Tralfaz

  • geoffand

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    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,…

  • House Hunting Journal – Neighborhood Research

    geoffand

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    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…

  • geoffand

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    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…

  • geoffand

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    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,…

  • geoffand

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    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…

  • geoffand

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    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…

  • geoffand

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    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…

  • geoffand

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    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…

  • House Hunting Journal

    geoffand

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    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…

  • Marking an Ominous Anniversary – 5 years

    geoffand

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    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,…