We had two important walk-throughs last week and the week before.  On the 11th, we met with the electrician to go over what we wanted, and where we wanted it.  I, personally, don’t have many electrical needs.  I just need the light to turn on when I hit the switch, the refrigerator to refrigerate, the oven to bake, the freezer to freeze, and the heat pump to heat/cool.  Oh, and my curling iron to work when I plug it in.

Matt, on the other hand, has enormous electrical needs.  He works from home, on his computer, and with lots of accompanying accessories (printer, scanner, stereo, TV, DVD, etc.).  Therefore he spent a great deal of time going over “amps” with the electrician.  After a freezing cold 45-minutes, everything was straightened out and we knew what was going where and how much power there would be.

Then, on the 17th, we walked through with Tim, the supervisor.  Tim invited us to take pictures before the drywall was installed, covering up all the tubes and wires and studs.  That way, if we wanted to make changes later, or even to hang items from the wall, we’d know exactly where a crucial wire or pipe would be, so we wouldn’t mess things up, and so things would be easier.  That was a very informative meeting, and we feel confident that what needs to be done has been done and we’re on to the next step.

I think the house is going to be closed off to non-worker access from this point on.  Almost everything that needed to be done outside has been completed, and now everything will be done inside.  They lock the doors so random passers-by (and future homeowners!) can’t traipse through and disturb the work.  Heavy sigh.

Welcome back!  Happy New Year to you and yours!

This post is about the selling aspect of buying a new house.  If you have an existing home, and are not incredibly wealthy, you’re going to have to sell the one home before you can buy the other.  That’s the position we’re in.

At the end of last year, we re-carpeted, re-floored, added new kitchen counter tops and a tile back splash, and painted the entire interior (read more about that here).  Matt and I ran around town the week between Christmas and New Year’s buying new towels and shower curtains and bedding and decorative accessories.  We took huge amounts of furniture to storage.  We bought fresh flowers (okay, Matt moved the furniture and I bought the fresh flowers!).  Finally, on Friday the 6th, we were ready.  I listed the house in the MLS and – boom!  We were live!

And nothing happened.  No calls, or texts, or vast hordes of inquiries.

It’s not that I honestly expected that to happen, but I had considered how fun it would be if it did happen.  My husband, when I would mention the knots in my stomach, or the bad dreams I kept having, reminded me he wasn’t worried.  He had confidence in his Realtor.  I, however, did not hold her in as high esteem.

Finally, after our first showing, I called the agent who had shown it to ask what his clients thought.  I always do this.  Some agents have an e-mail they auto-send when someone shows their listings, or they don’t bother getting feedback at all.  I like to call people to ask because the voice carries so much more information than simply the words used.  I tried to play it cool – I waited several hours, then asked in my “agent” voice what did his clients think of the house.  My heart was in my mouth!  I found it MATTERED to me, a great deal!  He said “they really liked it”.  Nothing negative, only good stuff.  Oh my gosh!  I was positively giddy!  What a relief!

Now, allow me to state this for the record to all my sellers…past, present and future…YOU ARE AMAZING!  To function and keep your house clean and not come unhinged at every minute of the day – you are rock stars, and I thank you for allowing me to help you sell your home. I had vastly underestimated the stress and low thrum of pressure hovering under the surface.

So, now there is nothing to do but wait for an offer.  And blog.  See you soon!

Oh, check out our house’s web site if you’d like – 5044blueheron.com.

The building has begun in earnest. They broke ground, as I reported last week, and until we get called to make sure that everything electrical is where we want it to be, we get to do a lot of waiting.

This is actually okay with me because now, I need time to shop!! It’s December, and both of our children have December birthdays, plus we celebrate Christmas, so December is a big gift-buying month for us. Matt and I feel really bad about the fact that for our kids, all the gift-giving of the year comes within a 12-day period. Yes, that’s silly. It’s not as if we PLANNED to have both in December, it’s just how it happened. However, we’ve noticed that we tend to over-do it when it comes to gifts for them both. I know that as I’m perusing the shops, I’ll see something that might appeal to one of the kids, and I’ll pick it up, reasoning, “It’ll work for birthday OR Christmas. Good thing I picked it up. I certainly don’t want one of the kids to go without something on their big day, or THE big day!” Consequently, when it comes time to wrap, I find an embarrassing amount of items waiting.

The point is that this year, we called a halt to all that. For two good reasons – one, it’s about time we stop “paying” for the great transgression of having kids in December, and two, we need to make sure we don’t put any large purchases on our credit cards during the house-building process. That’s the real focus behind this post – don’t make any major purchases while you’re in the escrow period.

Don’t buy a new car, or an engagement ring, or even new furniture or appliances (a toaster will probably be okay) for the new house on credit. Even if you’re using cash, if you’re taking it out of your cash reserves that you’ve told the bank you have, don’t do it, either. Here’s the reason why – you were approved to purchase the house you’re buying based upon the financial picture you presented to your lender at the time you applied. If that picture changes in any significant way, the lender can pull back and say, “Hey, wait a minute, partner – you’re not the same borrower you were when you asked us for money earlier.” And then, you can be charged a higher interest rate OR even be declined for the loan.

Don’t apply for any new credit lines, either. This time of year, especially, there will be offers for new credit cards which will save you anywhere from 10%-50% off. “Cari!” I can hear you saying, “But I can SAVE so much money!! That’s GOOD, right?” The answer is no, not when you’re buying a house. Sorry. Don’t close any accounts, either. You want to keep your financial picture as similar to the day you applied for your loan as you can.

This includes not taking a new job, unless you check with your lender, first. Even if you will be making scads more money, the job you have is a long-term sure thing. The new job and the accompanying large salary is a promise. Promises carry less weight with lenders than the proverbial bird in the hand.

Hang tight until you’re in the new house, then spend all the money you can afford, if you want to. Take the new job, buy a car for the third bay in that new 3-car garage, whatever. Just wait, please.

My oldest son understands the dialing back on the gifts. After we explained the Christmas cut-back, my daughter (birthday a few days after Christmas) asked, “Are we going to go soft on birthdays, too?” Ahhhhh, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree! I think we can get her the new pair of slippers and the stuffed animals she wants without incurring the wrath of our lender.

Part 7 will likely be posted in January. I am scheduled for jury duty at the end of this year, beginning of next year. Depending on whether I get picked to serve on a jury or not will impact my writing time. Plus, the house will be further along in January and I’ll have more to discuss.

If you don’t stop by my blog before the end of the year – Happy Holidays and Happy New Year!

(Stock image courtesy of Shutterstock and used with permission.)

THEY BROKE GROUND!!!!!!!!  I was away,  visiting friends in Portland this last week, when Matt called me, beyond giddy, to exclaim, “They started our house!!!!!!”  Thank Heaven, I thought to myself.  I trusted the builder and the team to do what they’re supposed to do. and so I figured it would start when they were ready to start.  BUT SOMEONE in the family (my beloved, Matt) drove by the site every day to see if they had begun.  And when they hadn’t, I’d receive frantic texts, “Do you think the deal has fallen through?”  “Shouldn’t they have started by now?”  My colleague and I found this so amusing the other week that she suggested I text him back that she had a client she wrote up after we wrote our offer, and her people are supposed to be in by Christmas.  So, I did, and he called, all in a dither.  Who says real estate isn’t fun???

One interesting thing about this entire enterprise is that I am truly understanding some “truisms” about real estate.  I’ve heard time and time again that the footprint of the house, the raw outline against the ground that one sees at the beginning, looks impossibly small.  On a two-story, there’s always a little consolation, “Well, we’ll have another entire floor.”   But in a rambler, like ours, what you see is what you get, and it looks like we’re going to leave 1718 square feet for…1718 square feet again!   The bedrooms and living spaces that looks enormous on paper, look tiny when laid out on the lot.  When I look at the outline on the ground, and I envision moving around in my future home, it feels like I’ll only need to take seven steps to cross from one end of the house to the other.  Such is the power of perspective.

I think I have one or two more posts in me about this, until we get closer to completion of the project, and then I’ll probably resume a weekly update.  Thanks for reading along and sharing our excitement, and your ideas.  It’s been an awesome experience, so far.

So, the next step in the process was the – fanfare please – PRE-CONSTRUCTION MEETING.

This is where Matt and I, and the other agents (George and Karren), and the designer (Vicki Kangas), the builder (Les Savitch), and the building supervisor (Tim Kangas), all got together and hammered out every last detail possible.

This took a long time.  Like with the meeting at Colortile, I can see how it could have gone even longer.  However, Matt and I had spent a great deal of time discussing what we wanted, beforehand.  Despite that, certain subjects did arise that we hadn’t considered, and so we had to make some decisions without a ton of thought.  For instance – we changed our kitchen island counter top to slab granite, which necessitated it being shortened by two feet.  We already knew that it would be shorter, but we had to decide, quickly, whether we wanted the island to be shortened by two feet at one end, or by one foot at each end.  Of course, it’s not a huge deal, but we had to decide right away, which added some stress to the proceedings.

We also decided where the fence would be (Matt put it farther back than I would have liked, but apparently I picked granite he doesn’t like, so life is about compromise, right? ), we extended some concrete, making our patio area larger, and changed the door leading out of our bedroom to the patio area from a slider to an actual door.  Matt placed the bookshelves in his office, we placed all our light fixtures, and discussed what paint would be painted on which walls, exterior and interior.  For a detail-oriented guy like Matt, this was the perfect meeting.  He is confident nothing was overlooked.

Remember back in part 1, when I said I knew the price we arrived at the day we wrote the purchase and sale would not be the final price?  Unfortunately, I was right.  We had a price the first day, then added more at the design meeting at Colortile, and then added even more at the Pre-Con meeting.  Our total price for our new house is approximately $25,000 more than it was that first day.  The vast majority of the cost was taken up in flooring upgrades (going from vinyl to tile throughout was a big expenditure).

At the Pre-Con, Matt slipped me a note, “Are we pricing ourselves out of ever re-selling?”  GREAT question, Matt.  I’d like to say I’m rubbing off on him, but it’s probably his dad’s influence, as he is a Realtor, too, so he grew up with profit-and-loss talk around the dinner table.

My answer was no, because the things we were doing are not terribly individualized.  When we do go to re-sell (hopefully not for ten to fifteen years), the things we added now will be things that we enjoyed and received worth from, and things that will please the next owner.  The “more power” electrical system, the sink in the laundry room, the slider-to-actual door changes, are all completely reasonable upgrades that any owner will appreciate, be it us, or the people who buy the house from us or subsequent owners years in the future.

And that’s where we’re at so far.  Matt is torturing himself by driving by the site EVERY DAY, to see if they’ve started work on it.  Which they haven’t, and he sends me texts, “Why haven’t they started yet? Has the deal fallen through?”  Heavy sigh.  He might be my toughest client yet!

My husband, Matt, and I are building our new home.  This is the third in a series of who-knows-how-many.  I’m writing from the perspective of a buyer, and an agent, since I am both in this case.  To get caught up to speed, please take a look at parts 1, and 2.

So, Matt and I went to Color Tile in Kennewick to pick out our cabinetry, counter tops, back splashes, tile flooring, carpeting, interior paints, and exterior paints.  Phew!  It took us about three hours.  Matt and I generally agree on things, too.  I can’t imagine if we were constantly at odds when it comes to decor. It would have taken ages to decide, probably.  We are somewhat handicapped because we grew up on opposite coasts of the U.S., so Matt brings some East Coast perspectives, and I bring some West Coast sensibilities, and sometimes, they just don’t mesh.  Fortunately, that day they often did, except for in the master bath.  However, after I tossed and turned all weekend, we changed the master bath floor tile the following Monday and now all is well.

The cabinetry is maple, with a stain called “Sedona”, which of course tells you nothing, really.  It is sort of a deep cherry color.  Now seems a good time to tell you that there will be extensive joking in the course of this blog series about the names of things – paints and stains, etc.  I know they can’t just say “red” or “blue”, but does “Heartthrob” or “Respite” really help your mind’s eye obtain an accurate picture of the color?  I’m going to say no.

All the floors will be tile except for the library area (which is what the area is called in the floor plan, but we won’t be using it as such), the great room and the bedrooms.  The tile is a travertine called Noce, which is actually really common.  You can even go into a non-Color Tile store, and I’m fairly confident you can still fine the Noce travertine tile.

The main bath that the kids and guests will use is that same travertine tile, and smaller tiles will make up the counter top.

Our master bath floor, shower and counter tops are Sable tile.  Sable sounds like it’s really dark, but it’s not.  It’s about the same tone as the Noce, actually.

The carpet is Lodge (you can TOTALLY see that color, can’t you?), and we upgraded the pad.  I have heard time and time again, your carpet quality can be middling, but you really need to not spare expense on your pad.  It makes a much larger difference than you would think, and provides a great deal of value in relation to the money you spend.

In the kitchen, we upgraded to a granite slab on top of our island, and along the other kitchen counter tops.  It’s called Santa Cecilia, and I LOVE it!  Matt really wanted a darker granite, but the cabinetry is already dark, and if everyone said it once, they said it a hundred times, don’t get a dark counter top!  It shows all your spills and every streak.  I think Matt was tapping in to his man-cave aesthetic, looking for dark, dramatic spaces to hang out in.  However, he eventually agreed with my preference.  Then we needed to choose the glass inset for the back splash.  The main tile on the back splash is the same as the floor (smaller, 7×7 tiles, but still the Noce), but there is a glass tile inset for contrast – Lido by Newport.  We spent a huge amount of time debating over that choice!  We took the cabinet sample outside, the floor tile, and the glass tile finalists out in natural light, so we could make the best choice.  Fluorescent lights are not always the friendliest lights for decision making.

At this point I want to give a shout out and a HUGE thank you to Stephen Taylor and Vickie Kangas.  Stephen works at CarpetsPlus/Color Tile and he was unfailingly patient and cheerful while we made our choices.  Vickie is the design consultant with Oasis and she was fantastic.  She supported our choices, but subtly, tactfully, suggested other options when our first ideas were going awry, or if Matt and I were at an impasse.

All the paints, inside and out, are Sherwin Williams.  Our walls are Kilim Beige (appeals to the violent streak in all of us!), and we have some accent walls which are Dignity Blue.  Outside is Summit Grey and Green Black.  The trim color is called Big Chill.

This concludes the sneak peek at the decor of the future McGee compound.  We honestly had a great experience at Color Tile.  We’re so excited to see everything all together, in our new home!  March feels very far away at this point.

Up next – the Pre-Construction meeting…

Ugh.

There is so much to do!  We need to paint the interior, replace all the flooring, and change out the kitchen counter tops.  I think my favorite part of explaining all I am doing to my real estate colleagues is when they ask, “Are you SURE you need to do all that?”

My answer – “I want to sell it quickly for a good amount, so yes, I do need to do all that.”

We tackled the painting first.  And when I say “we”, I mean we paid someone to do it for us.  As Matt and I do not have the skill-set necessary to build our new home, we do not have the skill-set necessary to paint with any sort of aptitude.  It would take us twice as long as it took the guys we hired, and our marriage would likely be sorely tested.  “Is that the second coat?  Doesn’t look like you were there before…” “Yes, dear, I painted that yesterday, and now I am going back through the entire living room.” And on and on and on…

We hired the guys from Cleancraft to paint.  They also do all our odd jobs like replacing plumbing fixtures, light fixtures, and anything beyond light-bulb changing.

They asked us to get everything off our walls and away from our walls.  As a result, our house looked like we were in an episode of Hoarders.

See?  It was nuts.

We’re getting a bid for the flooring this week, and the counter tops will be installed by the same guy who is doing the flooring.  He up-sold me into doing a tumbled tile back splash in the kitchen, too.  I want things to be nice for the new owners, but I didn’t think I wanted it to be THAT nice!

Next up – the meeting at Colortile, where we pick out the trimmings for our new house – flooring, counters, cabinetry, etc.  THAT should be very interesting!

Some things you should know up front – we are not the builder. (Thank Heaven! Neither Matt nor I possesses the skill-set necessary to build a house!)

We are using a production builder, who is customizing an existing floor plan for us.  Here’s the difference – a custom builder will use your floor plan, and do whatever you want them to do.  A production builder uses only certain floor plans that he or she has built thousands of times before, and only works within certain parameters.  For example, I would like a tankless hot water system.  The builder we chose doesn’t install those, so it’s not something I can have in my new house.

We chose our builder, Oasis, because they are the only one building in the area we wanted to live. We wanted to stay in West Richland, and we wanted a view.  We were able to get both in the subdivision where Oasis is building.

Fortunately, Oasis has a good reputation, and the listing agents we’re working with, Karren and George Garton, know their stuff.  No matter how much we want a new house (and believe me, we want one!), if the builder had been sub-par, we wouldn’t have gone forward.

We sort of feel like this is a meant-to-be sort of thing.  The lot we wound up choosing had become available just thirty minutes before we got there.  In fact, we drove over with a different lot in mind.  However, while we were walking down to view another floor plan than that of the model, Matt paused on a lot and asked Karren, “Which lot is this?”  “Seven,” she replied.  “It just became available a half-hour ago.”

Well, it was all over for Matt but the shouting.  My husband is a sucker for a good view.

We found the floor plan we liked, then began planning and pricing.  Karren told us we needed to be pre-approved through their preferred lender.  We didn’t have to use him, we just needed to be pre-approved through him.  His name is David Austin, and I’ve worked with David before.  In fact, I was currently working with him, as he was handling the loan for some clients of mine.  My husband wanted to work with the lender that had done our re-fi. His name is Dan Melior. However, we applied online with David that night, anyway.

Armed with our pre-approval, off we went back to the model home the next day, and over the course of a couple hours, we hammered out an offer.  I don’t know how it is in other areas (I’ve heard it can be very different elsewhere), but here, when you buy a new house, the builder gets what they ask for, in terms of price.  It’s very straight-forward.  If this upgrade costs $938, the buyer pays that amount.  So, that’s what we did.  Added all the upgrades we wanted on top of the base price, and boom – came up with the final price of our house.  I know it actually won’t be final – we will encounter further costs as we go along.  I know we’re going to want to upgrade floor coverings and counter tops, for example.

So, we’re very excited and that’s a good thing.  We’re going to need that excitement to carry us through the tough parts of getting our existing home ready for the market. (Ugh!)  And that’s what I’ll tackle in part 2.

I have issues with a lot of what she said, but that is another topic for another post for another time.  Here’s the main problem -

I told my family on Saturday, “She’s wrong.  The people who were laid off knew they were here temporarily. And because they knew they’d be leaving in a couple years, they didn’t buy a house.  They rented.  Which is why it was nearly impossible to find a rental for the past couple of years.  NOW, they’ll be leaving, right when a ton of new apartment complexes have finished being built.  So, there will be all kinds of rental availability, but not houses.  Houses will not be flooding the market.”

And look what showed up on KEPR-TV today…

“It’s Getting Easier and Cheaper to Find an Apartment in the Tri-Cities”

The article goes on to say pretty much what I told my family yesterday.

I love it when a theory, based on market knowledge, is confirmed to be true by a news source!

You know how some businesses will keep the first dollar they ever made and frame it?  Usually they display it somewhere near the front door or the cash register, or in the office.  I always thought that was a neat idea, although I’ve never done it.

In real estate, you need to keep client files for seven years, then you can toss all associated paperwork.  My first sale, to the O’Hairs, closed just over seven years ago, in April, 2004.

That means this is my eighth year selling real estate.  I can’t believe it.  When I began, I had no idea how much I would grow to love this business.  It’s so funny – for the period of time that you’re working with a person or a couple to find or sell (or both) a home, it’s an intense relationship.  You talk often, you e-mail late at night, you text at random moments; you’re very connected.  And then suddenly, the sale closes, and these people you spoke with, sometimes everyday, you don’t talk to anymore.  I call about a week later, just to check in, and then over the course of the next couple years I’ll write or call or comment on their Facebook wall, so the relationship doesn’t go away altogether, but it definitely becomes different than it had been.

I pulled out my O’Hair file the other day, preparing to shred everything therein.  I was flooded with memories.  I remember making the appointment to show the home, and then donating blood immediately before I was supposed to leave.  I had skipped lunch that day and for the first time for me, I felt dizzy and light-headed while donating.  Of course, I had to sit and recover, but I didn’t want to be late for my appointment.  I guzzled my juice and threw back my cookies and ran out of the Red Cross to drive to the house (about 20 minutes away from the donor center).  It was raining, I’d never been to the property, I had no idea where I was going…ugh, what a crazy day that was!  I showed up, let the folks in the house, and they loved it (note to all non-Realtors reading this – that is extremely rare…it isn’t very often that someone decides to buy the first house they look at!  It almost never happens, in fact.)!  We scurried around, securing financing and writing my first offer (scary!!!!), then the waiting began.  It was a repossession, so Fannie Mae, a government entity, was the seller.  And we waited, and we waited, and we waited.  Every day, if I hadn’t heard by 3pm, I knew it would be another day until I did hear, because the seller was in Texas, two hours ahead.  The buyer called me every day, if I hadn’t already called him by 3:02.

And finally, in April, it closed.  And I received MY VERY FIRST REAL ESTATE PAYCHECK – for something like $659.17. Woo-freakin’-hoo!  I had jeopardized my life to show a house, and spent countless hours on the phone, for less than seven hundred dollars!!  Note to all non-Realtors reading this – real estate is NOT the path to get rich quick!

I’m having a hard time parting with the O’Hair file.  They were the very first couple to take a chance on me as a Realtor, and all my initial enthusiasms and anxieties and hopes seem to be caught between the cover and back of the folder.  I’d frame it, but it’s a bit too thick.  The people who frame their first dollar take that dollar out of circulation, and they’re okay with that.   I think I’m going to have to be okay with sacrificing some much needed file space in order to hold on to the O’Hair file.  It’s going to be around as reminder for some time to come.