Tralfaz

Blog

  • House Hunting Journal – Slogging through Open Houses

    A short post today. The hunt is on, and how the game is played here in Silicon Valley is that you pretty much have to hit open houses.

    How different this was than our experience of selling in Phoenix. There, open houses were drains on the agent’s time. They would come, set out some cookies, and wait. And wait. And wait.

    In 3 hours (or sometimes 5 hours, as they often started at 11 instead of 1) they would count it lucky if they had more than 5 visitors. And, truth be told, at least half of them were neighbors looking at the “competition”.

    In Silicon Valley though, the Saturday and Sunday open houses are wild. Gourmet snacks are common, well staged houses, and throngs of people.  Literally scores of groups of people. Some stay for a few minutes, some for an hour, allowing the agents to gauge interest. But always, even in the worst looking houses in the worst neighborhoods, the cars keep coming.

    For a buyer, knowing that you will need to compete against all the potential suitors, it is a groaner.

  • House Hunting Journal – Neighborhood Research

    House Hunting Journal – Neighborhood Research

    One thing the Internet has enabled in a huge way is the investigation of the neighborhood. Since we are placing an offer on a house we like, and we have learnt to not trust the Trulia crime map (it says our apartment is lowest crime, HA!)

    Fortunately, there are many options. Since we are in San Jose, we can use the SJPD Crime Map website to see what activity is in your area. (I would bet my bottom dollar that most modern police forces have something similar). I trust it, because it seems to correlate well where we live.

    It lists vehicle thefts, vehicle recoveries, robberies, burglaries, and even where registered sex offenders live (more on this later). You can get some detail on the disposition, and actions, as well as a macro view of the density of crime.

    (Hint: I was astounded at how much crime happens in Sunnyvale, a "good" city…)

    You also see some trends. Neighborhoods with higher housing prices (i.e. where the "richers" live) have a lot of burglary. Near public places you find more assaults. And so on.

    Of course, there is another tool for tracking registered sex offenders. The "Megan's Law" website. Once you accept the disclaimer, you can search by city, address, zip code,county or even name. Looking up zip codes is an eye opener. Sweet zombie Jesus there are a lot of sex offenders. From child porn aficionados to "Lewd acts on a person under 14" (why 14 seems magic is something I just don't want to know), to rape and others.

    There are a lot, I mean SHITLOADS of sex offenders. Even in affluent areas.

    Well, the offer is in, and we are crossing our fingers. We will still go to open houses this weekend, as we know that the odds are so-so.

  • House Hunting Journal – The Zaniness of Silicon Valley Real Estate

    Housing in the Silicon Valley has always been different, but upon returning, it is crystal clear how odd it is.

    Our experience selling our house in Chandler, AZ was typical. You clean it up, fix all the warts, put it on the market, and are inconvenienced for months as agents (infrequently) bring parties through. Your life sucks as you have a 30 minute warning to get out for the next group of shoppers. Every time, you are hopeful that they are the ones who will buy. You will do a half dozen open houses, where on a good weekend day, you might get 4 groups of people walking through.

    Then 5 months later, you get an offer you can accept.

    Here, it is like this. You put your house on the market on a Tuesday or Wednesday, you schedule an open house over the weekend, where HUNDREDS of people will come through, and the following Thursday you accept offers, and pick the one you like best.

    Depressing.

  • House Hunting Journal – You need an agent

    In many ways, it is a glorious time to be looking for a house, the Internet provides wonderful tools to search, Trulia, Zillow, and others are easy to search, and useful for checking out properties, but they do have a downside.

    Unfortunately, they are plagued with out dated information. Often houses you are looking at, and watching are under contract, or otherwise not available.

    Additionally, it is impossible to determine if the house is a short sale or other distressed condition. So a place that looks fabulous suddenly looks like a pig.

    Having a good agent is invaluable. They have access to details hidden from the public facing tools.

    Fortunately, we have a great agent, and he has been super helpful. We haven’t found our house yet, but the search has become more interesting.

    Yep, it sucks that the MLS has a monopoly on the inside track, but it is the state of the world.

  • House Hunting Journal – Neighborhood considerations

    Continuing on the thread of house hunting in Silicon valley – the search for a decent $700K house to buy – yesterday Barbara scratched one folly off her dream list.

    One thing that is charming about the downtown San Jose area is the “Craftsman” house. Typically built about 100 years ago, small lot, small house and tons of character. You see some that are extremely well done.

    There also happen to be many that fit our price range nicely. So it is not surprising that there is some attraction to them.

    However they do have some deficiencies:

    • They are small. Often much less than 1,000 sqft. They were built at a time of simpler pastimes, and really weren’t designed with the concept of a “living room” for the TV or other activities.
    • They are often in neighborhoods that are, uh, sketchy. There is a reason why they are affordable, and that is because they have always been affordable and thus attracted a comparable clientele. Working class, but also a fair amount of crime.
    • They often are in need of a lot of repair. Yes, many/most on the market have upgraded kitchens, with better appliances, but unless a prior owner spent major coin, they often have ancient plumbing and wiring that was designed for much lower draw than the current typical household.

    The one that Barbara viewed yesterday had all these flaws. Her comment was that in the middle of the day, the neighborhood didn’t feel safe. What about walking our dogs at night?

    It was in the Burbank district of San Jose, just north of Santa Clara, and a place that I used to bicycle through as fast as I could when I rode to SJSU, so it has been sketchy a LONG time.

    Any neighborhood that makes our current digs seem like a huge step up, is not a place to consider.

  • Bicycling Log

    I have always had a passion for bicycling, and have recently gotten back into Mountain Biking. That and the layoff has engendered some commentary.

    • Thorns suck. No, seriously, fuck them. I bought Mr Tuffy’s and still I get an occasional puncture. Grrrr
    • Patch kits. I remember the “green” box patch kits with round and oval patches, glue, and a scrubber to roughen the tube. Now they have these sticker patches that are easy to use. But they suck, because they all leak. Temporary at best.
    • Saddle boils. Nasty. Painful. ’nuff said.

    But it is not all bad. I had old (and I mean OLD, like 11 years old) bike shorts. I recently bought some new Pear Izumis with the gel pad in the crotch area. WONDERFUL! Took a little getting used to, but wow, they are great.

  • House Hunting Journal – Hidden Clues

    Real estate in the bay area is a bit surreal. Words and phrases often have subtle subtext that isn’t obvious if you haven’t been steeped in it.

    One thing that you quickly learn is that the price often isn’t what they want the house to sell at.  Clues to this are prices that are too precise.

    For example, knowing that you can afford $700K, you can be looking at some great properties that seem to fit. Great yard, good neighborhood, nice kitchen, and big enough. Cool, $699K, you can afford it.

    Bzzzt.

    Your agent breaks it to you gently. It will sell well above $700K. This is the game as it is played.

    Or, how about this, you have been watching a listing, it hasn’t been plucked (closed in a few days) so you think you might have a chance. You drive by, you do all the research you can.

    You finally call your agent, and he tells you that they will accept offers Thursday, and they are expecting 10 or more qualified offers.

    Sigh, you are positioned to lose again.

    The glory and curse of the Internet. You have access to Zillow, Trulia and Homes.com, but key details are missing, only accessible to agents. I am sure this is to maintain their iron clad grip on the MLS listings, but it sucks for us small fish.

    All I want is a house where I don’t fear for my safety, have “enough” room, and it is comfortable for my dogs, all for $700,000 dollars. Is that too damn much to ask for?

    Apparently so.

    Oh, and my doctor told me to lose weight. Add that to the “shit I already knew” pile…

  • House Hunting Journal – Listings

    There is no doubt that the Internet has greatly enhanced the experience of hunting for a house. Trulia, Homes.com, and Zillow all put hundreds or thousands of listings at your fingertips.

    However, after sorting through the mountains of listings, I have some observations:

    • Some (far too many) agents phone it in. Looking at the photographs is the first symptom. Out of focus, poorly framed photos. I know I can take better pictures with my iPhone. You are going to make 3% on a $700K house, or $21K, HIRE A PHOTOGRAPHER DAMMIT.
    • Wide Angle Lenses. Nothing like a phat wide angle shot to make 836 sqft look like the damn Playboy Mansion.
    • Complete “don’t give a shit” in preparation. No clearing of clutter. Barely make the bed, stuff stored in the middle of rooms. Yep, no effort at all to tart up the place.
    • Tacky descriptions. Alum Rock seems to have replaced the “A Mountain View” as a euphemism for East San Jose. You know what else is awesome? All capital letters. The Caps-Lock key is your friend.
    • Lipstick on the pig – Here is an actual snippet from a pretty much completely un-updated old house in a desirable neighborhood: “The traditional Willow Glen bathroom has a full tub and a separate stall shower with tile wainscoating.” For $734K to boot.

    It does suck to be in a market where they don’t even bother to hide ceiling water damage in the photos. And that house sold for $50K over asking.

    All for the privilege of bidding and losing on houses.

  • House Hunting Journal

    House Hunting Journal

    Moving to the next phase of our San Jose adventure, it is time to begin the hunt for a house to buy. All the insanity of the Bay Area market is in our face.

    Starting over the holidays was a bad idea. Inventory is dismal. Almost nothing in our price range or in neighborhoods we like, picking are slim.

    But we got our loan preapproval, so we are locked and loaded.

    Scary thought: Borrowing the maximum for a conforming loan, $625.5K. Gulp, that is a LOT of debt.

    It is the second week of January, and some new houses hit the market. Did a little open house roulette this weekend. Wow. The pent up demand is off the chart, so the traffic was insane. Even shitty houses, were mobbed with people.

    And what is it with the agents? I swear they are so full of crap that they can’t help but drip it out of their mouths.

    Every, and I mean EVERY open house I attended the agent was either telling other people how many offers they already had, or that if they were serious, they better make an offer before Monday.

    Puh-lease. Even the house that was a short sale (not mentioned in the description) and that it was expected to take 60 days to clear.

    There is hope though. Our agent is good, inventory is (slowly) increasing. We are well qualified for our mortgage. Not having kids is a plus, as we don’t care about schools.

    This will be a running series of posts on our experiences.

  • Marking an Ominous Anniversary – 5 years

    Marking an Ominous Anniversary – 5 years

    Today marks an ominous anniversary. Five years ago today, I had a heart attack and almost died.

    There had been numerous times in my life where I started to glimpse my own mortality. Being a motorcycle rider and racer, close calls are par for the course, but hardly unique. Hiking near thousand foot drop offs, and similar events that could horribly go awry with the ultimate consequence.

    But January 3, 2010 will forever live on in my memory.

    On Saturday, January 2nd, Barbara and I went for a hike in Sabino Canyon, the “Blacketts Ridge” trail. It is about a mile of easy trail until you get to the trail head, then it is a brutal uphill climb up a rocky, and treacherous path. Something that I had done in as little as 54 minutes (parking lot to the end of the trail).

    I felt off, wheezing and struggling. I thought it was just hunger, as I had started dieting a week before with the Christmas shutdown. About 1/2 way up, I tossed in the towel and went back.

    After lunch, I felt better, and thought nothing much of it.

    Sunday morning, January 3, I went to the Gym as usual. An hour on the elliptical trainer, and I knew something was wrong. I couldn’t get my heart rate above about 110, and i Just felt sluggish. I was convinced I was getting a flu or some related illness. I also recall not being able to work up a good sweat.

    After this unsatisfying trip to the gym, I went home and began to shower. BAM. Fully symptomatic, shooting pain down the arms, chest felt like someone was standing on it, having trouble breathing, I stumbled down the hall to my wife’s office and told her I needed to go to the hospital.

    I was in agony. The pain was intense, and it wasn’t going away. As I lay writhing on the couch, my wife did the smartest thing she could have done, she called 911. That action alone probably did more to save my life than anything else that day.

    The EMT’s put on the EKG electrodes and didn’t see anything (note: they aren’t miracle workers, and don’t always get the right diagnoses, but they were there and that is what is important). My wife insisted that they take me in.

    Why is it important to call 911? Well, you get the fast track into the ER. No queue, no check in procedure, you just get triaged right away. Very very important.

    Once I get to the hospital, they hook me up to their better machine, and alas, I am indeed having a heart attack. Full blown myocardial infarction. Off to the Catheter Lab for angioplasty and a stent.

    Turns out that I had a 100% blockage in the descending node of the right coronary artery (note: if it was the left coronary artery, I wouldn’t have made it to the hospital)

    A stent, some not-fun drugs, and a short (3 day) hospital stay and I was back on the path to recovery.

    To this day, I take anticoagulants, beta blockers (teh devil in a pill), statins, and an ace inhibitor. I watch (sometimes better than others) my diet, and I try to exercise as much as I can.

    Today is 5 years. I hope for another 15 or 20, but regardless, I am thankful to be alive.