Gloriaperpetua’s Weblog

I figure I owe an update on the Proctor sisters.  Miss 17 Proctor actually got me to ask for a second date (showing).  It has definite potential, but needs a few major jobs.  The majorest is moving the bathroom out of the kitchen, and then repairing what’s left behind in the kitchen.  The second majorest would be to bust through the wall that separates the two tiny rooms they call bedrooms.  (None of the “3″ bedrooms in this house is anywhere near normal size, which I’d guess is the primary reason this house hasn’t sold.) 

There are other smaller, but not entirely small must-dos, including the professional “trimming” of an extremely tall, extremely overgrown oak that’s leaning on power lines and close to the house.  That’s actually not a very cheap job.  Additionally, the front steps absolutely have to be redone — that one I could probably do if I put my mind to it.

So to get into that house, I’d have to get a rehab loan, which typically only funds you for a percentage (example 90%) of the new total, meaning you have to have the rest in cash at the outset of the project (in the form of a down payment).  It comes out to about 18K, which would be very funny if it wasn’t so sad.

So, our 3rd date is on Sunday at 11am.  You may have just guessed that she was off the list, but there is a very remote chance that my grandparents may see the potential here and wish to get in on the investment.  After all, the location is excellent and the house would be worth twice as much if it had a normal layout.  If I was thinking really long term, the house should have a second floor, but I may not be the gal for such an endeavor any time too soon.

So tonight I’m seeing a townhouse-style condo in Weymouth.  I’ve actually seen another unit in this complex, but the one I’m seeing today is an end unit, making it ever so slightly larger than the other one, as well as quieter, and with a fireplace.  Guess what the square footage is on this one, and assume that it’s bad…

600 sq ft.

Yeah, stop laughing, it’s not easy being green.

If you recall from a previous lesson on real estate terms, this one would be “cute”, meaning nice but small.  I’ll give you a walk through.

Here she is from the outside… in winter:

This is what you’d see if a ghost had just opened the front door while you were standing just about in the kitchen, or on the other end of the room pictured here.

This is the right side of the kitchen.  The refrigerator would go on the other side of the stove there.  Notice the stove is electric and there’s no dishwasher, yech.  But yes, that there is a little bit of granite counter.

Here’s the fireplace, in the main room which must serve as living and dining.  Right now, I think the brick and brass are very ugly, but with a little money, wood, and marbe tile, this could be a nice focal point.  Hope it works!

This is the second floor.  You’d see this from right in front of the bathroom.  To the left is the linen closet and in front of you is one of the two bedrooms.

The other bedroom, or inside the one we just peered in.  They’re about the same size.

Bedroom or office for me.

Mama like hardwoods and fireplace, and fortuantely yellow walls as well.  The fireplace could be rehabbed, and the kitchen is small and needs some careful strategizing to add a dishwasher and some built in seating.

So I’ll see that tonight at 7.  It’s listed at 120K, and Christina gave me the inside scoop that this was bought for 102K by a contractor who put in the shiny amenities, and they tried to resell it for 137K, but it didn’t.  This is certainly not the boom, but years ago this townhouse sold for around 160K, so the thought with buying this would be to make improvements to the kitchen, bath, and fireplace, and then wait for a good time to sell.

In totally unrelated news (well, related to the Subject, which I have plagiarized) you should listen to Jake La Botz.

Please allow me to introduce you to my two latest reasons to stay awake all night.

Miss 17 Proctor Street:

And Miss 17A Proctor Street:

As you may infer from their names, these two are related.  They share a rather generous plot of land, and Miss 17A resides behind Miss 17 somehow or another.  I haven’t seen them with mine own eyes because the listing agent refuses to answer his phone, return voicemails, or respond to pages, from both me and my semi-vigilant buyer’s agent.

Anyhow, let me tell you what I know about these two lovely ladies, the Proctor sisters.  They’re in Natick, and they’ve both been on the market for a year now.  Miss 17A’s listing price has come down 63 thousand dollars, and Miss 17’s has come down 50 thousand dollars… this is when you say “hmm”. 

Somewhere, buried deep, a rational minded person within me is pointing her index finger sternly, as if to say, “prepare thyself for the likelihood of extreme disrepair, you positively moronic child”.  

But “Ohhh” says the wistful dreamish inner-me that’s somehow taken over, “Ohhh how I would love to have my very own tiny precious house in Natick“. 

While I’m sure this is yet another instance in which I could most likely benefit from a hard slap and someone telling me loudly and with unfriendliness NOT TO GET MY HOPES UP, I, unfortunately have been duped by the promise of “move-in condition” in the description, a “nice yard”.  So for some reason I choose to believe that these houses aren’t selling because nobody else (besides me) can fit in them.  (That theory to be explained in the next paragraph.)

Miss 17 Proctor may appear fairly large, but you know how they say the camera adds 10 pounds?  In this case it may be adding about 1000 sq ft.  She’s only 880 sq ft of living space, but manages to contain 3bdrms and 1ba… this is a must-see to fully comprehend situation. 

Miss 17A does have a walkway under those fallen leaves, and does look much prettier in another photo of her where the folliage was full and the sun was brighter, but she too is immensely small at 550 sq ft.  The most hilarious factoid about Miss 17A is she comes with a shed in the rear, so she’s basically a shed, that comes with a shed.  (NOT that I’m making fun of her because she’s so utterly in my price range… and in Natick to boot: a seemingly impossible combination.)  Somehow this manages to have 2bdrms 1ba built into that 500 sq ft… another case of “must view to fully compute”.

If goddamn Patrick Lydon of Lydon Real Estate would kindly call me the fuck back so I could arrange a showing today, I would be a much happier person.  I might even get some sleep tonight.

Speaking of tonight, though not of sleeping: At 21 Nichols Ave in Watertown, at “21 Nickels Grill and Tap”, bluesy/rockin/soulful/amazing Jake La Botz is playing his gee-tar and sangin his songs.  No cover.  I expect it to be sensational.  Incase I don’t post anything before then, he’s also playing tomorrow at Brendan Behan’s pub in J.P.  At present, I intend to attend both shows.

Please include the Proctor sisters in your prayers for me tonight.  Not to insinuate that you regularly pray for me, or regularly pray at all, but maybe you could, just this once.

I finished reading The Godfather — so well written that it trumped the film.  I also liked Kay Adams so much better in the book, and there were such interesting side stories about characters that there wasn’t time for in the movie.  Mike and I watched it the night after I finished the book.  I definitely understood it slightly better having read the book, which goes into detail about all the different families, and better explains different plots.  So good.

Last night I fell asleep at like 6pm reading a new book, Tell No One,  a thriller by Harlan Coben that I borrowed from Mike’s mom.  I slept until around 10:30, then started reading again until midnight.  Communication from the dead, police chases — I was reading by the open sliding glass doors and got totally spooked — had to lock up the house.  I’m about halfway through, and the book’s pretty thick.  It’s funny how fast you can read some books.  I’m not a fast reader, but it’s proof that more complicated writing actually takes longer for the brain to process.

Saw a decent property over the weekend (an attached townhouse in Quincy) that needed a ton of cosmetic work — so much cosmetic work that it actually seemed like a fixer-upper!  It was covered in wood panneling and bad wallpaper, hideous paint, and not a single floor surface that could be left as is.  The place was pretty small for two people to live in, and not cheap enough that I wouldn’t want a roomate, but it did have some advantages, like two floors of living place plus a small basement with laundry and a little plot of outdoors off the EIK. 

A rehabbed version of this is selling for tens of thousands cheaper in Weymouth, tho it lacks the basement and outdoor space.   It does have a fireplace however.  That one I could afford to live alone.  Things to be considered.

Either today or tomorrow, I’m seeing a tiny house in Natick.  Tomorrow there’s an open house at a condo in Norwood.  With as dedicated to the search as I’m being, and it only being mid-August, I’m starting to feel like I have a decent shot at hosting Christmas this year.  We shall see.

I finally saw two places I really liked, both in Roslindale.  One was a “charming” 2bdrm 1ba (this is real estate code for very nice, but on the small side), and the other was an “insanely enormous” (not code) 2bdrm 1.5ba with a potential 3rd bdrm in the finished attic, and a certain bar/lounge potential in the finished basement.  We’re talking shiny hardwood floors, awesome windows, and recessed lighting throughout.  The second one had a nice outdoor space too.

I’m not moving on either because they both had some downsides, but I’m keeping my eye on both.  They’ve been on the market for a while, so we can take it slow.

Tomorrow, I’m meeting the Bob man at 10am in Quincy to do a 15 house circuit: Quincy, Braintree, Weymouth, ending in Hyde Park.  Wish luck!

Sometimes the reality of getting up at 5:30 in the morning doesn’t really hit until 7:45, at which point the entire body gellifies into a warm, rubbery sleepiness… the head heavy, the eyes stinging to be rubbed and begging to close.

I drove to work from Mike’s house in Quincy this morning, left at 5:50 in the morning, because if there’s anything I hate, it’s traffic on 93.  As a result of leaving so early, and taking advantage of my ability to speed on the open road, I got into work at 6:25.  This is very nice because I’ll get to leave at 2:30.

By 11:07, having been here so unnaturally long already,  I’ve already gotten a sensible half day’s worth of work done, so I figured I would bring the blog up to speed on the recent house hunt status.

I was right (and simultaneously wrong) about getting my hopes up for the Natick house.  It was in need of demolition (a gut job) had no appliances, severe water damage, needed new ceilings, floors, probably a new roof, etc.  Again, who knows about the basement because some houses are too scary to want to check out the scene “down there”.

Today will hopefully be more promising.  I’m doing a circuit of Hyde Park and Roslindale — seeing 7 properties in total.  I think only one of them is a single family (Hyde Park foreclosure) and the rest are condos.  Regardless of whether any of this pans out, it will at least be nice to check out the Roslindale area, which I’m pretty unfamiliar with.  Three properties are near the Arnold Arboretum, and I know the JP side of this to some extent (and I like it).  One other is right on the ege of Mt Hope cemetary (hey, at least it’s quiet with trees) and the three others surreound the Stony Brook reservation and George Wright golf course.  I used to think there were only golf courses in really ritzy places…

In other news, there’s been some email exchange about starting a band with some people.  I would be interested in singing again, even though this isn’t the most available time in my life.  I figure a good outlet for unproductive fun could be just what the doctor ordered.  In the words of Debbie Vallante (about me), “you don’t have an irresponsible bone in your body”.  I think she meant it as a compliment, but my inner rock star cringed with rebel-wannabe-ism.

Random thoughts:

• Elephunk is a great game, worth $5 on PS3
• Bob Drake talks a lot, and every time I type his name, I typo “Bob Drank”, then laugh
• I usually spend time with my mom on Thursdays.  I hope she will come see a place/some places with me soon.
• It would be nice if I found the one today.  It would always be nice if I found the one.

The prospect of house-buying, I have come to conclude, is a major distraction from anything and everything else imaginable.  I had thought, when I first got serious, that my days of mental absenteeism would diminish once the excitement wore off, but I’ve found that the closer you feel you are to the actual event of buying property, 1) the more exciting it is and 2) the more there is to frantically research, and mull over in the mind.

I even slept distractedly, waking up the middle of imaginary debates over the design schemes of imaginary houses.  I probably shouldn’t have watched 5 hours of HGTV last night.  I really find that channel addictive these days.

My mind is particularly in left field (if working is home plate) because I have an appointment to look at more houses this evening, one in particular that I’m fixated on.  I got out of bed (exhaustedly) at 7am, got into the office at 8:30, and have to stay here for another 2 hours and 20 minutes…  It feels like an eternity.  I know excitement about seeing this property is unwise, but if this one turned out to be what I want it to be, I would be really happy about it.

It’s in Natick, which would clearly be a great place to buy, and it’s an estate sale (the house was left to someone, and they’re selling it).  It’s apparently zoned as a 2 family, and has been listed as both a single and a multi (weird flip-flopping) so I’m expecting something funky to be going on with regard to this… who knows what.

If this could be refined into a functional 2 family, given that the asking price is low even for a single family in this neighborhood (or any, really) it would pretty much be the smartest thing I could buy.  The ability to fix up one area (unit) and rent it while fixing the other.  And forever more have a second income on the property.

The major question mark and reason for skepticism here, is that this 3bdrm, 2 ba antique house is listed at nearly 200K less than the assessment amount.   So, one must ask the beleagured question “what’s wrong with it?”  I’m mentally prepping myself for a repeat of the Hough’s Neck abomination, since this house is also old, but if this one has things that house didn’t, such as a furnace and a kitchen, perhaps I could consider it.  Natick is, after all, a better investment than Hough’s Neck.

Aaahhh, good brainpurge sesh.  Hopefully I can get back to work now.  =)