Looks Like I'll Have To Sell The House

[Zema Bus]

I think it should be fairly easy to get.

[Zema Bus]

I got official pre-approved status from the lender this week with a bridge loan. Now to find one for a temp small personal loan for the moving expenses, and an actual house I want to move to. The lender likes that plan (a personal loan) better than using credit cards, though I'll still have credit cards as a fallback in the off chance I should need more.

I found my original Windows 95 install CD. Still haven't come across my old US Robotics external modem. I got a boatload of old college textbooks set out for the junk haulers. Also found a new MS mouse I never used, still in the box.

[Grogan]

Well that's good, one hoop jumped through. Use your credit cards to eat with

I likely still have that in a box somewhere, the original OEM Windows 95 CD. I HAD one of those US Robotics external modems but... muggins here gave it to someone that needed a good modem in their rural location

[Zema Bus]

Initially I had dismissed the idea of getting a double wide trailer or a manufactured home instead of a "stick home", but one of my older sisters got me to considering it. I was reading through a thread discussing this. A lot of these look really nice inside and out. One house I saw was brand new yet super dirt cheap, and I wondered why it was so cheap, it had everything I'd need minus a garage. I finally suspected it was a manufactured home, the specs said it was all steel construction. With something like that, after I sell this house, I wouldn't even need a mortgage. During my house hunting I've come across lots of inexpensive land for sale, an acre and above, often with utilities available. The thought did occur to me that if I had something on the land good enough to live and work in I could conceivably have a custom house built on the land later. The options for affordable homes are very limited, often there are gotchas - they're often in high crime areas, or areas with few services available, water reliability issues, small lots with tiny garages, tightly spaced etc. I saw this post in that thread:

An anesthesiologist I know had just gotten married. They bought a large plot of land that had a double wide on it. The trailer was in pristine condition. They moved into the trailer and were going to build a McMansion on the property. The wife, who I worked with, decided that she liked the trailer. They never got around to building a new home. Probably saved over a million dollars.

If an anesthesiologist can live comfortably in one, maybe I can too lol!

[Grogan]

There's nothing wrong with a mobile home (or a pre-fab). It beats the fuck out of living in an apartment, condo, town house... or just about anything that isn't yours.

[Zema Bus]

Because life hates me, my A/C went out yesterday. The upstairs unit was already out, it went out multiple times last summer until I got tired of throwing money at it, so I've only been relying on the downstairs unit. This time I called a different A/C guy than the one who kept fixing it but could never find the problem. This new tech determined that the compressor was shot in both units, and one was low on coolant (the type they don't use anymore). These units usually only last 10 - 15 years, and mine are over 17 years. For a cheap, no frills basic unit (since I'm selling the house soon) he estimated it would be $7K each, but I'm waiting for their official quote. I'm going to get a 2nd opinion before doing anything. A/C is a necessity here though, and a buyer is going to expect working A/C. So I will need to use a personal loan for this, I was planning to get a personal loan anyway for moving expenses but with this expense I'll need a bigger personal loan. One thing I found out is that Amazon credit cards can be used for non-Amazon purchases with zero interest for 6 months. I have one of those, so that might help me to get through all of this. In the meantime it's 92 F upstairs, and it's going to be that way for a while until I have working A/C again. It'll make it 1000% easier to clean up the house when it's not like working in a furnace. And speaking of work, I'm probably going to move my whole work environment downstairs where it's about 4 F cooler, it was rough working in the heat today, even with a fan on high.

[Grogan]

Aww fuck, what a horrible time for that to happen. Ahh well, can't live like that.

70F is about as warm as I like it, and even then it has to be dry air.

[Zema Bus]

Makes me want to move some place where the temps never reach 90 F much less 100+

The temps for the foreseeable future here:

temps070424.jpg (55.51 KiB) Viewed 66277 times

[Grogan]

We might see 90F (e.g. 33C) a relative few days a year, 80's on and off during the summer, with humidity. That's what you're not telling me, how is the humidity there?

Right now 75F (24C) with 71% humidity and 15 km/h breezes. A nice day.

[Michael_horatio]

That's a real Bitch Zema, and 7k for a cheap one. Holy Christ!
Right here now it's 20 C (77% humididy) and projected to a high later in the afternoon of 22 C or around 71 F. It will get hotter in a week or so but basically what Grogan described was pretty close to our weather. The reason I mention this is that Northern Washington state is about an hour drive from here has the same weather. Move up there..
Seriously, I feel your pain. I can't strand really hot weather any more.

[Zema Bus]

I've actually considered that, though cost of living there is still high (but still cheaper than here). New Mexico might be a good option if I could find something there, since the cost of living is low and it's at a higher average elevation than AZ. I did enjoy the week I was in BC with my family back in July 1990

Humidity here right now is around 30%, though it will be intermittently higher during monsoon season.

[Zema Bus]

I got my work environment all moved downstairs. I had to fight with Windows 10 on the work laptop to get it to use all three screens again, and not the tiny useless laptop screen. I think they changed the display configuration utility since I originally set this laptop up. It wasn't this difficult before, I was able to go in and select 'Disable this display' for the laptop screen in order to use my own 3 screens, but now that option is gone for the laptop screen, it can no longer be disabled. So I had to trick it into turning off by changing what it should do when the lid is closed, from 'sleep' to 'nothing'. Now with the laptop lid closed all three of my screens work.

[Grogan]

Without dripping sweat and shorting anything? Good job

How long before you can get your AC problem sorted?

[Zema Bus]

There was some drippage lol!

I'm waiting for the 2nd quote, hopefully Monday. I'm also going to check with the bridge loan lender to make sure this isn't going to be an issue for the bridge loan. The first HVAC guy said it would take 6 days to complete the installation (3 per unit), I forgot to ask the 2nd guy, but I've read that it can usually be done in a day, probably at least two since this house has two units. HomeDepo is another possibility, they contract out to HVAC techs, and they have an option for no payments for 6 months, and during that time other home improvement expenses can be added to the tab. With that I could just pay it off once the house sells, which I expect to happen much sooner than 6 months.

[Grogan]

"6 days" would have to be in the case of having to install duct work throughout a house or something. I don't get that, I'd think more like 3 hours per unit (or are we talking about replacing the compressors in the old units?)

[Zema Bus]

Yeah the one who said 6 days said they replace all the ducts after "gutting" the existing ducts. They said replacing the compressors costs almost as much as a new unit. I read something about replacing the ducts to ensure maximum efficiency - but since I'm selling the place I don't care, I'm fine with using the existing ducts, I just want it to work.

[Grogan]

That would be a major job in any house, I can't see doing that... replacing ducts.

[Zema Bus]

I have an A/C replacement lined up for next week, $7,500 total for both units, that's about half of what the other guy quoted me, plus he said he can do it in just 1 day! I explored a personal loan that would cover both this expense and my moving expenses, I did a pre-qualification where they only do a soft inquirery (doesn't impact credit scores) for a long term loan (to minimize the payments, which I shouldn't need to make more than 1 or 2 times before selling the house), and it came out to just under $300, so easily manageable for the short term I'll need it. I'm going to check with another lender to compare. I'm also checking with my bridge loan lender to make sure this won't be a problem for my bridge loan. With the A/C fixed I can easily finish up with cleaning up the upstairs (it's been way too hot to work up there) and start boxing things up. I hope to be out in about 30 days.

[Grogan]

That sounds a lot better and one day sounds more like it for installing new units. That's small money in the grand scheme of things, it would be petty if that affected your ability to get the bridge loan.

This is really an emergency situation both for you, and it wouldn't exactly be a selling point to have a house on the market with two broken AC units.

[Zema Bus]

Just heard back from the bridge loan lender and it won't be an issue so I'm good to go

[Grogan]

Well that's good news. One less thing to affect your digestive system

[Zema Bus]

I wanted to check with a few more personal loan lenders, one of them (Sofi) looked like it might have similar rates for the same term. I had seen a few reports of people being denied even though they have good credit scores and with everything else favorable, but I thought those were probably just anomalies. I went ahead and did a pre-qualification with them and...DENIED! I was a bit surprised at first, like those others I have a good credit score, never missed a payment, and a long credit history. I did a search on that and there are a lot of people who ended up in the same boat with Sofi. So screw them, I'll never consider doing business with them again. I checked with my credit union but their terms were too short for this purpose and their starting rates were higher, I'd be paying $100 more monthly for the month or two I'd need it. Then I tried my current mortgage lender since they offer personal loans. Got pre-qualified there, rates were good, but terms too short. So I just went with the first one where I was pre-approved, they completed the full credit inquiry and it went through. So I should have funding soon.

[Grogan]

Yeah, those lower rate loans will use different risk factors, where the higher rate ones can absorb more loss if people default. The reason will be rooted in that. (I'm not saying they aren't cunts, of course)

Ah well, you got what you need.

[Zema Bus]

Going to do a virtual tour of a couple houses with a realtor tomorrow morning, I've never done that before, should be interesting. She uses Whatsapp for that, which I've also never used before.

[Grogan]

That's probably better than having to go to different houses to say nope, nope, nope

[Zema Bus]

Right off the bat when I launched Whatsapp today it said it could no longer be used with my account due to spam . I'd never even used it before. Looking it up though I found lots of complaints from users saying they had also been banned for spam after using it normally. Whatsapp is owned by FB, and I wasn't thrilled to use it because of that. The realtor asked if I had an alternative, so I went to the alternativeto site and found Signal. It's open source and created by a guy who formally worked for Whatsapp before FB acquired it. Got that installed and it was working for me so I let the realtor know and she installed it on her phone. After that it worked pretty well. There were two nearly identical houses in the same development that she showed me. They have coax and what looks like RJ45 ports in most rooms. She called them phone ports but they look big enough (relative to the adjacent coax outlet) to be RJ45. It wouldn't be surprising if they are wired for phone use, that was the case in my current house, I had to re-terminate them as normal Ethernet data ports. One thing that wasn't clear is where they all converge. Usually that would be in the garage (in a "media box"), but these houses only have carports, no garages (I'd probably convert the carport into a garage). Now to uninstall Whatsapp.

[Grogan]

Man... that's a hot shit sandwich with diarrhoea gravy. How you would get included in that is obviously erroneous algorithms. Faecesbook has so many users they don't care if a million or so run afoul of their bullshit, I doubt there'd be any remediation. I mean, you don't have any yellow tabby cat porn pictures to spam

I am impressed that the real estate lady was malleable and willing to accommodate you with an alternative. Most of those kinds of people don't do that kind of thinking, it's their way (the company's) or the highway.

You're just narrowing this shit down with the video viewings though. Determining what's worth further inquiry and going to see in person.

[Zema Bus]

I was talking to the realtor, who took me on the house tour, about the location of the access panel where all the Ethernet and coax cables converge as it would be useful to know ahead of time (hopefully it's not in a closet), since I will need to get the network and Internet connectivity up quickly for work etc. She said she asked the listing realtor but that he said he didn't know, but he would ask the builder. She then says if the builder doesn't know I should ask the local cable Internet provider. Ok, first of all if the builder doesn't know what they did then I'd be a bit concerned. And how would it make any sense to call an ISP and ask them where a house builder put the access panel in a random house. Earlier before the house tour I had inquired about whether there were Ethernet ports, and told her that if there weren't any I could just have an electrician do some cable drops. She then says the ISP could probably do that. Right, I'm sure a big cable Internet company would be happy to do Ethernet cable drops in all the rooms lol! It just goes to show how normies don't get this stuff, or the distinction between the Internet and a LAN.

[Grogan]

Hell, around here they won't even bring the coax into the house anymore. They put in a new line, buried it and everything and that was it. We had to get someone else to come and do it... who? It ended up being dad's handyman drilling the hole through the brick and concrete under the deck. (the old one was coming in somewhere else)

That's going to be a detail you're going to likely have to deal with after, or at least see it in person if it's part of your decision.

[Zema Bus]

I got a tour of a house that looks very promising, it's the style I like and has room to add a garage later, no Ethernet in the walls but that could be added. And they lowered the asking price, making it very tempting. It just has one glaring problem - it's in an unincorporated area with no mail delivery. Residents there have to get a PO box, which aren't great for larger packages from what I understand. And it gets better - I read the complaints from people who live there, the local post office is crowded and they have to wait in long lines since everyone has to go there to pickup their mail, and they've run out of PO boxes, so new residents have to drive to another post office further away. I do most of my shopping on Amazon, most of the time they use their own trucks or UPS for some items, but sometimes they use USPS. I looked into using a virtual mailbox company, but they all seem to markup the shipping making it unaffordable. So as much as I like that house and its potential, I don't think I would like that aspect of living there. The other house I looked at has a mail cluster box right across the road from the house, and it at least has Ethernet in the walls. I could close off the carport with metal panels to turn it into a garage, and there's room in the back to have some additional rooms built. Kind of a boring simple house design, but most of the time I'd be inside anyway. Another option would be to reconsider Rio Rico, I saw lots of houses I like there, though I'd probably want to get bottled water and/or filters if I did that (due to PFAS).