Second Open House Also A Smashing Success And We Got Our First Offer!!!

Double Yahoo!!! Second Open Went Great Also!

The open was scheduled to run from 1-4pm but our Realtor ended up getting there early because the BayFarm bridge was set to be closed. He had all the open house signs up by shortly after 12pm. Then he says he was mobbed with people between noon and 1pm!!! Yay!!! I like it that people appear to be interested enough in the house to want to get there early! He ended up staying till almost 5pm because people kept coming!!! Like to hear that no?

The Run Down

Our Realtor told us it was about the same amount of people as last weeks open ~35 different groups. He did say that at the beginning it was mostly the neighbors begging him to not sell the house to people who are going to turn it into a tri-plex...the neighbors feel very strongly about that... We had several return visitors which I think is also encouraging. One PB(Potential Buyer) was there before 1pm, came back mid-open and then made an appointment to see the house today!! I definitely feel that when PB's do stuff like this, that its encouraging.

Same, Most Asked Question...

Our Realtor said he spent almost the entire time explaining what a 203k loan was and what it covers and how it works....he said he explained this over, and over, and over, and over and over....I can tell that by the end of the almost 5 hrs he was there that he was a little tired of explaining it. There was one couple who was there for quite some time and the wife kept coming back and asking him questions about what the 203k loan covers over and over again...until her husband finally put it in a nutshell. The husband said, 'You buy the house, and its completely redone before you move in!!!'

203k Loan Elevator Pitch

Since we are still having so much trouble getting across what the 203k loan does exactly I've been trying to work up an elevator pitch to help explain it. It needs to go something like this, ' With the 203k loan you roll your remodeling costs into your home loan and in six months you move into a redone home.' or slightly longer, 'The 203k loan is perfect for buying a fixer, because you roll the remodeling costs into your house loan and within six months you move into a redone home and, really, what banks are writing remodeling loans now a days?' or...?

We Got Our First Offer!!!

On Tuesday just 2 days after the first open! Unfortunately we could not come to a meeting of the minds on the terms but hey, at least we got an offer!! But interestingly enough the folks who wrote the first offer were back at the house this weekend looking it over again! Hmmmmm...

First Open House Went Awesome!!!!!

Yahoo!!!!!!! Our First Open House Was A Success!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I feel like lots of exclamation points are justified for this post!!!!!

Just got off the phone with my Realtor who was whupped by all the people who showed up to the first open house!!! He was literally flabbergasted by the amount of people who came by. The open was supposed to run from 2-4 but he ended up staying until almost 5pm because there was so much interest!

Man, that makes up feel encouraged!!! Course, we are no where near selling the place but at least there was a good turn out.

We were freaking cause the weather was set to be horrible and well, there was really no advertising done for the open except what we wrote here on the blog and one Craig's List ad, something that will hopefully be addressed by the next open.

The Run Down
We were told that there was at least 35 different groups of people with one group of ten!!!
Several people came through with either their architect or contractor!
One group stayed for 1.5 hrs going over everything!
Several couples stayed for almost an hour looking over everything.
Realtor feels that there where at least 3-4 groups of people who where 'seriously' interested in the place. He actually felt that the ratio of looky-loos to serious people was pretty low.

Not too surprisingly the question most asked was 'what the heck is a 203k loan anyways and how does it work?'. It seems like we are having trouble getting across some of the basic facts of the 203k......most importantly, you as the new homeowner don't do any of the work!!! You roll the cost of the fix-up into the purchase price of the house. Luckily we had the local 203k mortgage expert there to answer questions.

Probably the second most asked question was, what's it going to cost to fix the place up?
Luckily for us one of the contractors that we are paying to write up a bid to finish the house got their bid done in time for the first open....the magic number???? $138k That's to completely finish all three floors (with new roof) in a VERY basic way that will get the house approved by the FHA. Of course you can go a lot fancier all the way up to the $770k FHA loan limit if you wanted to!

Third Most Asked Question, 'What the heck is going on in the basement with all those tubes???'
Luckily for us we had the bright idea to actually have the heat on during the open so all our Realtor had to do was say, 'Its radiant heating, feel the floor' and lots of people did.

I don't think anyone offered to buy the fish with the house though....bummer.

Yes, we know the house is no where near being sold and we are certainly not counting any chickens before they are hatched. We are just encouraged that, that many serious people showed up for the first not-really-advertised open.

So, How Big is Chez 2.0 Anyways!?!?!?

Okay, Okay, Okay,

Nope, we are not trying to 'scam' anyone by telling people that the house has a certain square footage or that the house is a 4-3 when the 'official records' say its a blank-blank.

With the official records having the house at 2228 sq ft and a blank-blank number of beds and baths that's kinda screwing up our $/sq ft number and possibly making the house harder to sell (its not like it needs any more obstacles right??). So, I called the Alameda Assessors office and talked to the county appraiser assigned to Chez 2.0. She told me that on their records they have the house as a 4-3 @ 2228 sq ft. I asked her how actually they arrive at the sq ft numbers for houses. She said that they measure around the OUTSIDE of the house!!! Wow, that seems dishonest to me but that's the measurement everybodys compared to soooo...

So, What's The Number Really?
Short answer, don't know yet. We've paid professionals to do complete as-builts of the house. Using these professionally done plans and going around the inside of the house (which just seems more honest to me) I come up with 2858 sq ft. The walls on the bottom floor of the house are over 7" thick, the walls on the middle floor are ~5" thick so I believe that the assessors number will be even higher than that.

I had to fill out a 'Property Characteristic Change Form-Owner Requested' and I sent the county appraiser the professionally done plans that show the top two floors and the plans from the permits I did that show the bottom floor. She took a look at them and thought that the main discrepancy was that they had the bottom floor as only being about 600sq ft of living space when its actually about 1000sq ft.

The appraiser is hopefully going to come out this week to check the reality against the plans that I sent her and then hopefully soon after the official sq ft number will match what it actually is...

First Open House This Sunday the 20th.

C'mon on down and tour Chez 2.0 this Sunday the 20th.

It'll be our first open house.

Now's your chance dear readers to see the amazing super-fab Chez Neumansky 2.0 live and in person! Peek into all the nooks and crannies, see the radiant heat for your self!

If its not raining I'm going to try to convince my Realtor to let me fire up the fire pit and make popcorn and s'mores!!!

New property flyer is up-check it out on this Craig's List Post.
It looks very official doesn't it??

Hope to see everybody at Chez Neumansky 2.0 this Saturday!!!

Future Of The Blog???

What to do, What to Do...

There is dissension in the ranks here at Chez 3.0 about what to do with this blog after we sell Chez 2.0.

I'm of the mind that I should probably close it down entirely and start a new blog with a different name for Chez 3.0. It seems kinda weird for me to have all that info online about what will be someone else's house....

So, How about some new names for the blog?
All I've got so far is Chez Neumansky 3.0 or Chez Neumansky Third Times The Charm (this time its final!!!) or???

New Editorial Direction?
The many, many Realtors who read this blog will be happy to know that I don't envision myself doing any more KnifeCatching posts...unless someone wants to commission one. Though, I do need to get banned from at least one more open house so that I can publish the next chapter of the Reptile Realtors saga that's been written in my head for ages now...

I think that there will be a new focus in the blog as well.
Originally, the blog was about, 'holy crap we bought a tear down and now we're spending gobs of money and time fixing it up, follow along as we chronicle our ups and downs'.
I think now the blog will more be about, 'Holy Moly we bought a giant house with an almost insane amount of permit issues. Can we fix the issues on the super tight time table the city has us on and get the legal units rented out all before we run out of money.' coupled a little bit with, 'Can two slightly rough around the edges 'Burning Man Fire Artist' types fit in, in their new fancy-pants neighborhood???'

So, that's the long and short of it. Keep the old blog going, or start a new blog?

Happy 1st Month-a-versary

Today Marks Our 1st Month In Chez 3.0

I thought I'd put together a little list of things about the house now that we've lived here a month. So, no particular order my thoughts on Chez 3.0.

1. 
   
   Its big! and I'm old, we've never lived on more than one level before and this place has 3 levels of real living space....its a lot harder to go up and down 2 flights of stairs constantly...


2. 
   
   I hate all the toilets...they are all these weird cheapo 3/4 size toilets..not super comfortable to sit on.


3. 
   
   You can hear the bee's when sitting on the toilet in baby MadScientist's bathroom.


4. 
   
   There is never a light switch where you expect there to be and when there is a switch, it never controls what you think it should...I don't get it, why would the PO's of even bothered taking all the wall outlets, and switches? If you had fancy lights I guess I can see taking those, but the outlets and switches? weird..


5. 
   
   Living with forced air heat isn't as horrible as we thought it would be...the air is surely a lot dryer than we're used to.


6. 
   
   Having that big concrete driveway and parking area is both a boon and a bane. A bane cause in general we hate yards covered in concrete but a boon as it gives baby MadScientist plenty of space to ride her scooter-which she absolutely loves to do.


7. 
   
   Funky bathroom without a shower and low ceilings on the top floor is a perfect spot to give baby MadScientist a bath.


8. 
   
   We've got slightly less than a month to get all the plans finished and turned into the city....that timeline seems insane now...


9. 
   
   Love having the sorta private kid space and family room in the back of the house.


10. 
    
    We never use the front door! Well, except to get the mail...we go in and out of the back door and that area and bathroom has turned into a mudroom-landing pad space for all our stuff.


11. 
    
    Definitely need curtains on the main level as sitting in there feels very fish bowlish now.


12. 
    
    Kitchen is still way to small and poorly laid out. Though now after using it for a month we have some ideas on how to make it better.


13. 
    
    Cleaning this place is a HUGE PITA!!!


14. 
    
    We really, really love the place and it feels perfect for us.

Guess Its For Real...

In this Friday's addition of the Alameda Journal was the first ad for our house!!!

Wow, it's weird seeing it for sale here...sorta surreal....cause this was the house that we thought that we were never ever going to leave EVER!!!!

This is one of the pics that the pro-photographer took....he photo shopped in the blue sky...how funny...

This is even more surreal...seeing a G&L for sale sign out in front of the house... I wonder how long until the sign gets knocked down or hit with eggs or something.....
Our old neighbors are telling all there friends about the place and trying to get a nice family to buy it....
Sure would be nice to sell it to another family who would finish fixing the place up...