New House Photos

I had my house inspected on Saturday.  Glad to report that there isn’t anything major wrong with the house that would keep me from going through with the deal.  Below are some photos I took of the place on Saturday.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the loan process goes through quickly so I can get moved in!

neighborhood
This is the neighborhood (the part that is finished at least.  At the end of this street, the city of Phoenix is putting in a park.  How nice.

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The front of the house.  The landscaping needs work.

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The front door/entry way.

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The dining room.

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Looking into the kitchen from the living room.

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The living room from the entry way/hall.

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The back corner of the living room.

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The master bedroom.

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Looking into the master bathroom from the bedroom.

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The covered patio in the back.

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Looking out from the patio (I know, so much work to be done).

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The rest of the back yard.  Beezus and Olive will have so much fun!

There you have it.  A small tour around the new place.  Once everything has been moved in and settled, I’ll post some new pictures.  Also, now that there is an actual guest room, visitors are encouraged.  :)

Short Sales, Lender Owned, Foreclosures… Oh My!

My opinion is this… Anyone who strips a home of every light fixture, every appliance, bathroom mirrors, etc. when moving out of a foreclosure should be sued by the banks and/or thrown in jail!

I found this really cute house yesterday that was lender owned. The problem was that in order for it to be move in ready, I would have to spend around $8000. I know no house will be perfect and will need some TLC before move in but not to the tune of $8000. These damaged properties are making it hard for me to find something affordable (especially since the banks don’t think I can afford much of a loan – jerks).

The real estate saga continues. Still searching for short term housing. Ugh… what a wonderful time of the year to be doing all of this. Do I sound stressed? :)

Journalism Today

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We have a really awesome newspaper in Arizona called the Arizona Republic.  They do such good reporting and they fact check everything before going to print.
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“With Congress in recess until after Thanksgiving, Arizona lawmakers are hosting town-hall meetings to discuss health-care reform, the economy and more.”  Read

Ummmm…

A quick two second visit to Senate.gov and House.gov clearly shows that Congress is still in session.  Not to mention that the Senate is set to vote on the Health Care bill on Friday and that it’s been all over the news.  The fact is, Congress doesn’t go on break for Thanksgiving until 11/23.  Finding that information took me all of five seconds.  WTF is wrong with newspapers today?

Oh, and one last thing… Kudos to Sen. McCain for visiting Arizona when he should be in Washington doing the job he was elected to do!  Holy crap the Arizona delegation in both chambers have been real winners lately.

House Drama Update

First, let me say this… I love the business of real estate.  NOT!

Here’s the deal.  Some of this may be  recap for those of you who are regular readers.  I have had an offer in on a short sale home since June.  The banks are kind of just jerking us around and it really does suck.  I had a renter secured for my condo for September but ended up losing her because of this whole short sale fiasco.  So, three weeks ago the listing agent told my agent that the first mortgage holder would have a final written acceptance of my offer in two weeks.  Armed with this knowledge, I posted my condo on Craigslist hoping to find a renter.  After the first week past and I had no responses to my post, I was worried.  I stressed that I would not have a renter to take over my condo and that I would have a new house that I may not be able to afford.  Another week passes and I get a hit on my Craigslist post.  I meet with the perspective tenants and they end up wanting to rent my place.  They request a move in date of 1/1/10.  I figure that it will be all good since I’m basically days away from a written acceptance from the last lien holder.

Not so much.

Last week, my agent gets a call from the listing agent saying that the bank wants 2 to 3 more weeks to make a decision.  WHAT?!  No good!  That means that there is no way that I will be able to close on the house before 1/1/10.  Now, I have a renter that is most definitely coming in on 1/1/10 and I have no house to go to.  I just can’t win.

So, this is where we stand at the moment.  Now I need to figure out if I want to move back in with mom (not really liking that idea) or if I find some sort of temp housing to move into until I finally do close on the house.  Ahhh!

More updates to follow.

Blog FAIL

Okay, so I haven’t kept up on my daily posting. Sue me. It’s hard to come up with something to write every day and when I do, it’s hard to find time to post it! Anyway, I’m going to try my best to finish out the month in a way that will make all of my readers proud (I hope).

Just wait until you get my next house update post. It’s a doozy!

Beezus – 12 Weeks

Well, Beezus is now 12 weeks old.  She just went in for her next to land round of shots.  She loves everyone so the visit to the vet was not as big of a deal as it could have been.  I’m hoping that she continues to love everyone and doesn’t turn into the kind of scare-dee cat that Olive is.  We’ll soon see.

Next up is her final shots at 16 weeks, rabies shot and then she’ll be fixed in mid January.

In other puppy news, she hasn’t peed in the house in a week.  Crate training seems to be working well. She messes her crate more than I would like but I’m going to try a new schedule.  She poops at 1am and sometimes at 3 am.  When she doesn’t do it at 3, she usually poops in the create.  I’ve got to change that.  Also, this past week she only peed in her crate one day and that was Friday.  All things considered, she’s doing great on the whole potty training.