The house as the realtor saw it.

We were sick of renting. I mean, we had no choice for a long time. We both grew up in our parent's houses. I spent three years with two sets of roommates after high school. The first was with the FanTek folks for about two years, and then I lived with a couple named Tim and Anita for another year before Christine and I got married, and moved into our first apartment in Alexandria. We came across hard times, got evicted and lived in the projects for a while in Reston, where we lived there for 4 miserable years until we fled and threatened to sue if they claimed we broke ourt rental agreement. The place was unlivable with bad plumbing, faulty electricity, and rotting walls and floors. Then we rented a townhouse from a guy named Mark (recommended to us by someone we trusted), and lived THERE for 4 more years. Every place we left, we left on bad terms. We were sick of renting, and the recent up trend of the stock market made it possible for us to seriously look for a house.

We started looking for houses in March of 2000. We got a buyer's agent named Anne-Marie, who was a sweet, wonderful lady with a strong patience and sense of humor. I'd recommend her, but due to family obligations, she's no longer doing realtor work. How sad. :(.

Our first major obstacle was the housing market around here was insane. I mean, houses would go on the market at 10am, and have 2-3 contracts by noon. It was brutal; it was a seller's market beyond what I thought was possible. Often we'd look at houses that were sold anyway to get a feel of what's out there. They have been building houses like gangbusters around here, and not fast enough for the market. It seems that every patch of woods would be knocked down for yet another housing project. The treeline in Reston became smaller and smaller under the high rises and skyscrapers that rose to the sky in an attempt to disembowel the heavens. Traffic has become a nightmare. And if you had a house? Well, let's just say my dad bought a house for $70,000 in 1974, and sold it in 2000 for $263,000... and that was sold as a "handyman's special" (he's not into keeping things in good repair, and since I left in 1987, there was no one to fix anything). Had the house been in good condition, he would have easily gotten $300-400,000 for it. A medium-sized house just half a block away from where I grew up sold for $550,000, and it was only some old ugly farmhouse that had been modified by so many owners, the floor plan probably could not even be mapped without advanced 3-D modelling software.

That brings me to the next obstacle: House design. Man, there are some bad houses out there. I think people who design some of the newer floor plans should be required to live, work, and function a small family in such spaces for at least two years. Then they will see how easy it is to decorate rec rooms shaped like a triangle, or put a bed *and* a dresser in a 10 x 10 "bedroom." And where I live, they have this new design called "big house, tiny yard" because I guess no one wants to mow anything larger than an area rug. And you pay about 50% for more for them than an older house just across the street that recalls a time when kids got fresh air and people knew how to plant flowers.

Some homeowners associations are also insane. "Oh, I am sorry, the Homeowners Association doesn't allow trees, children, or darkies... oh my, did I just say that? Oopsie! Scratch that last one..." You pay like $120/month to have some nosy busybody come onto your property and fine you $600 because your paint is the wrong shade of eggshell, your bushes are at least 2 square inches off center, and by snooping in your garbage they found you bought the wrong brand of margarine.

We saw a lot of illegally (not to code) "finished basements." Some people would put a ton of tiny rooms down there just to claim they had more bedrooms and bathrooms (to get a better price). "Home office or den," some of them claimed, because it was obvious that while the room was 75 square feet, it was because it was 5' x 15'. Yeah, it was a home office! You sure can't put a bed in there! We saw one bathroom with 6' ceilings (I had to duck).

We were looking at one that has a lot of character. That's putting it mildly. In its favor, it had about an acre of property, a huge entertainment area, a stonework front, and some of the most beautiful ancient trees I have ever seen. It had a HUGE patch of giant bamboo, which rustled and waved in the breeze. The backyard opened to a ranch-like environment, and a gigantic oak that must have been over 100 years old and was perfect in size and shape (like decidious trees depicted in corporate logos). It had a hell of a lot of magic just oozing from the ground.

But it required a ton of upgrades to bring it to code, and its layout design was a bit lopsided. It's a 1950s stonework farmhouse with a 1990s addition that doubled the square footage. But it didn't match the rest of the house. There was also a property despute, since we didn't know where the property actually ended. The property outlines were done in 1950, and looked like a 5th-generation photocopy of something orginally sketched on a cocktail napkin. See, they were doing construction work behind the house to build mansions (houses $600K on up), and we didn't want to wake up one day to see a road bisecting our yard. Memories of Arthur Dent came to mind. But it was all moot in the end, because the realtor wouldn't sell it to us. We're not sure why, but he never returned our calls, and discouraged our buyer's agent from trying to sell it to us. It had only three bids in the last year, all which backed out for unknown reasons. We think there was something going on behind the scenes, like maybe he hated our buyer's agent, or didn't want to split his commission. Even after we got another house, that house was still up on the market. I still think about it, though. That was some property.

House hunting from then on was more sobering. Then we came across a house that had a lot of what we were looking for. We fell in love with it right away. We found out the history. It was built in 1970, where the original owners did not take care of the house. By the time the people we were buying it from got it in 1984, they had to rip out the walls, bebuild the deck, and do major repairs. From there they remodelled and decorated. In the early 1990s, they decided they'd rather let the maternal father move in instead of keep the garage. They then added about ten feet to the end of the house in order to make the garage big enough for a second apartment, complete with its own kitchen and bathroom. So they now had two HUGE bedrooms upstairs where the house was extended. But while the house was nice, the conditions of buying it were less than ideal.

The current owners, the Spooners (no Tick jokes, please, they have heard them all), had a less than sound plan for moving out. They would sell the old house and use the money to build a new one in Winchester (where the land is much, much cheaper, for those not local who couldn't know how rural Winchester still is to DC). This concerned me because I had spent much of my cable watching time on HGTV, where I knew building your own home is a logistical nightmare, especially when it came to final cost and deadlines. They also put it up on the market for a cost waaaay too much for the area, like about 30% higher than their neighbors, thinking that if they did $90,000 of work to the house, it was worth $90,000 more. Uh, no. Add to that the question, where will you live while the house is being built? This turned out to be a minor plus side, because our lease ran out in October, which was more than 3 months away. They could sell the house, use the money, and then rent the house from us until September, when their house was going to be finished (I know all of you out there are groaning, but it gets better). We stated in our contract that they HAD to have certain problems fixed, leave the rest of the house alone, and they HAD to be out by September 15th.

So we placed a contract on it, and started what would be the most gruelling haggle experience of our lives. The crux of all the mess that was to follow had to do with the fact that *no one* could agree on how much the house was actually worth. It was originally this one model of house (out of about 4-5 models in our neighborhood), but now it was bigger. And it's on a hill at a turn in the road, which means you can see our house when you go up the street from the main road. They added onto the house, but they removed the garage. But added an in-law suite, so it has a second kitchen, which became a concern when we first investigated this because apparently a second kitchen could be considered a "rentable" space, which this neighborhood was not zoned for. But we found a way around that (thank you, Torah). So we started the negotiations.

Let's say the asking price for the house was A. A was too high. So we bid them down back and forth, back and forth, and we came to price B. Our pre-approved loan was lower than B, so we thought we got a good deal, and a lower down-payment (for certain tax/insurance/loan purposes, we were putting a minimum of 20% down). Then the paperwork started.

Stop. Appraisals for house was significantly lower than B. We'll call that C. The problem was the bank would only loan us the money for C, and also insurance (understandably) would only insure up to C. So we haggled some more. The realtor/owners (I never knew who was really making the decisions, the realtor seemed especially dim) refused to budge. The realtor demanded a re-count. Finally, we agreed to another appraisal. This came back to figure B. Almost to the dollar. Kind of fishy, huh? The underwriters thought so, too. When the loan got past our lender to them, they demanded a THIRD appraisal. Keep in mind we have already paid for two of these things at $300 a pop. We were pissed, but we really wanted the house. So we had a third appraisal done, and this was a lower figure than B, but higher than C. Again, the owners refused to budge from B, and we later found out that B was the minimum they could get for the house and still build their dream home in Winchester.

All three appraisals contradicted each other. None of them could decide on what the house actually *had*. One went by square footage alone. Another seemed to be heavy on the appliance thing (we have some rockin' appliances in that house). Some discounted the garage, others didn't care if we had one or not. The biggest problem was that this house was so modified, that it spanned categories. All three couldn't even agree if it was above ground or not. The owner said they put in $$$ into the addition, but again, the appraisals go by what's in the house, not by how much it cost to put it in there (that's something for you to note as a homeowner). Then we found out that the market around here is so inflated, that housing prices aren't matching actual value for anyone, anyway. We also found out that insurance *also* goes by what you have, not how much it costs. The way the insurance is done is, "if it burns to the ground, how much will it cost to put the exact same house back up?" So we won't lose there. But we still had the loan problem. And the fact that housing costs were kind of at their peak at the time, and that our house value will drop in the next few years.

On top of all this, we had some inspection issues. They were *minor* compared to everything else, but the deck was not up to current code, there was water damage in the upstairs bathroom, and some other small stuff. Getting around *that* was just as hard.

But, we really wanted that house. And we reasoned that even though it will depreciate in the short-term, we can't just look at the house as solely a monetary investment. The neighborhood's good, shopping is convenient, it's close to the metro, we know people there who love the area, plus a whole lot of other perks, like my son going to Fairfax County schools and this area is the "East Coast Silicon Valley," so jobs here are easier to come by.

So we decided it was worth the risk. But then we had to do some high finagling to try and get the loan to work without sacrificing to high a down payment or monthly payment. That took some creative bargaining on our part, and then on Friday, May 19th, we got the call the owners accepted our final, no-holds-barred, "this is it, take it or leave it, we really mean it this time" offer. So we signed on Monday, May 22. I have never signed so many things in my life. On top of that, the bank had a few "surprises" for us, and were not present for the signing (they were suppossed to be). One of the nice little things they forgot to do was fix our credit report to reflect the current nature of all the three small marks on our report. One was a dentist bill we never owed. The second was a bill that we owed, insurance paid for, but the hospital forgot to inform their accounting department, which led to an accidental withholding freeze on our bank (that was horrible, but eventually fixed). The third was a vet bill that we desputed and won, but they stated since technically we didn't pay, it was legal for them to report it. The first two we have letters for. The dentist stated we never owed them money and they never reported us. The second was a letter from the hosiptal admitting their mistake. The third... well, we couldn't do anything about, because the vet's office was really incompetant, and don't even remember us (the amount was piddling anyway). But despite the first two having signed, *notarized* letters from the people we didn't owe, they stated it wasn't enough, but couldn't tell us what *would* be enough. Second, they changed everything on the loan but the interest rate, including splitting the loan via TWO companies, and one of them has this minor balloon payment due in 2015. This, of course, was never explained to us, and was announced to us by the mediating legal party representing us and the seller... in front of the seller, after we had signed a whole bunch of other stuff. This was unfortunate, and ground the signing to a halt. The bank didn't show up, of course, and so we found out that in order to despute this, we'd have to make another appointment with them, and we didn't know when because they wouldn't answer their phone.

Thankfully, the sellers had a good sense of humor, and already hated my bank because of the appraisal nightmares. We all went through it, and although it's not the ideal situation to be in financially, it kind of comes out the same in the end, with the exception that my payments are higher, the loan is shorter (15 years instead of 30), and that dumb balloon payment, which isn't much so I will probably pay it off before next year, even though it's not due until 2015. Our down payment was lower, and we got a low interest rate, so that was good. The negotiations started back up again.

Of course, my bank screwed up once more, and due to the credit report snafu, they couldn't pay the seller. That was never fully explained, but was remedied the next day. In the end, we did get a Fairfax house for Ashburn prices, around price B. All that to come back where we started. But now we had the keys. We paid the down payment, taxes, and insurance. It's official.

We became homeowners. We are soooo screwed... :) But, on the plus side, we could do practically anything we wanted as long as it didn't violate zoning or safety issues.

The deck overlooks the yard, garden, shed, and Marshall's loading dock beind the trees.

So we said goodbye to Reston. Goodbye Nazi Home Owners Association. Goodbye houses built too quickly with decaying wood structures and faulty plumbing. Goodbye town we used to like because it was so rural and pretty, but now has lost probably 60% of its woodland in the last four years due to commercial overdevelopment to the point where they've put condos on every strip of land except traffic medians. Goodbye proprietary cable system that was 10 years behind other cable systems surrounding it. Goodbye unfriendly neighbors who won't speak to anyone because they can't be bothered. Goodbye toll road.

Not that I am bitter. :) I just thank the gods I never *owned* anything there.

The new house isn't perfect, of course. We had some problems we have to take care of or just deal with.

• Paneling. It's all over the place. And it was glued to the drywall. I was amazed at what could be paneled. In addition to the wood paneling, they had textured cloth paneling, tile paneling, and some of it was damaged or pulling from the wall. In one case, the print was going one way on one wall, the other way on another wall. You can't really tell, because they were small flowers, but when you looked closely, one wall had stems on top of the flowers.
• Carpeting only on the upper floors. We have to fix that. I don't care if bare wood floors are all the rage, they are uncomfortable, reflect noise, and get gritty unless you sweep it daily. It's also cooooold downstairs in the winter.
• Right behind us is a shopping center. Literally, there is the back yard, some privacy foliage, a small wood fence, and then the back loading dock for Marshalls. I am wondering if I can plant some really dense, thorny foliage there as well. The problem is, I don't actually OWN that part, the shopping center does. The Spooner had also used this area to dump about 16 years of yard waste, like grass clippings, branches, and fireplace ash. This makes for great compost, though.
• No garage. Oh well. I got used to getting into cars in the rain and snow, I won't die.
• There is a fire hydrant right next to our house. This isn't bad for us, per se, but visiting friends who will not be able to park in front of our house.
• The kitchen is rather small. Luckily, we have two of them.
• The master bedroom's bathroom is miniscule. We're thinking of making that a closet and using some of the vast space in the bedroom into a master bath with a large tub and shower.

• The master bedroom is huge. It's 25 x 14 feet. Second bedroom is almost as big.
• We have a huge rec room. Compared to the other houses in our area, it's a cavernous 500 square feet. This was our biggest problem in getting a house, they all had dinky "family rooms" that were 250 square feet or less. We wanted something big enough to entertain 20-30 people, and have space for a pool table and a large projection screen TV. We plan on doing a lot of entertaining, and have one helluva house warming party.
• Lots of other rooms, good for a den/home office each for my wife and myself. We also wanted a guest bedroom, and this one is its own kitchen and bathroom. This was previously an in-law's suite for a disabled gentleman, so it's quite comfortable.
• Large deck above a roomy patio. Place for a large grill, too.
• The previous owner is immaculate with good designer sense. Most of her painting jobs are fun and whimsical, but not gaudy or tacky. We're keeping most of it.
• The back yard is fairly large, and completely fenced in.
• The neighborhood was quite a find. Very, very low crime. Friendly neighbors, most who have been there for ten years or more. It turns out we actually knew someone several houses down (who thought it was great we were moving in, and bragged to us about how great a neighborhood it was). Mixed cultures, so it's not one of those [name race]-only places you find all-too-frequently in Northern Virginia. I would rather my son play with a diverse group of kids like I did.
• The shopping center behind us is so big, it would take Godzilla several stomps to get across. And it has everything I have ever liked in a strip mall: Crown Books, Giant Food, several banks, Subway Sandwich, Starbucks, PetCo, Dunkin Donuts (mmm... donuts...auughghg... drool), Kay Bee Toys, and many small shops and pizzerias too numerous to mention. Apparently it was just renovated and expanded, and when we went, it was packed, so business is good.
• We're still in Fairfax County, but paying Ashburn prices. We got a good deal, and thanks to my stock options, I was able to make a huge down payment on it, getting a low Interest rate, and low monthly payments. A house like this (in this good condition), would be worth easily $400K + in most of Fairfax county, but I am glad to say we only paid a fraction of that cost.