THE HOUSE HUNTERS

This blog was originally posted on my other blog page - http://r-sharma.sulekha.com/blog/posts.htm

THE HOUSE HUNTERS

Jun 23 2009

It is nice to be back after a long hiatus.

Our seventeen-year-old fledgling has finally graduated from high school (12^th grade) after weeks of final school projects, final music concerts, thrilling band competitions, stressful solo competitions, and winning / losing contests. Just when we thought of settling down after all the hustling and chauffeuring, several new projects heralded their arrival in no particular order of importance, such as college admissions, campus visits, and course selections. Everything culminated in a wonderful graduation ceremony last week. He even received a scholarship to join his chosen university.

Having completed the college related projects; we decided to embark on our house-hunting project. We hope our new home will be large enough to accommodate our six-footer and his assortment of cacophonous wind instruments, with a decent degree of separation between our earpieces and his mouthpiece. Since he is heading to our hometown university, we expect to see him frequently... which is more like every evening and the next morning! Therefore, proximity to college is an important criterion to remember. The process of searching for a home in America is not new to us. We owned our first home for 14 years and sold it in 2005. Back then, we were already hearing whispers of an American housing bust and a serious recession. To be safe, we postponed buying our next home for a few years. Looking at the economic woes of homeowners who invested at the peak of that housing market, our decision to rent was a wise one.

Of course, much of the credit goes to Mr. Micro Processor (dear husband, i.e.) and his monetary astuteness. However, when it comes to the actual selection process of our abode (or our motherboard), Mini ‘me’ Processor also has a keen sense of olfactory perception. No house can escape the scrutiny, which rivals that of a fussy mother-in-law! Nano, the teenager that he is, does not have any opinion since he has a tendency to simply take over the entire house without worrying about the blueprint per say.

In this blog and a couple of follow-up blogs, I would like to chronicle the interesting process as we hunt for our next home. The sometimes stressful, sometimes downright hilarious experience is simply too juicy to ignore.

When we bought our first home in 1993, there was no Internet-based home searching possible. Back then, we had hired a real estate agent and simply followed her advice. Not so now! Thanks to numerous real estate search tools at our fingertips, websites like Zillow, Trulia, Foreclosures.com, and the all-knowing Google with its wonderful ‘Street View’ and ‘Satellite View’, we have allowed our slender digits to do the walking. Just put a zip code into the search box, and thousands of homes pop up on the screen in all their glory. One can literally swoop down from the sky and zoom into any home and its backyard for a quick checkup. One can even take a virtual road trip down the residential streets!

These are extraordinary times in America with a home-foreclosure crisis so big that it has affected people’s lives, jobs, homes, businesses, and essentially wiped out their savings. Since we are also interested in checking out the foreclosed property listings, I went to one of the above-mentioned websites. After entering my choice of zip codes, square footage, and limit on the price, I hit ‘Search’. In spite of my strict filters, thousands of homes showed up on my page. Each home had a bunch of photos and an MLS number (Multiple Listing Service), which is a unique number assigned to each house and displayed on all real estate listings. For starters, I made a neat list of a dozen homes and waited for Mr. MP to filter it further.

I was a bit surprised when Mr. MP produced his own list, all with proper mapping coordinates and driving directions. “You drive and I’ll do the directing,” he said. The plan suited me well, as I am far-sighted and cannot read the small print on a city map. He struggles to read the distant street signs, and that’s where my vision comes in handy. Armed with packets of wheat cereals and salt crackers, we initiated our formal house hunt.

“Where are we going,” I asked, hoping to actually visit a few homes. I could not wait to see new kitchens and blank walls to display my artwork.

“Nowhere in particular,” he said. “I want to study the foreclosure crisis with my own two eyes. Let’s drive in a zigzag fashion around the neighborhoods and see what kinds of homes are foreclosed.”

The thought of zigzagging aimlessly was not on my agenda, but being the cooperative wife that I am, I agreed. What followed was a series of cryptic instructions by a bespectacled map-reader whose eyes remained glued to the large sheet in front of him. He was not keen on looking at the real streets in front. Mr. MP’s instructions went something like this - “Make a left here, then turn right, don’t be scared of the steep descent, put on the 2^nd gear and do not hit the brakes too much. You will wear them out. Keep going until you see a dead-end. Make a U-turn and park the van there.”

At least he trusted my driving. This is my 20^th year behind the wheels, after all.

I was impressed (have been for 20 years) by his ability to give perfect directions using just a mediocre map and that impressive GPS inside his brain. I do not possess that gift. My mental compass usually goes berserk after taking a couple of U-turns.

Pardon me for digressing a bit. Life is full of digressions after all.

Coming back to our current van stop, I looked out the window; Not one home within a quarter mile radius! Before I could interrogate MP about a slight miscommunication in his directions, he was out the vehicle. With a few “aha”, “ow”, “hmm” etc, he walked off onto the fields to inspect what looked like property lines drawn on the ground with the hopes of building a community of new homes. I realized instantly what he was up to. For the last few years now, he has been researching extensively the current housing crisis. Numerous homebuilders have gone bankrupt in recent months due to the recession in general. New buyers have not been able to borrow money as they did before. Thousands of families have gone broke due to shady sub-prime lending which essentially allowed people to buy more home than they could afford. Existing homeowners borrowed against the equity on their homes believing that their property values had gone up and will continue to rise. When the initial teaser interest rates went up, many could not afford to stay. Overnight, they left their homes with their belongings in family cars. Many others went broke simply due to over-borrowing, and pure ignorance about these loans. Huge expansive areas were abandoned with either half-built houses or none at all.

Next, we drove to another area of the city where beautiful mansions were listed as foreclosed. Some homes appeared to be in limbo status without a for-sale sign posted by either the original owner or the bank. Entire streets in other newer neighborhoods had for-sale signs as far as our eye could see, but no signs of life in them! All this was too interesting to Mr. MP who forgot that he had a wife and a van, both waiting to move. Since many homes had locks on them, MP was busy peeking in through the windows and circumambulating them for more thesis material.

“He better write a book after all his research,” I thought to myself as I waited for him to return. There were a few open houses in another neighborhood that day which I did not want to miss. Luckily for me, he returned and we set out to see some new homes.

Since land is a premium in a state where nature parks and greenbelts are valued, many new homes were built very close to one another. To classify them as single-family residences was a stretch. They were nothing but glorified condominiums, if you asked me!

We had flyers for all the homes on the street. “Impressive home, in a class by itself, backing into a forest,” screamed one advertisement. It was built in 2006 and was purchased by a realtor, simply for investment purposes. Such investors are known as ‘flippers’. He probably believed firmly that the prices would continue to skyrocket and he would be able to sell it for a tidy profit. In 2008-2009, his world toppled. With home prices crashing, his property had no takers after 6 months on the market. At one point, it was appraised at over $600,000. Today, it was struggling to sell at $450,000! It was a 3500 sq ft home, with 5 bedrooms on a 4999 sq ft lot. It gives you an idea of the cramped space on the outside. The inside was interesting to say the least.

These were brand new designs by high-end homebuilders, supposedly. The house had 3 stories. The main floor was actually the middle floor. In addition, the house had an upstairs and a downstairs basement. However, as soon as we walked into the main floor, I noticed an open toilet on the left. I did a double take wondering if we had accidentally wandered in through the back door. It was the entrance to the house, all right! I could instantly imagine myself as a host, greeting my visitors at the front door, with the open toilet visible in the background. The idea sounded a bit gross!

The real estate agent who was hosting the house approached us with a sweet smile. I asked her about the number of bathrooms in such a large house.

“2.1,” she replied! “2 whole baths on the top and bottom floors, but only a half bath on the main.” Generally, a half bath only has a sink and a commode, but no shower or bathtub. It is more like a powder room, which sounded inadequate considering that right next to it was a gourmet kitchen! I assumed that there was at least one whole bedroom (they may have a half bedroom, who knows?) on the same floor as the kitchen. But no…all the bedrooms were either upstairs or downstairs. The idea of having an elderly visitor hobbling up and down the stairs just to find a full bath and a bedroom sounded inhumane! Couldn’t they provide all the basic amenities on the same floor? What’s the harm in throwing an extra bathtub or a shower into the half bath? When did full-body cleanliness become a premium asset? Which idiot puts a toilet next to a kitchen? It made me wonder if the builder had bladder control issues. His routine would have been something like this—grab a beer, rush to the loo, scarf down a juicy steak, rush to the …well, you get the picture. He probably did not have a great relationship with his elderly parents either. (Nothing against male architects, but this builder was positively identified as a man by outside sources!)

Next to follow was the ‘Great Room’. It has become very popular in recent years among young families. It is a large expansive hall, which combines the living room, the family room, and the kitchen, all within one floor. It is supposed to enhance family unity and closeness, but I could smell a relationship flaw already. The thought of one family member frying spicy food in the kitchen, thereby producing thick fumes, with the other two trying desperately to watch TV in between incessant sneezing, did not appeal to my sense of family bonding. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer to have my kitchen isolated in one corner of the house. The kitchen, for a 3500 sqft home, seemed rather small! A lone granite counter and a cook’s island in the middle was the builder’s pathetic idea of a ‘Gourmet kitchen’. He was probably one of those ‘fix-a-dinner’ types, with little or no talent in cooking. One could purchase a frozen microwaveable dinner and call it a meal. “No wonder his unhealthy diet has resulted bladder control problems,” I thought to myself.

One look at the “garden” scared me. The house that claimed “backing into a forest” as one of its valuable assets had a jungle literally looming over the rooftop, with large 50 ft fir and pine trees threatening to topple during the next Pacific thunderstorm. A mere five feet of separation between man and jungle is not what I call as a tranquil home with green views. It was too close for comfort.

Fortunately, Mr. MC and I were of the same opinion—the house did not fit the Sharma family’s lifestyle. We eat a lot and we like to take showers, no matter what floor of the house it is! We decided to look for pastures with a little less greenery, and a full bath hopefully!

In my next report titled 'House Hunters Go Underground', I will describe our visits to a couple of bizarre homes. What is a house-hunting adventure without a visit to at least one spooky house, right?

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