foreclosure and he could take it and flip it.  The seller had needed the time to consider his offer, but in the end she chose us.

I know not everyone believes in divine intervention, but in this situation, I certainly do.  We had faith that the house was meant to be ours and we put all ou eggs in that basket even when it looked like there was no way it was going to happen.  We're glad we did.

Anxious in April

Everything looked good for us to be able to move in on May 1. 

However, every day in April that passed it seemed that Todd and I learned more about the actual state of the property. I'm not talking about little things, like there's a crack in the driveway, I'm mean BIG, important things like, the mortgage hadn't been paid for two months.

We just decided that it made sense to have a real estate contract attorney review our lease.  Then the seller decided hers should review it also. As the attorneys were hashing out the fine points--one of the note holders filed for foreclosure.

The jerk also sent some renegade to the house who drilled all the locks, broke a door and padlocked the fences.  Nevermind, the house was still listed in MLS, was up for sale, had a pending lease AND was only 60 days past due.

Either the agent or the seller called the loan holder and told him to call off his dogs and lift the illegal foreclosure and get their locks off the gates. 

They didn't do so, but someone bolt cut off the padlocks and we are having to replace all the doorknobs and locks.

Unfortunately it doesn't matter if the loan holder filed the foreclosure illegally since once it's recorded it takes legal action to get it removed (does this make sense to anyone?)

As all of this information is being revealed to us, we started to feel anxious and wonder if this was the right move for us.  However, so many things had lined up serendipitiously to this point, we felt that it was meant to be and forged ahead.

History of the House

I started referring to Silver Spur Estate as "our rescue house" (like a resuce dog) after I heard it's story.

It all started in 1988 when construction started on the 100% custom home.  The Spanish-Mediterranean home was completed in 1990. 

The gold fixtures and aqua carpet in a few of the bedrooms definitely date the home to the late eighties/early nineties. (Yes, I'll be switching those fixtures and the carpet out very soon.)

I don't know much about the first set of owners, but they sold the house in March of 2004 to a bull fighter and his girlfriend.

This lively couple upgraded the home by putting in the gorgeous pool \, hot tub and landscaping in 2005.  Sometime in 2008, they both quit working and decided to move to Arizona. 

They put the house up for sale and I'm not clear how long it was on the market before a couple from Northern California put in an offer that was accepted. Based on other pieces of information, I'm estimating that occured early 2009.  Just before escrow the woman of the couple who were to buy the home became sick and they decided to stay in Northern CA putting the home back on the market at the bottom of the housing slump.

Another couple came in and made a short sale offer that the bull fighter and his girlfriend accepted because they had already bought a foreclosure in Arizona.  While the loan holders considered the proposal, they moved ahead with their plans to move to Arizona in January 2010.

In the meantime, a very sad event took place.  The bullfighter died unexpectedly in March, leaving his now wife with the burden of two homes. 

Shortly thereafter, the loan holder announced that the short sale was not approved.

With no prospective buyers and huge mortgage and maintenance costs, the home was about to become another fatality of the down housing market when we came along and rescued it.

In many ways we feel that we were destined to have this home.

NOTE: All of this story came from third parties so if any of it is factually incorrect I wrote it not knowing so.  I also left out names to protect confidentiality.

The Second Visit

We met Ronald Brookshire, the seller's agent and friend, at the property.  It was more beautiful than I had remembered it.  Many of the flowers on the property were in bloom and he had gone through the house and knocked down most of the cobwebs. 

Shortly after we arrived, another couple and their agent arrived.  The man started cleaning the pool and spraying the weeds on the driveway.  The woman approached and asked me, "Why are you at my house?"

Confused, I looked at Ron, who explained, "This couple has an offer in on the house, but it's a short sale and the loan holder won't approve it."

They stayed for a little while and had some conversation with the seller's agent, then left.  It was an awkward situation, but we deducted from the discussion that their offer would short one loan holder almost completely.  Ron suggested that they make a counter offer which would pay all loan holder's off completely.  (We found out the next week that they weren't prepared to pay that amount and walked away from the deal.)

We left the home feeling confident that it was meant to be ours.

One Phone Call

After a weekend of looking at potential homes to rent that had been lived in hard--think stained carpet, banged up walls, worn-looking--our resolve to get into our own place was renewed. But we had no idea what to do next.

Thankfully, Todd made a phone call.

He had noticed that the Silver Spur Estate was still coming up in the MLS listing and that the price had been dropped by $50K, so he picked up the phone and asked the agent if the owner might consider renting the property.  He said she might and agreed to meet us out at the property to discuss the possibility.

That phone call that changed everything.

Thinking Outside the Box

Over the next several months, Todd and I kept an eye on the homes for rent, but continued to talk about wanting to get into a home of our own.

We discussed how there must be a lot of people in situations like ours--two solid incomes but because I'm a small business owner the bank feels like lending to me is too high a risk.

Todd started investigating creative financing options--learning about everything from the price of taking out a hard money loan (OUTRAGEOUS!) to a once popular, but now little used strategy, called an All Inclusive Trust Deed.  I jumped into the mix and called a local real estate investor and asked him how deals were being done and learned about several other purchasing options.

However, the thing with creative financing options is that not many people are thinking outside the box in real estate.  Agents want their commission that traditionally gets paid when the sale is completed, but with many creative financing deals there is no actual sale or the sale date is pushed out far into the future.  Other agents didn't even want to show a house if conventional financing hadn't already been obtained.

We found that we were on our own if we wanted to make this happen.

As we were doing the research, we were getting closer and closer to when we had to move out of townhouse near the beach. The landlord was unwilling to allow the lease to go month-to-month, so we had a hard move out date. I started getting a bit nervous.

Backstory

It was a New Year and we set out to define what we wanted to create in 2010.  We wrote out our goals and shared them with one another.

At the top of Todd's list:  Own a home. 

On my top ten list:  Move into a larger house so that Todd and I could both have offices and we could have a dedicated guest room.

The Story of Silver Spur begins here...

Once upon a time in a land just 30 minutes from San Diego there was a town called Alpine.  Nestled in the foothills at 2000 feet above sea level, this enchanted land of wildlife, just a short drive to nightlife, captured our attention.

On Friday evenings would pour over new Craigs List homes for sale listings and MLS postings. On Saturdays we would drive around ohhhing and ahhing and icking to determining which home interiors we wanted to see.

On multiple ocassions our journey ended at the guard gate of Rancho Palo Verde Estates.  We were turned away because we weren't accompanied by a real estate agent.  Most of those homes went on our "Want to See List."

We reached out to a real estate agent who had an associate show us the properties.  When I first entered the Silver Spur Estate I hated it.  And I do mean that literally.  I walked in and had an emotional "yuck" moment.

The home had been empty for close to a year so there was no furniture covering what seemed like miles of dirty white tile flooring.  Spiders had constructed elaborate cobwebs making walking through the house a mini-maze.  Dust covered everything.

Then a weird thing happened.  As I walked around the house, I started to see the possibilities and the little details that would be easy to miss if I focused only on the obvious items.  I admired things like rounded corners, art nooks, arched entryways, high ceilings, carraige lights, built in shelves and cabinets in almost every room. 

If I hadn't been warmed up to the positives of the house by then stepping into the backyard, better described as an oasis, completely changed my outlook and shifted my perspective on the home--it was stunning.

The next piece of the story is long and involved, but not that interesting, so to summarize it, our real estate agent couldn't create a deal for us that would work with the money we had to put down, the loan amount the bank was willing (or not willing) to give, and the offer we wanted to make.  So we walked away from Silver Spur Estate believing that was the end of it. 

In fact, we walked away from house hunting altogether thinking that the tight lending climate would prevent us from getting into the type of home we wanted and we headed back to Craig's List...this time for home rentals.