matching tracksuits

I've been thinking about what the ultimate real estate agent might look like -- what might (Picking a gender and going with it) she do, especially for out-of-town buyers?

One of the most helpful things would be to have an agent who also knows the ins and outs of inspections. She would go to the homes you've expressed interest in (from clicking through hundreds of online listings) and check a few things.

• foundation (Any cracks or other indications of problems, potential or actual?)
• windows (Are they double-pane?)
• door frames (Are they level and straight? Can you close all the doors with ease?)
• roof (Can it last a few years without significant work?)
• individual requirements (For us, that would be distance to neighbors, significant distance from major thoroughfares, not a corner lot, etc.)

Bear in mind that I'm not complaining about our agent. She's fine, and works very hard for us. So far we've had no issues -- hopefully that will remain the case.

This dream agent would look at these homes beforehand and note any potential issues, then get back to you: "Cross this one off your list because it has basement issues. And that one has issues with xyz."

This will never happen, though. Agents make money only if a house sales. While many might genuinely want buyers to be happy, they don't make money making buyers happy -- they make money turning potential buyers into actual buyers.

Dated bathrooms, horrid floor coverings, awful countertops -- these issues are non-issues. You can easily and relatively inexpensively change them.

You cannot change:

• Distance to neighbors;
• Foundations that clearly will be causing major problems within five years;
• Flood plain status;
• Distance from busy streets;
• Airport holding patterns;
• Neighbors' constantly barking dogs; or
• Exteriors covered with siding, which provide no structural reinforcement whatsoever.

These are the things you look at in a house.

Who cares what's on the floors? Carpet can be changed to hardwood. Who cares what the bathrooms look like? Tiles from the 70's can be replaced. Who cares whether the kitchen counter top looks more like a shower wall than a food preparation surface? It can be renovated.

We've come to realize -- and thankfully, rather quickly -- that we need to look first for problems, primarily with the basement and with privacy. It doesn't even make any sense to go through a house if there are signs that the foundation is weak or if the neighbors are too close.

It's better to take a pessimistic view of houses, because the pessimism will undoubtedly be tempered by the general optimism of looking for a house, and you'll end up with realistic expectations.

Doing so would have immediately knocked our "prime candidate" out of contention, and left our second brick preference out of any further consideration.

After seeing another batch of houses, we now can tell within about 90 seconds whether or not we're interested in a house.

One sure sign that it's not a house we want: a recently-deceased welcoming committee on the kitchen floor.

Another sign: cobwebs on the front door knob. If someone else doesn't want to see it, we probably don't want to see it either.

Still, Friday afternoon/evening we added two more to our "let's think about it" list.

Candidate One

A brick ranch (we seem to hit those almost exclusively), the first home we really liked had a few advantages:

1. Nice kitchen (though pictures don't do it justice)
2. Big dining room
3. Screened porch connected to an open deck
4. Fairly decent lot

Candidate Two

The big problem with candidate two: siding. We want brick. The more we think about it, the higher it moves on our criteria list.

	Top left: Good parking Top right: Skylight, openness, arch Left: Spacious kitchen

Candidate Two also had a wonderful little nook that could serve as a computer area, and it had a spacious, semi-wooded backyard with a lot of potential.

But siding...

Prime Candidate

The prime candidate is still the one with a wonderful backyard and a full basement. Indeed, it's the lack of basement in the above two houses that really make them less than perfect candidates. A basement means one thing: storage. An unfinished (or partially unfinished) basement also provides the opportunity for weekend projects that will, if properly done, increase the overall value of the home.

Today, we're going back to all three, though, to make some sense of them -- which could be a euphemism for making an offer...

Our realtor told us at the outset that she didn’t want us expecting to find the home of our dreams this first time out. Rather, she said that we need to be looking at the areas and determine which area of town we’d rather live in. Many people buy houses they love without checking out the area, and then they find that the services they want and need aren’t available or aren’t nearby. So they wind up with a house they love in an area they hate. The first step, then, is not to find a house, but to find an area.

Yesterday, we found the area.

And we thought we’d found a house. But it’s amazing what a night’s rest will do for your perception of a house.

Contestant One

Didn’t make much of an impression — little enough impression that I didn’t even take a picture.

Contestant Two

In a historic district, walking distance from two parks (!!!), Contestant Two had a lot going for it from the beginning. It was was a fairly attractive house, with plantation shutters and picket fence in the front.

The interior was pleasant enough, with a somewhat odd upstairs bedroom — the chimney goes through the middle of the room, dividing it almost in two. Pleasant enough, though requiring some work. “I love it,” K said. “It’s okay,” I thought. Until we went into the “basement.”

Duct tape on a foundation wall can mean only one thing: the owners are trying to hide something. The fact that it’s painted indicates that they’re really trying to hide something.

And then the back of the house: siding clearly put on by a less-than-professional. It’s fairly clear that there’s water running off the roof and into that siding. Which means one thing: water damage. No — it means two things: water damage and mold.

The final negative factor: it was literally covered with trees. Not good for a roof; not good for affordable insurance. At that point, it was decided. Add to it all the age and the possible problems with wiring and plumbing, and, despite the good location, the final verdict was a definitive “no.”

We left the city-proper and went to Maldin.

Contestant Three

First impression — standard brick ranch. The house looked good, but nothing spectacular. And then we saw the backyard: huge, wooded, landscaped — in a word, amazing. A couple of kitschy “water falls,” but nothing that couldn’t be removed.

Once we walked in, I thought, “Okay — this is a house worth spending some time in, checking out, really looking it over.”

The kitchen/dining area was open, with a fireplace in the corner. Opposite was the living room. Immediate thought: “Tear out the wall dividing them and what an amazing space!”

Downstairs, a real basement — no quotation marks required. Half of it was finished as a family room. The other half: man cave. Clean, cool cinder-block with a new furnace — everything screams, “Workshop!”

The price is great; the location is perfect; the home is an amazing first-home. And, after the first two disasters, I think, “Hey, there is good stuff in our price range!”

Contestants Four through Seven

It was all downhill after Contestant Three, but we looked further.

Contestant Four: lots of potential (with an amazingly large backyard, too), but requiring a lot of work. Porcelain tiles as a kitchen counter-top treatment just makes you feel like you’re cooking in a bus station bathroom.

Contestant Five: with roads on three of the four sides of the lot, it was a definite “no” before we even got inside.

Contestant Six: no! No! A thousand times no! The Portokalos-style fireplace just was so hideous that I ran screaming from the house.

Contestant Seven: What a kitchen! What an interior! What train tracks five-hundred feet away! What a flood plain! What a disappointment!

Contestant Eight

Contestant Eight had a lot going against it from the beginning. Far, far north; on a semi-busy street; few trees.

Then we stepped inside, where it became obvious that this was a case of “Flip this House.” However, as my father said, it was more like “Flop this House.”

At first, everything seems decent. New appliances; new tile floor — which goes all the way from the kitchen, though the dining/living area, down the hall.

And then a close look at the kitchen counter revealed a few things:

• The house-flipper had never done any work like this before.
• The flipper had never even practiced before doing it for real.
• The flipper thought all who looked at the house would be legally blind and not wearing their glasses.

Words do not do it justice, so I present “Counter-Top Edge”

Add to it the fact that the hardwood floor in the living room was finished in the ever-popular Spill-and-Smear style, we decided to give it a pass.

First house hunt behind us, we learned a lot about what we really want and what’s optional.

We’re about to begin the process of looking for a home in Greenville. When we did it in Asheville about a year and a half ago, we were heading out with entirely different thoughts. We knew that the prices were completely disproportional to our income (particularly since I was working as a teacher’s aid in an EC classroom), and we were just hoping to find something in our price range.

In said price range, we found

• a place with major cracks in two of the four foundational walls, allowing a whole corner of the house gradually to sink into the earth (Price to fix: too much to contemplate);
• a place that was in such bad condition that it honestly had no lock on the front door;
• lots of condos, with association fees upwards of $100;
• some pre-fab homes;
• a few double-wide trailers (which we didn’t even bother looking at); and,
• assorted cottages slightly smaller than our apartment.

When we began looking at real estate in the Greenville area in the same price range, we were shocked — and that’s one of the reasons we decided to move there. You can still get a house for well under $200k there! In fact, there are two-bedrooms listed for under $100k!

That’s like driving by a service station and seeing the price of gas at $1.89. (Which in the south does happen — it just means the station closed several years ago and was simply abandoned.)

We’ve sat down and made a list of wants and needs.

Non-negotiable

• Price: [redacted — same as in Asheville]
• Location: east side of town, but more importantly, in a location where houses sell fairly easily
• Minimum ft² 1,300; ideal, 1,500-1,700
• Big kitchen, open to living area (not cut off from where the action is when entertaining)
• Minimum 2 bedrooms (if 2 bedrooms, must be partly finished basement; otherwise, 3 bedrooms)
• One and a half bath
• Not on a busy street
• Not in a new house crowded into a new development with no trees
• Minimum 0.3 acres

Preferred

• Close to a park
• Garage and basement
• Trees in the yard
• Deck/patio

Would be nice…

• Brick
• Fireplace
• Hardwood floors
• Front porch

The most pleasant thought in all of it — that L will have a backyard to play in.

So tomorrow we begin our hunt. It’s kind of exciting, looking for a house with the intention of buying, as opposed to looking at houses with the hope of finding something affordable that’s not a complete dump…

My latest project -- the dresser.