Drat

Rates are back up. :( Oh well.

This is why I don't like Vegas...

Decisions Decision

Gah - Who knew that being a homeowner involved SO MANY decisions?

When Kyle and I started house shopping we also started watching the interest rate at our credit union. Man - that thing is a roller coaster ride, if ever I saw one!

At one point the rate for a no points, 30-year fixed loan got down to 4.875%. Oh how I wish we had locked in back then...

By the time Kyle and I found our place the rate had risen to 5%... and then to 5.1%... and then 5.25%... and by the time we actually got all of our paperwork together and locked in, the rate was up to 5.375%. I was SO SAD. The difference in our monthly mortgage payment with a 5.375% loan vs. a 5% loan is like $125/month. It's a pretty big deal. I cried a lot about it (in fact I may have actually bawled in the bathroom at work, b/c I'm a bit over dramatic like that) - but eventually I accepted that there was nothing I could do about it.

In the following weeks, the interest rate continued to rise. At one point it got as high as 5.9%!!! Sheesh! Suddenly 5.375% was looking pretty good. Over the weekend, however, the rates started coming back down. On Monday they were 5.5%. And then, today, we got news that the rate dropped to 5.25%. Woah.

Our credit union has a policy that, for a fee of $250, you can do a one time "re-lock". Which means that for $250, we could lock in, today, at 5.25%. Which would save us $44/month. Not HUGE money, but you know, it would cover my monthly cell phone bill. But we can only do it once...

So the big question is: do we re-lock today and save $44/month... or do we save our one-time re-lock and wait to see if the rate drops again for potentially more savings?? Locking today means a guaranteed $44 in my pocket every month... locking tomorrow or the next day or even next week could mean $0 but it could also mean $50 or $60 or $100 per month!

What to do??? What to do???

Toast

My beautiful baby sister got married this past weekend.... details and photos to follow. For now, I want to share the toast I gave at the reception - you know, just because I wasn't POSTING this weekend doesn't mean I wasn't letting my creative juices flow.

This photo, snapped by Kyle as Caitlin walked down the aisle, captures my emotion pretty well... so you can imagine what a tough time I had reading the toast. But I actually managed to hold it together pretty well through the whole thing. Although when they had their first dance (to dixieland delight) I totally lost it.



Anyway, enjoy.


"Hello and Good Evening! For those of you who don't know me, I’m Courtney, the very proud big sister of our glamorous Bride. I want to start out tonight by congratulating Caitlin and Drew on their amazing wedding. The perfect day and the perfect venue for an absolutely perfect couple, it is truly an honor to be part of such a special occasion.

I’d also like to thank all of you, Caitlin and Drew’s friends and family, for coming here today, to celebrate with us. I know it means the world to our bride and groom to have each and every one of you here.

Caitlin – I just have say – you look STUNNING today. Absolutely drop dead gorgeous. Drew is a lucky man. It seems like just yesterday that we’re were running a line of duct tape down the middle of our shared room to separate “My” side from “Yours”. It seems like yesterday that I’d be tickling you till you cried, and of course then you tell on me to mom and I’d get in trouble, because I’m older and apparently I should KNOW BETTER than to tickle a person to point of tears. When we were little and we’d fight our mom used say, “Oh you two, how can you fight??? It breaks my heart. Don’t you know how lucky your are to have a SISTER???” And while our mom does have a flair for the dramatic, she was right. I am the luckiest girl in the world to have Caitlin as a sister. For 26 years, she has been my sidekick, my sounding board, my shopping buddy, my favorite dance partner, my confidant, and my very best friend.

Now, I never knew Drew before he dated Caitlin, so I can't tell you a whole bunch of stories about him, but I can tell you that I think he is perfect for my sister. I remember, four years ago, Caitlin telling me about this boy she met at party, how cute he was, and how they instantly connected and chatted the night away as if they were the only two people in the room. I remember thinking that this boy was toast – he never stood a chance. He was “The One” for my little sister. Drew – you are such a great guy. Funny, smart, charming, an excellent beer pong player. I have never questioned for one moment your love for Caitlin. She is truly blessed to have found you. And I can honestly say that I feel blessed to now call you family.

Caitlin, Drew, you guys are soul mates. I wish you all the best that life has to offer.

Everyone, please raise your glasses while I toast my little sister and her new husband:

Here’s to soul mates. Here’s to the crazy roller coaster called life, and to finding that special someone to share the ride with. Here’s to love, laughter, and happily ever after.

Cheers!"

:)

House!!

I must admit I am hesitant to write about the house before escrow actually closes (that whole chickens before they hatch thing...) but I suppose I can throw just a bit of caution to wind as we received good news today on the paperwork front with respect the arduous escrow process. (Long story short, the unit we are buying is in the process of becoming a condo... And oh what a process it is! It is currently one third of a three unit building... which is NOT the same as being a one CONDO in a three unit building (as far as the city is concerned)... even though it has it's own front door and walls and address and gas meter and everything... it looks, and smells, and acts like a condo... but make no mistake, it is not a condo... yet. First we must jump through many many many paperwork hoops, and then must we smile really big, and ask the city REALLY REALLY nicely, and even go as far as to pay all of NEXT YEAR'S property taxes up front... and THEN, if we're lucky, the city of San Francisco will graciously bestow upon our unit the miraculous name of condo. At which point in time we can FINALLY get a mortgage loan. Ugh. And don't even get me started on the fact that, long before Kyle and I made an offer on this place, the current owners had to win a lottery just for the mere pleasure of applying and paying for the necessary permits in order to ATTEMPT to become a condo. Gahhhhh!)

Little know fact: The condo conversion process, in total, takes about 2 years... that is after you've won the condo-lottery, which can easily take 7 - 10 years... in those 2 years most people age about 15. It's true.

So anyway... we heard good news today that the Mr. Head Honcho at the title company was "issuing the Title Company Guarantee of the Condo Map today"... which is really just confusing jargon to me... but my real estate lawyer tells me it's good news and we are now mere days away from being a condo. (I think) Hooray! So escrow might actually close in my lifetime.

So anyway - that's the ugly back story. Now for the fun part. House details!!!!!

Assuming all continues to go well, Kyle and I will (eventually) be the proud owners of a 2 bedroom 1 bathroom middle floor condo in the Duboce Triangle neighborhood of San Francisco. (Eeeeee!) The building was built in 1906 - which means it's dripping with, ummm, we'll call it character. It even has the original (made in 1904 - stamped right on the bottom!) claw foot bathtub... which p.s. we will NOT be keeping, b/c I hate claw foot tubs. Sorry. (Although it does weigh 400 pounds, so I understand the previous owners' lack of enthusiasm for moving it.) The place is about 1220 sq. ft - which sounds big (to me) but really isn't once you start trying to find room for all your crap (for instance, the piano from my dad's house - ugh, where on earth am I gonna put that thing - I REALLY wish I had just played the flute as a child.) But anyway... there's a WONDERFUL yard (I think this was the biggest selling point for us) out back with some grass, and a plum tree, and a lemon tree, and a whole garden growing everything from herbs, to strawberries, to corn, to tomatoes, to peppers. I swear, Kyle is chomping at the bit to just get out there and get his hands dirty. It's so cute. :) So yeah, the yard rules and sorta makes up for the fact that the building doesn't have a garage (although it DOES have quite a bit of storage in the basement - which was a big requirement for me... because, well, have I mentioned all my CRAP??) The place also needs a new roof, which is annoying, but at least we get to split the cost between all three owners. And the unit itself desperately needs a good scrubbing and an interior paint job and we'll definitely be ripping up the hideous blue carpet that is currently covering up the original hardwood floors. (Hardwood floors - eeeee!!!)

So yeah - it'll be a bit of project house, but the projects seem manageable (I hope!) and the neighborhood is AMAZING and it was in our price range. We're pretty excited.

See the two windows in the middle here? Those will be ours. :)


And now some Q and A's, because I know you want to know.

1. How long have we been looking for a house?
Seriously looking? Since January. And by seriously looking I mean that during the past 5+ months, we've maybe missed 3 open house Sundays. We even saw places on Easter. EVERY Sunday morning we'd get up and pull together all the open house addresses we found during the week and we'd then diligently map out our route (some weekends we had as many as 10 places to see in 3 hours! Proper route planning was key.) Then we'd eat breakfast, get coffee, and be on our way for the rest of the afternoon to check the prospective places out.

2. Did we work with a real estate agent to find places we liked?
No. 99.9% of all real estate agents bug me. And between redfin.com and craigslist.com and my constant vigilance in watching for new For Sale signs in neighborhoods I liked, there really wasn't much information that a realtor could provide me that I couldn't get on my own. Plus they bug me. (Did I mention that?)

3. Is this the only offer we put in?
No. This house was the fourth place we liked enough to consider putting in an offer on. The first place was an amazing (and HUGE!!!) 2 unit building that we wanted to buy with another couple. I loved that place... but it really wasn't in our price range, and the building hadn't been split into condos yet - so financing would have been a pain in the butt. We (us and the other couple) put in an offer but we were out bid by a whopping $200,000. (Yes we were outbid by the cost of a WHOLE HOUSE in most parts of the country.) Defeat. The second place was a upper unit in a two unit building (also not yet a condo, but more reasonably priced.) The neighborhood was great but the floorplan was pretty disfunctional. We decided that we could knock down some walls and make it work and we actually had our offer accepted! Wheee!! But then we tried to get financing and the downstairs owners didn't have enough equity to convince the bank to refinance the loan (see - this is the problem when a place isn't a condo - you can't get individual loans for each unit. Instead you have to get a loan for the WHOLE building - which can sometimes be impossible.) So then we found place number three... place number three will live on forever in my heart as the one that got away. I LOVE LOVE LOVED place number three. HUGE (1600 sq ft), a CONDO!, AMAZING floorplan, garage, storage, yard, huge kitchen, beautiful hardwood floors and gorgeous wood trim throughout. I was instantly in love. Unfortunately so were 7 other people. We offered $21K ABOVE asking and were still outbid. (Probably by quite a bit.) Ugh. And then we found place number four and here we are. :)

4. Did we put offers in on places without a real estate agent???
We tried all sorts of different stuff. For place #1, we found an agent (after we found the place), and wrote an offer the old fashioned way. What's crazy is that she would have gotten the entire Buyer's agent commission for about a day and a half of work. (I am in the WRONG business!) For place #2, we decided to try using the listing agent on the condition that he kick back $5000 to us to help cover closing costs (which seemed fair since he'd be making double commision because he was acting as both the selling and listing agent.) For place #3, we used a redfin agent - which has the huge advantages of a.) the agents don't pester you by trying to find you a place to live and b.) to compensate for not pestering you, they give you HALF of their commision when the deal closes. AWESOME!!! For place #4, we decided to go it alone - I wrote the whole offer contract myself (it's NOT rocket science, in fact it's mostly just fill in the blanks!) We decided not to use an agent (not use even a redfin agent, even though we love them!) because we knew that there were other offers on the table for the place we wanted. And if we didn't have an agent, then the sellers wouldn't have to pay our agent - which meant they got to keep more money for themselves, which made our offer stronger without us having to actually offer more money. Plus, did I mention that it is NOT rocket science??

5. When will escrow close?
I have no freakin clue. Maybe 4 weeks? 6 weeks?? It all hangs on the place officially converting to a condo and then us getting financing for said condo. Booo.

House Details...

... will have to wait. Because first I need to laugh at myself.

Last night I went to happy hour after work and played wing-woman for a girlfriend of mine. We sat at the bar sipping Pinot Nior chatting about men and commenting on the handsome bar tender's cute butt. And then it hit me. "Huh" I thought to myself. "When did I start finding old men handsome?" I'm not just talking about older men here... but like actual, objectively OLD men. This bar tender was cute, but you know, he was old. (Sorta like George Clooney) He had the salt and pepper hair, the worn in "man-hands", and an air about him that said I may be old, but I'm sitll dashing, no?. And he was dashing, but that's beside the point. He was OLD! And I thought he was cute! Weird.

Well, fast forward to the end of the night and it turns out that I accidentally left my wallet at the bar. (If my head weren't firmly attached to my body, I swear...) So I called, and spoke to some kind soul, and was SUPER relieved to find out that they had in fact found my wallet and were keeping it safely behind the bar. Whew! (Insert "kindness of strangers remark" here.) The kind soul then pointed out that he, having seen the birth date on my driver's liscense, was exactly 1 day older than me. Neat!

So I head back to the bar and, upon entering, get the attention of Mr. Salt-and-Pepper OldieVonCute himself and inform him that I just called and spoke with someone who found my wallet and could he please retreive it for me from behind the bar. "Hey!" he smiles "It's the girl who is exactly one day younger than me!!" And then he said some other stuff while handing me my wallet that I didn't really pay any attention to because all I could think was:

WHAT!!!????? I am the SAME AGE as Mr. OldieVonCute????? GAH!

D'oh.

In An Effort to Sleep Better

So I haven't been sleeping especially well lately... Even though I go to bed at a reasonable hour, I wake up at least twice a night and feel completely unrefreshed in the morning. And then on weekends, I stay up late and wake up early and can't fall back asleep. I'm becoming zombie and it's getting to be quite annoying! Google tells me that sleeplessness is sign of, among other things, stress and recommends a whole plethora of stress-relieving activities... including exercising - which, p.s., I did for a WHOLE month and really just detested every minute of it, blech! - and eating well - which I do, thankyouverymuch - and keeping a journal. And then it occurred to me... I haven't been blogging especially well lately. Hmmmm. Could my lack of blogging be keeping me up at night??? I guess I had sort of taken for granted the splendid catharsis that is pouring my heart out to the interwebs... sigh.

What the heck - reason #452 that blogging rules... it might cure my sleeplessness. (Fingers crossed!)

On the upside I have TONS to blog about....

1. Workout April was a smashing success... I worked out every single day for 30 days straight... I even did situps and pushups while hung-over in my underwear on the kitchen floor of my BFF Kim's apartment in NYC. (I was out there for her bachelorette party - which by the way, was SOMUCHFUN!) But boy, May 1st could not get here soon enough. Ugh. I HATE working out. Hate hate hate. Actually - it's not so much the working out part I hate... it's the motivating myself to just get up and go do it part that kills me. I really should consider joining a group class of some sort so I'm FORCED to stick to the workout... of course signing up for the class falls into the whole motivation thing...

2. My sister is getting married in TEN DAYS! TEN DAYS!!!!!!! I'm so excited for the wedding. It's going to be amazing! My cousin is making the cake, my mom is making the food, the bridesmaids are doing the flowers... it's going to be a total group effort, and I couldn't be more excited about it. (Which is strange, b/c it's basically the EXACT OPPOSITE of how I did my own wedding... I really really really didn't want to "burden" anyone so I just did everything myself or hired strangers to do it for me. Weird that what I considered to be a "burden" for people for my wedding I'm totally excited about doing for someone else's wedding... hmmm... or maybe I just feared that friends and family somehow wouldn't do things as "perfect" as a hired professional might... although that's obviously crazy b/c I wasn't all that happy with my professional flowers... I ended up letting Kim's sister do most of my make-up... and my friend AJ took a whole slew of pictures that EASILY rival the "professional" ones that we paid for... so yeah - I'm crazy.)

3. Kyle and I are in escrow for a HOUSE!!!!! A HOUSE!!! Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I've run the whole gamut of emotions on this one... and I will definitely definitely DEFINITELY write all about them... tomorrow. (Gotta ease back into this whole blogging thing, you know?) Stay tuned. A HOUSE!!! You know want the details! :)