Taking on New Projects
There are many signs that Spring has finally arrived, but one I saw in full glory over the weekend was the frenzy at Home Depot. Plants, paint and lumber were flying off the shelves like some sort of fire sale, fueled by the strength of the sun on a weekend in April.
I was there picking up a few things to continue with my Deck. Fortunately, I have most of what I need. grabbing a few pieces of lumber and some more screws wasn't all that difficult in comparison to the poor fools just starting out their projects.
Spring always sets up a big season of home improvements - spring cleaning, preparing for sales, and personalizing newly purchased homes. As loans are harder to get, and the housing market slumps, the types of projects may be a little different this year. Renovating instead of moving, functional instead of facelift. It'll be interesting to see if professional contractors end up getting more work out of botched DIY attempts than in previous years.
Strategic Postponement - Seasonal Strategy
Unfortunately, I haven't yet finished my previous project - renovating my basement. But there is a reason, Abby REALLY wanted the deck to be useable for that majority of the sunny months. In Colorado, this is Spring, Summer and Fall (Autumn for those not in the US), so I had to get started early. We can use the basement all year round, and work on it in the rain. Not so for the deck.
By starting my project 2 weeks ago, I actually missed the really big rush at Home Depot. I managed to have a fairly leisurely time picking out what I needed, and have plenty of time to both enjoy the deck, and put the finishing touches on it without working in 100 degree weather.
Leave Nothing Undone
The ever present danger is to become one of those people who start a lot of projects, but never finish any of them... I'm determined not to join the ranks. After the deck, It'll be back to the basement. While I hope that it would be the next thing finished, a basement can be quite pricey. I have a many other projects in mind (Painting bedrooms, tiling bathrooms) so one of those may end up sliding in there before the basement is complete, but I'm going to do my best to never have more than 2 projects started at once.
We'll see how that goes... ;)
Showing posts with label house. Show all posts
Showing posts with label house. Show all posts
Monday, April 21, 2008
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
The time nears
We close on our house tomorrow! The nerves are setting in as we are on the eve of signing many, many, many documents, which will result in us owing many, many dollars.
The house is packed.
The cupboard is bare.
The moving van is booked.
It's an exciting time!
Thursday, October 12, 2006
The Internet is a scary place for homebuyers...
Through the process of buying a home, Realtors stress that they do NOT do any research on sexual offenders in the area. If they know of one, they will tell you about it, but it is something you have to take up with the police if you are concerned.
Megan's Law (or state equivalents) have made it so that the record of many sexual offenders are available online. This is certainly the case in Colorado, and since curiosity almost always gets the better of me, I decided to take a look.
Man, there are some scary people out there!! Looking ap the location of our new house, we are blessed with a very clean slate - there is no-one near us. So I had a look around where I live currently, and I got chills.
So here is the low-down: they publish the picture, name and last known address of all sex offenders in the area. If the person is a multiple offender, or failed to register, they also publish the crimes with which they were charged. Though they don't directly link to maps, taking the address and pasting it into Google maps is a 5 second task that did nothing but scare me. I walk past a number of registered offenders every day!
A little more research showed that none of them were violent, repeat or predatory offenders - one 20 year old got on the list because he had sex with his 17 year old girlfriend, which I'm not saying is right morally or legally, but he posed little threat to anyone else. I'm sure the end result is that not too many people look as far into it as I did, and get completely freaked out in the process.
Take my advice, unless you have a pressing and relevant need to check out your area - STAY AWAY.
Megan's Law (or state equivalents) have made it so that the record of many sexual offenders are available online. This is certainly the case in Colorado, and since curiosity almost always gets the better of me, I decided to take a look.
Man, there are some scary people out there!! Looking ap the location of our new house, we are blessed with a very clean slate - there is no-one near us. So I had a look around where I live currently, and I got chills.
So here is the low-down: they publish the picture, name and last known address of all sex offenders in the area. If the person is a multiple offender, or failed to register, they also publish the crimes with which they were charged. Though they don't directly link to maps, taking the address and pasting it into Google maps is a 5 second task that did nothing but scare me. I walk past a number of registered offenders every day!
A little more research showed that none of them were violent, repeat or predatory offenders - one 20 year old got on the list because he had sex with his 17 year old girlfriend, which I'm not saying is right morally or legally, but he posed little threat to anyone else. I'm sure the end result is that not too many people look as far into it as I did, and get completely freaked out in the process.
Take my advice, unless you have a pressing and relevant need to check out your area - STAY AWAY.
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Time for a first house
Wow, the posts have been few and far between recently... So the biggest news for the moment is that Abby and I are getting towards the end of the process of purchasing our first home. This has been crazy, exciting, nerve-racking and a huge adventure, but through it all we have really had a lot of fun.
Starting with an idea
After talking to many people with a lot more experience than ourselves (my parents, Abby's parents, and friends who have recently moved), when we began the process of looking for a home. The first thing we looked for was not the house, but the area...
My parents like to remind me of the three most import rules of property investment - location, location, location - and point out that it is equally import in a home, not just an investment property. Learning from their mistakes, their best advice was that even though they have loved all the houses they have lived in, they have missed a little on the locations. To echo this, Abby's sister, Molly, has a friend who recently moved into the general area we had decided we wanted to live. My father-in-law was talking to her only a month after they had moved in and asked how they were liking it. Her answer was sad. She said they love the house, but really don't like the subdivision they are in.
So we decided to keep this in mind when looking for our first home: houses can be fixed, carpet can be replaced, walls can be painted and yards can be landscaped - but you can't change your neighbours, their houses, the cars parked out front, the traffic flow or where an access road flows.
Starting the Process
Keeping the above in mind, we started a little differently to some people. Not on the Internet, not with a realtor, but on bikes and on foot. We knew we wanted to live fairly close to where we currently rent in the Westminster/Broomfield area, so we walked around the communities that were close to us.
While walking we took note of the feel or ambiance of the community. We looked at whether they had community facilities (pools, gyms, tennis courts etc) and how high the HOA fees were. We picked up fliers for any houses for sale in the area and got a general idea of the age/size/cost of the area.
One thing we took notice of, was how the community member took care of their cars, and funnily enough this was one of the BEST indicators of what a community was like! I'm not talking about whether they were expensive or cheap, but whether they were in good condition and well cared for. What we found was that a community with older cars that were in excellent condition ended up being nicer than a community with new/expensive cars that had been neglected a little. Expensive cars that had been cared for only seemed to be in communities way outside our price range - go figure ;)
One of the areas that we looked through was where Molly's friend lived, though we didn't know it at the time. Just going through it I turned to Abby and said that I felt it had a transitional or transient feeling to it. Later when we inspected a house or two there, the Realtor was telling us about the area and said it was almost completely first home buyers, and after a few years they moved out. Now this isn't necessarily a bad thing! There is always a market for that area, and houses sell quite often which means it will be good when it is time to move on, but it isn't what Abby and I were looking for. It was also nice to get confirmation that our "get a feel for the neighbourhood" plan was working.
We finally found a subdivision that we really loved. It's called College Hills/Stratford lakes (they are interchangeable). It's an older subdivision which presents it's own set of challenges, but it has wide quiet streets, no through-traffic, well established landscaping and it back's onto the Big Dry Creek trail and open space. On top of that it is almost halfway between Abby's workplace and mine, and has easy access to some arterial roads.
We'd found where we wanted to live - next came the challenge of finding a house.
OK, That'll do for this post - more to come later...
Starting with an idea
After talking to many people with a lot more experience than ourselves (my parents, Abby's parents, and friends who have recently moved), when we began the process of looking for a home. The first thing we looked for was not the house, but the area...
My parents like to remind me of the three most import rules of property investment - location, location, location - and point out that it is equally import in a home, not just an investment property. Learning from their mistakes, their best advice was that even though they have loved all the houses they have lived in, they have missed a little on the locations. To echo this, Abby's sister, Molly, has a friend who recently moved into the general area we had decided we wanted to live. My father-in-law was talking to her only a month after they had moved in and asked how they were liking it. Her answer was sad. She said they love the house, but really don't like the subdivision they are in.
So we decided to keep this in mind when looking for our first home: houses can be fixed, carpet can be replaced, walls can be painted and yards can be landscaped - but you can't change your neighbours, their houses, the cars parked out front, the traffic flow or where an access road flows.
Starting the Process
Keeping the above in mind, we started a little differently to some people. Not on the Internet, not with a realtor, but on bikes and on foot. We knew we wanted to live fairly close to where we currently rent in the Westminster/Broomfield area, so we walked around the communities that were close to us.
While walking we took note of the feel or ambiance of the community. We looked at whether they had community facilities (pools, gyms, tennis courts etc) and how high the HOA fees were. We picked up fliers for any houses for sale in the area and got a general idea of the age/size/cost of the area.
One thing we took notice of, was how the community member took care of their cars, and funnily enough this was one of the BEST indicators of what a community was like! I'm not talking about whether they were expensive or cheap, but whether they were in good condition and well cared for. What we found was that a community with older cars that were in excellent condition ended up being nicer than a community with new/expensive cars that had been neglected a little. Expensive cars that had been cared for only seemed to be in communities way outside our price range - go figure ;)
One of the areas that we looked through was where Molly's friend lived, though we didn't know it at the time. Just going through it I turned to Abby and said that I felt it had a transitional or transient feeling to it. Later when we inspected a house or two there, the Realtor was telling us about the area and said it was almost completely first home buyers, and after a few years they moved out. Now this isn't necessarily a bad thing! There is always a market for that area, and houses sell quite often which means it will be good when it is time to move on, but it isn't what Abby and I were looking for. It was also nice to get confirmation that our "get a feel for the neighbourhood" plan was working.
We finally found a subdivision that we really loved. It's called College Hills/Stratford lakes (they are interchangeable). It's an older subdivision which presents it's own set of challenges, but it has wide quiet streets, no through-traffic, well established landscaping and it back's onto the Big Dry Creek trail and open space. On top of that it is almost halfway between Abby's workplace and mine, and has easy access to some arterial roads.
We'd found where we wanted to live - next came the challenge of finding a house.
OK, That'll do for this post - more to come later...
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