Looks Like I'll Have To Sell The House

[Zema Bus]

I just realized it could be the same situation in Rio Rico, I did a search but couldn't find anything. So I checked out some neighborhoods there with Google Maps street view. Some neighborhoods have traditional mailboxes out front, but others, especially with newer construction homes did not. That wouldn't be surprising since over the last several decades cluster boxes have replaced individual mailboxes, but I couldn't find any cluster boxes. I'd have to ask a realtor who knows that area.

[Grogan]

That sucks, I hate the postal service (even here, even their "express post" couriers). I happen to have the primary mail for this house, the community mailboxes don't go by box number anymore, it's tied to your street address now. Since my parents had one at the other post office (in the other town that's now part of the same municipality), mine became the residence. It's a pain in the ass too, because my parents get important things sent to the house address no matter how they try.

I haven't gone to my mail box in a week and a half, because I can't get to it without parking in the middle of the road and blocking traffic (that's what I do... fuck em, I have to get my mail and I'm not walking). There are parked cars all along that street because of beach access.

I guess these are things you don't find out until you enquire further in the process.

[Zema Bus]

After not being able to find anything else appealing, I was thinking maybe I could figure out some other way to make things work with that house. So first I checked the listings to see if it was still available, and someone already snatched it up! Therefore I'm anticipating an epiphany coming to me any minute of something obvious so that I can regret not jumping on it while I had the chance lol!

The only area I'm finding with affordable houses of the type I want that aren't too far from services are down in Rio Rico where the water supply is conveniently contaminated with PFAS, though that issue could be managed with a whole house filter until regulation eventually steps in to mandate filtering by water companies and municipalities. Or I could just settle for one of the two boring houses I found, where I wouldn't have to deal with either of those issues. Got to do something soon though, I have enough $ from the personal loan to cover moving costs but it will gradually evaporate with each monthly payment plus my current mortgage payments.

[Grogan]

Well doesn't that eat a smouldering fat turd... everything is cut throat and you have to compete. A boring house with good infrastructure then, I hope. That's really the key, you need good power and communications. Eventually you'll get solar, but you still need good utility service to fall back on. Being able to drink and bathe in the water without turning into Madame Curie would help too.

[Zema Bus]

Yeah once a house is listed at a good price it doesn't last long. That one had been on the market for a few months before I had the virtual tour last weekend, and then early last week they finally dropped the price. The boring houses have been on the market for 3 months and they haven't yet budged on the price.

I just watched a video on PFAS, looks like the EPA has recently ruled that the water has to be cleaned up. Of course companies are complaining that it's too expensive, they'd rather let their customers die expensive deaths. Hopefully this gets enforced before the orange man gets back in power.

[Grogan]

Yeah, these chemicals will have me beat, because I won't be here forever

One thing about filtration, it doesn't remove all chemicals either. Small molecules etc. When the Orange Ignoranus soon deteriorates into a puddle of liquishit, they will have to use a worldly supply of bleach.

[Zema Bus]

I was reminded this week of another thing I won't miss after I move out of California - earthquakes! Seismic activity picked up this week, hope I get out before the "big one" hits lol! Not that they don't occur in AZ but they're not like the ones here, and I'd prefer not to be in the vicinity when a 8.0 happens.

I haven't made a move yet on that boring house, I've still been holding out hope that something pops up in the listings I like better. I've been checking everyday, one that might have been interesting did show up a few days ago, it was at a really good price, but it had already been snatched up before I even had a chance to check it out. Guess I should just do it before someone else does.

[Grogan]

We don't get those here (maybe the occasional tremor) though apparently Toronto has some possibility. Nothing like the fault lines in California of course, but they built the CN Tower with meters of sway because of it.

I felt a tremor once, it felt strange. I thought it was a big bus or piece of equipment on the street shaking things, but it was a tremor. (Sault Ste. Marie Ontario)

What may be going on is that any house available at a decent price gets snapped up by houseflippers (by computer algorithms, even) that want to resell it. It's probably not that it's a popular spot.

[Michael_horatio]

We don't get those here (maybe the occasional tremor) though apparently Toronto has some possibility. Nothing like the fault lines in California of course, but they built the CN Tower with meters of sway because of it.

I felt a tremor once, it felt strange. I thought it was a big bus or piece of equipment on the street shaking things, but it was a tremor. (Sault Ste. Marie Ontario)

We get smaller ones here once in a while, but I usually learn about them on the news the next day. I only remember one that actually shook the floor for a few minutes years ago. But we are definitely in line for bigger ones sooner or later. There was an 8.1M off the north coast of B.C. in 1949.

I just realized it could be the same situation in Rio Rico

I drove thru that area in the seventies with a couple of friends on our way to Mexico. We crossed the border at Nogales. It seemed to me at the time to be pretty harsh territory. Bleak, dusty, and hotter than Hell. I couldn't imagine how people survived there..
But, I guess you can get used to anything..

[Grogan]

A basement, an air conditioner, good power and communications infrastructure and... fuck outside. I have long since gotten used to going out only when necessary anyway, so regardless of climatic considerations, it's unpleasant anyway. It might as well be all Mad Max out there

[Michael_horatio]

A basement, an air conditioner, good power and communications infrastructure and... fuck outside. I have long since gotten used to going out only when necessary anyway, so regardless of climatic considerations, it's unpleasant anyway. It might as well be all Mad Max out there

I hear you, the older I get, the less I am inclined to go out..

[Zema Bus]

Yeah since getting the A/C replaced I've been oblivious to the 100 F temps outside

[Zema Bus]

One house I'm looking at is on a street that has my name - Stevens Place lol! It's significantly larger than most in my price range, and on a quarter acre lot.

[Grogan]

I hope that one works out, that's a perfect coincidence (and being bigger on a nice lot doesn't hurt)

[Zema Bus]

Well I'm now considering a short list of candidate houses. One that tops the list is about the same size as the one on the street with my name, and is on a slightly larger lot, has a good amount of space between neighboring houses, is a design I like (I like the "Santa Fe" style with flat roofs kind of like a commercial building, this one is a hybrid of that with a flat roof on one side and regular slopping roof on the other), there's a possibility the garage is long enough to accommodate a full size truck, I'd have to verify but it looks like it has enough length. If so I wouldn't need to have another garage built to avoid having to park outside. It has an access panel inside for house cabling (all the others seem to be outside). It also has some nice little details like a small skylight. There are no neighbors behind the property, just open desert, so I could sit out on the patio in complete privacy if I wanted to. And they have curbside mail delivery there, since it's in an incorporated town adjacent to the unincorporated area the other house is in. It's at the high end of my price range, though if this one was situated an hour north in the Phoenix metro area it would likely be over $500K, but not so in this rural area. They haven't finished construction, there were still ladders and paint cans inside, doors not yet hung, but they said it will be finished in about 2 weeks. Once I sell my current house I could recast the loan to a lower amount.Then there is a cheaper one in the unincorporated area that is purely Santa Fe style, though a bit smaller (1,600 sqft vs 2,000 sqft), and I would need to work around the lack of curbside mail delivery (using a virtual mailbox and probably using alternatives to Amazon for a lot of things). And then there's that cheaper, smaller (1,400 sqft) boring house down in the other region I've been considering for the past month or so, it's looking less appealing after seeing these houses. I like the area down there better (higher elevation and cooler), but the housing choices there are very limited, and the majority have HOAs. On the other hand I would have more $ in my pocket, and it does at least have a carport. I could have a garage built, though because of the way the house is situated it would be more challenging (still doable). I could just turn the carport into a garage. Another consideration - the boring house has been on the market for over 3 months, if I wanted to sell it later I'd likely have the same difficulty selling it. It's in kind of a "cheap" neighborhood, all but two houses are mobile homes, so its property value probably wouldn't grow like it would if it was surrounded by like houses. All things I'm thinking about. I want to choose wisely since I'll have to live with my choice for a while. I also don't want to take too long debating it since the houses in those other two areas often sell quickly once construction is complete

[Grogan]

Oh fuck yeah, HOA's. I've heard (and seen... videos) all kinds of stories about those jumped up organizations. They may even start out OK until they get new Karens on the board. They even harass homeowners that are grandfathered into not having to be members subject to their "rules". The fucking police cooperate with this shit too.

That first one you're describing sounds real good, with the amenities.

[Zema Bus]

I looked into the ISP options there. I can't check the house's address on the website of the cable company I saw listed for that area since it's too new so I used the address of one of the oldest houses in that development which was built last October, but even that one can't be found. They must be using Google Maps for their look ups, Google Maps in that area only has data as recent as May 2023. So then I checked against an older house across the road from the development that dates from 1974, and that worked. So they have Cox Fiber Internet there (it's a cable company but they have fiber) with speeds up to 2 GiG. AireBeam is also on the list, on checking on their website I think they're available there, I get past the address check anyway, it then takes me to a contact info screen. They also have fiber Internet. It's good that there are two, but I'd like to have a backup, and that would need to be via a different type*. But the only other options I see are satellite and fixed wireless. I looked at one of the wireless options, it had a 1 TB/month data cap and they're based some distance away. The satellite ISP I looked at had no data caps. Slow speeds of course, but as a backup ISP I guess it would be better than nothing. Cox has a self install option, I used that for my cable connection here, but I'm not sure how that works with fiber since it's a bit more involved, here the fiber connections can only be done by a tech and involves installing an ONT to the wall and running and hooking up the fiber line from outside. I'll have to look that up.

Here's one of the possible backup solutions:

Viasat.jpg (106.11 KiB) Viewed 66353 times

* I've always heard that you can only have one broadband ISP of a given type because there is only one coax cable or fiber cable to an address. But I just did a quick search and saw some suggestions that you can do that. I'll have to do some reading. A 2nd fiber ISP would sure be better than the other options there, I'd just get the cheapest option for the backup. A different type of ISP would still be ideal though, with two fiber ISP's if the fiber line gets cut you lose both connections.

[Grogan]

I don't think satellite would be very good for remote work though, it's not so much the speed but the latency. 673 ms (or more) is horrid. Fine for reading web pages but not for anything interactive. That's latency on every packet, in both directions etc.

[Zema Bus]

So I was all set to submit an offer on that one place. Before signing the form I decided to review the transcript (AI transcribed) the lender provided of the original conversation we had back in June to refresh my memory and make sure I didn't miss any, which is easy to do with audio information vs text. And I spotted something very glaring I didn't pick up on during the Zoom meeting. There was a paragraph stating that the old house needed to be listed BEFORE an offer could be made on a new house. That would make zero sense, as it would negate the whole purpose of a bridge loan. In fact on reading up again on bridge loans I found examples of people using a bridge loan to buy and move into a new house so that they can have contractors work on their old house PRIOR to listing it for sale. I don't want to still be living here during showings, it takes 30 days to close on a house, so I would be stuck here in the middle of all that, while still trying to work 8 hours a day. Otherwise why even bother with a bridge loan. I asked the lender about this, and she's waiting to hear back from the bank regarding what they are OK with. I'm not sure what I'll do if this falls through. Rentals require a minimum of a 1 year commitment and AirBnB's don't have recliners, the only way I can sleep (they are not allowed due to liability), and it's difficult to find one that could accommodate my workflow (& most only have WIFI). Besides those are expensive options, I would also have to pay for storage (which these days are getting broken into all the time) and pay for moving twice. Meanwhile the personal loan $ is evaporating. There are house flippers, but many of them wouldn't even offer enough $ to pay off my remaining balance. Meanwhile the realtor in AZ and the insurance agent keep following up with me. Why can't anything just work the way it's supposed to.

[Grogan]

Well that complication sucks. I'd say enduring renting or airbnb would be worse than listing your house, no? I wouldn't like that either, but just think of all the negatives. If there's no workaround (maybe that's not a big deal and they'll let you).

Recliner chairs are not allowed in your own rental space because of liability... that's utterly ridiculous and goes to show you that there has to be a balance between the nanny state and free will. I'm all for safety/sanitary regulations, but they can blow that out their asses. That shit makes me angry, because my recliner is the only place I can get more than 5 hours sleep and rejuvenate the musculoskeletal system etc. I rarely sleep in bed anymore. Sure, recliner chairs have pinch points, but things like electrical outlets have electricity. Bathtubs have water. Hallways have stubbed toes. Stairs have contusions and fractures, and doorknobs have germs etc.

[Zema Bus]

No word yet but they assured me they are working on it. Otherwise I'm going to explore rentals again, see if I can find any with monthly terms. Having strangers showing up throughout the day to look at the house while I'm still here would be brutal. I'd have to get up early everyday since most people are morning people, and it would be a work disruption (and a HIPAA issue since I'll have sensitive information up on my screen while working), and a weekend disruption. Back in 2005 when I was first looking at houses I looked at some existing ones with occupants still living there, and I didn't feel comfortable, it felt like I was intruding. An empty house is better for both sellers and buyers.

Yeah I don't know how I could ever do traveling again, sleeping in a motel or hotel bed would be impossible. I have a manually adjustable bed frame with a memory foam mattress, but no matter how I adjust it I can't escape acid reflux and I end up going back to my recliner. Once in a while I'll get brave enough to try it again but it never works out.

[Grogan]

You'd definitely have a lot of people gawking at your house, but for actual showings where people come on your property and/or in the house, you have a right to insist on notice.

Real estate agents can get pretty bold though, when they are eager for commission. I was home alone a few years ago, and I saw a shadow pass by a window. There shouldn't be anybody here right now... better go see. It was a local real estate agent, showing people the property. While Dad's had a previous relationship with them, the property wasn't for sale, she was just trying to get people to make a big offer so she could try to entice him to sell. (This property will be highly lucrative when it does sell). She didn't think anyone was there and was startled when I came out of the woodwork. Suffice it to say I, umm, embarrassed her and her clients by telling them they were trespassing and treating them as such and that there was no intention of selling the house. (That had to look really bad on her)

[Zema Bus]

I finally heard from the lender today (she's a broker actually, but I think her husband runs the bank she works with), and she reiterated what was in the transcript - the old house has to be listed first in order to use the bridge loan. So if I use them I'll have to find some sort of rental without a 1 year lease. Most likely I'll lose out on that house though. I let the realtor in AZ know, and she said she'll check with lenders she works with to see if they allow buying before listing (with a bridge loan).

[Zema Bus]

One of the lenders the AZ realtor works with doesn't require the old house to be listed for 2 weeks after doing the bridge loan. Better, but since it takes about 4 weeks to close I'd still need a temporary rental for a couple weeks. Maybe if I could find something with storage space (like the garage). Most AirBnB's I've seen make the garage off limits.

[Grogan]

That sounds pretty arbitrary, that requirement. Listing != sold, so I don't see their point. A loan is a loan, collateral is collateral, terms are terms.

It sounds pretty awful having to find temporary accommodations and storage, though.

[Zema Bus]

I agree, and it's not how bridge loans are supposed to work from what I've read. I just got off the phone with the mortgage broker in AZ, he said that requirement of it having to be listed first isn't the norm, and in fact it doesn't matter when the house is listed, just as long as the bridge loan is paid off within the repayment period - usually 6 months to a year, I plan to pay it back as soon as the house sells. So no 2 week requirement even. He sent me a link to the application and said he is connected to a lot of different lenders so we can chose the best one. So maybe this will work after all

[Grogan]

Sometimes you have to think outside the box. Think "If I were a cunt, what would I do" and your answer may lie within that.

I might think up such a requirement if I wanted myself or my cronies to get first dibs on lucrative real estate, for example. There could be some angle, or it could be as simple as they use real estate listings to verify that you actually are in the process of selling a house, and not using the loan money for your crack enema habit. I don't see the point because the house is collateral either way (but... do the lenders actually verify that the house exists etc.)

[Zema Bus]

Well I'm once again back to considering rentals. The loan originator in AZ submitted my info to multiple lenders today who do bridge loans, and the results were not good. Only one was remotely "viable", it would involve a lot of expensive fees totaling about $25K on top of the normal closing costs. A regular mortgage loan would be much cheaper and easier. So I'm giving up on the idea of a bridge loan. One option is to make an offer on a house with a contingency on the sale of my current house, but that seems sketchy, and it would still mean being here to endure the showings. I just can't stomach the idea of that. I read a discussion started by someone in the same boat as me, including the issue of not being able to find any short term house rentals. One suggestion was to simply rent until the end of the term, usually a year but hopefully I can find one with a 6 month term (during which time the current house would have sold), and then buy the new place. Then it would be pretty straightforward. I wouldn't have to worry about storage that way since the rental house would serve that purpose. I don't like it, but it might be the best bad idea I've had so far to get out of this situation. Of course the house I was interested in will be long gone by then, but I was a little concerned about the inevitable spike in property taxes that'll come in a year given that that house is already at the high end of my price range (higher than my original max price range). It could potentially push the mortgage up too far, I don't want to end up back in the same situation I'm in now, as much as I really like that house. That other one (the boring one) on the other hand would still be cheap even after the property tax spike. Of course, I don't know what will be available in 6 months to a year, or what the real estate conditions will be.

[Grogan]

That's going to be expensive to rent a house for a year, but the best thing to do isn't what you want to do, so I guess it's been whittled down to that. If you have to do it like that anyway, the bridge loan is indeed pointless.

[Zema Bus]

After a lot of thinking, I think I'm going to go with an in-between option, which would be to just get out and into an AirBnB as soon as I can & get the house listed, and if it sells in 2 weeks (which my listing agent feels it will in this market) followed by 30 days to close I'd be free and clear to buy another house without the complexities and extra expenses of the other options. So about 6 weeks in an AirBnB (it might actually be closer to 8 - 10 weeks depending on the timing of everything, but if I made a contingent offer on a new place right after I accepted an offer on my house then both could close around the same time and I'd only be in the AirBnB for 6 weeks). I got a little travel router with Ethernet LAN ports that has built-in VPN functionality so that I can have a secure connection over wireless (most AirBnB's only offer wireless). If they'd let me bring my own folding table for work then that may get me through that period.