[Balboa]

[quote=wallers]Just fyi today from my realtor. I should buy!

I just wanted to update you on the Felton Home.
Seller received 5 offers and will be in escrow this week.

Agent didn’t disclose if they are over the list price yet but I assume they have gotten at least $515K offers.

I know that you are a bit discourage about the market in the metro area but more and more people want to live here and they are driving up the prices.

Best Wishes,[/quote]

I looked that place. I actually really liked it, but I couldn’t talk myself into paying that much to continue share a bathroom. The seller lived there on her own — must have been nice!

[Balboa]

[quote=bearishgurl]

Tenants will vote in bond issues because they don’t get tax bills and don’t really know or care how much it is.

[/quote]

Or, because they believe there should be adequate schools for the population.

–Childless Voting Tenant with a Mostly Public Education

My aunt and uncle are finance DINKs in another state and gripe about how much they are taxed for schools they don’t use. I love them, but it kills me that they take this view of public education. I get being aggravated by being heavily taxed for poor quality schools, but the schools around them are thoroughly excellent. I’m sure they’ll be touting them when they sell to retire to wine country.

In the spirit of being off topic, this is a fascinating (audio) account of school board funding politics: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/534/a-not-so-simple-majority

Plenty of ink available on that story as well.

[Balboa]

[quote=wallers]yep. I’m out. 3127 McKinley just listed. check the history. in my opinion wow.[/quote]

I love that the listing says it was remodeled (“remolded,” actually) in 2012. That’s before the current sellers owned it. So other than cut down trees and paint, they probably did exactly nothing to it. Also, it has exactly *one* great public school near by.

Not too far away, there is an under-700-sqft 2/2 on Myrtle that says “Photos were taken prior to owners moving in. Very little if anything was changed.” But of course they are asking $120k more than they bought it for in 2012. It’s been on 35 days now with no drops.

My friends are seeing the same types of things in 92117 and surrounding zips.

[Balboa]

My husband and I are mid-thirties. I think the only hopes of us retiring “ahead” in this part of Southern California are 1.) middle class family wealth transfer and 2.) remaining childless. As it is, almost 2/3 of our liquid savings is inheritance.

That 2/3 is more than double our retirement accounts combined (one of us spent years in a low paying field that requires a degree, the other went the PhD/post-doc route; our retirement accounts are a little anemic). Naturally, we have no pensions — but one of our four parents has a public pension, life-time medical coverage including spouse, and a successful career after retiring from the public sector. So that’s a bright spot.

I think instead of children, we’ll have two aging parents with no savings to care for. Even though I don’t have baby fever, it makes me sad that children seem like a luxury around here and that retirement looks so practically and psychologically bleak for at least one set of our parents.

It makes me seriously think of moving back to the Midwest, but San Diego is the most affordable area right now with industry relevant to the PhD.

[Balboa]

[quote=Mugums] I watched numerous properties that I liked sit for awhile around that time last year and eventually sell for less than asking. BUT.. I have also seen a few that didn’t sell come back on the market recently for 40K more. I’m annoyed. [/quote]

I get annoyed by asking prices, too, but it will only matter if those houses *sell* for 40k more. A few times we’ve gone to an open house just to ask the person sitting there what is up with the price. Every time they’ve said, “The seller set this price, the agent knows it out of line.” One agent we like advised us to “beat the price drops” with early offers even if much lower than asking, because once the price drops you’re up against other offers.

[Balboa]

I heard on the news that Kilroy also plans to start signature gathering again…for a petition to keep the Charges in San Diego. I guess the idea is to create petition fatigue (which I certainly suffer from) and keep paid signature gatherers employed with something other than the One Paseo opposition. It’s clever, but also transparent and hilarious. [edited to add: Maybe Kilroy also has some Mission Valley or DT interests to protect?]

I commute from University Heights to the Kilroy-owned building next door to the One Paseo lot. I do this because Carmel Valley is expensive and bores the daylights out of me, and I don’t have kids but I do need my job. The consensus among workers in my building is One Paseo will be a big PITA. Most of them can’t afford to live in Carmel Valley and won’t be moving to apartments/condos next door to the office to shorten their commutes. Mostly, it’ll be construction and traffic for ages, and then traffic and a bunch of establishments none of us will frequent.

The culture clash at the Highlands’ Jimbo’s deli counter kills me every time, and underscores that the day-job people are interlopers — you’ve got people who bill their time for a living, and then you have people who literally have *all day* to decide which quinoa salad they want. (Jimbo’s need to get a number system or an order form or something, though. That’s on them.) I guess if One Paseo businesses and patrons could operate with something of a sense of urgency, that would be nice and save me from El Pollo Loco.

If I could take rail to work in 60 minutes or less I would do it and would have no objections to the development. Though I would miss all the birds.

[Balboa]

Thanks again for everyone’s comments! This will absolutely be useful if/when we decide to attempt this again. It’s already useful for lecturing our friends on house buying as if we know something about it! On Monday we are cancelling escrow. For the curious:

The foundation actually checked out okay, but there is even more water under the house than there was a month ago and the source is still not evident to anyone who has been under the house, including the seller (unless he does know, and isn’t telling us). Per the plumber we called in, the seller replumbed the house without sufficient cleanouts so we can’t run a proper pressure test. Our person said he did not recommend starting the pressure test at the street because of how it could affect the the neighbors’ properties. (This house’s access is not directly in front or back, but around the corner on a different street.)

We had estimates of $3,500 to fix both the clean out situation and a pipe that is two inches too short (there is some concrete involved), plus $1,000-1,500 to run the pressure test, and after that we’d *still* have to spend god knows what to actually resolve the standing water issue, whatever it turned out to be. We were quoted at least $800 to repair roof tiles and that told the roof felting has 1-3 years left on it, so another $4k or so, not including gutters. The tankless water heater was installed without a service valve, so our assumption is that its very poor performance is due to years of deferred maintenance .

Seller offered a $2k closing credit and it just wasn’t enough. It’s not our dream house. Plus, this guy’s credibility is just shot for us — he’s got two public citations from the licensing board, one with pending disciplinary action, and he actually told my husband that the tub spout was *supposed* to be that loose, otherwise you’d get hurt if you hit your head on it.

I’ll be interested to see if he puts it back on the market or just starts renting it again. It’s been for sale since December 2013 and this was the first time it had ever been pending.

[Balboa]

This may sound odd, but maybe contact one of the agents on this deal: https://www.redfin.com/CA/San-Diego/4535-Louisiana-St-92116/home/5295341

That house is in my neighborhood and, before seeing it, I had never even heard of a floor furnace.

Wawanesa and AAA turned us down due to proximity to canyon (within 1000 feet). The hazard disclosure shows us technically outside of the fire zone, but I wasn’t surprised. Those are some pretty conservative organizations. State Farm also turned us down, but I don’t know if it was because of the canyon or the seller’s $7,000 claim with them two years ago.

Farmers didn’t have an issue with the canyon, but the seller’s previous claim required special review and an exception. I don’t remember the quote, but it was less than what the mortgage broke gave in the good faith estimate.

[Balboa]

Thanks, exsdgal!

For the low hanging fruit — There are no visible cracks anywhere on the property; there are no gutters at all; there are no large green anythings on the property; the *entire* place is hardscaped with the exception of a couple of planter strips and an 8×10 grass patch at one corner of the lot. The grass patch is surrounded by concrete and does not touch the house. The concrete is all in good shape.

We have been there twice now in the rain (husband went out at 615 am today) and there is no pooling or streaming that he can see from the outside. The house is on the high side of the street, and the neighbors across the road on the low side all back up to a canyon. The downward slope of all the patios (toward the street) seems adequate to our untrained eyes, and the block walls at the front of the house do have drainage holes, so somebody was thinking of the issue at least a little.

We’ll have to ask about the pressure regulator. The plumbing was upgraded to ABS, but somewhat half-assed. That said, the guy we had out yesterday said none if it is actually leaking right now. Just poor quality work that wouldn’t pass inspection.

[Balboa]

I totally agree. We don’t actually need any help closing or financing repairs. We’ve been thinking in terms of credit because, based on previous negotiations, we’re pretty sure he would never agree to drop the sale price below 500k. Maybe a credit would be psychologically easier for him.

Background: this house has been for sale off and on for more than a year now. I don’t really blame the house. I blame the seller and agent who listed it at $610k/$620 per sq ft. Seller considers it his labor of love.

This place is cute and all, but not a special style, just 980 sq ft, no garage or driveway, 2/2 so not for most families these days, and you have to go up a flight of stairs to get in, so not necessarily for downsizing seniors either.

The price has been incrementally dropping for the last year. The house has never been pending. This fall, they listed it again with a value range (ugh). We made an offer — the only offer he got — and decided not respond to the counter because the guy was clearly not honoring the range. His agent comes back a few days later and says, “If you write ‘X’ offer, I can get him to sign but I need your offer in writing.” It was substantial increase but still below midrange and a number we could have gotten to in negotiations, so we agreed. The seller responded by dropping his demand by 5k. We did not counter.

The agents kept talking amongst themselves and we are told by the other agent *again* “If you write ‘Y’ offer, he will sign.” Another substantial increase, but we can afford it, especially given the rates (I know), and a review of sales in our preferred areas showed we hadn’t missed anything better at this price in the last year.

The guy demanded a measly 3,000 more dollars. It was never presented to us as an offer, because our agent knew we would absolutely not sign. The agents just agreed to cover the three grand from their commissions. I was stunned by that, and thought the listing agent should have to eat it all since he twice misrepresented/misunderstood his client’s position. But it is what it is.

I think the stakes for him are on the low side — yeah, it’s a black mark to have it on the MLS forever and then fall out of escrow. And we are papering the crap out of it will all these inspections. But he’ll just rent it out again if it doesn’t sell.

[Balboa]

Thanks, everyone, for the good suggestions and tales from the trenches. I’ve been MIA due to work and, of course, this house business.

I haven’t been down to the records department, but I did use the city’s Open DSD online permit/approval search. There was a combination permit for an addition, but the info is so sparse I had trouble interpreting it. I can see an inspection history, but again, kind of vague. You can tell that at least some roof work and some electrical was inspected and eventually got a sign-off. The city has an online service where they will email you permits from 1990 onward. I was expecting to get some sort of thing that said “owner is permitted to do x,y,z,1,2,3.” Instead, it’s just a copy of the cryptic approval info online.

We had the pipes scoped Friday and had a plumber out to the house today. Today confirmed that the work we waited for the seller to do himself was…not top notch. This plumber had what we thought was a good suggestion: either we get credited for the quote to do the work right, or we pay to get a plumbing permit and the seller does the work again *and* the work must pass inspection. We’ll see if it flies. The plumber thinks the standing water is a drainage issue, which is a bummer. Now we’re looking at a foundation inspection. (The seller himself is a licensed plumber. Shoemakers’ wives go barefoot…)

We sent a status list to our agent tonight. Recommended postponing termite tenting until after close so as not to take up inspection days, and asked about possibly extending the dates since a number of things are outstanding (mold, foundation, repairs, negotiation of same) and the inspection contingency runs on Thursday. I think we agreed to a 21-day close because *our* financial ducks were in a row and the property was described as “turn key.” Seemed like it would sweeten the pot. But our loan rate is locked beyond our current closing date, and we’re not actually in any hurry.

My husband is following this thread, so I will refrain from noting how much I love renting. Hi, honey!

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