loglog

This woodpecker apparently had vertigo. All the holes in this tree were below 2 meters from the ground.

We found this tree in the Adirondacks were we, on this gorgeous Saturday with clear bleu skies and 20 degrees, went for a long hike with Poupoune. She enjoyed it very much and so did we. Getting away from the house, the computer and all the house-buying fuzz felt really good. Even though we couldn’t stop talking and thing about the whole idea. Secretly we where already planning what to do to the house and in what order to do them. However, doing so surrounded by trees that started to show their leaves is much less stressful.

Okay, here’s the latest in the house buying saga.

As I wrote before the building inspector found some defects to the house. It turned out there was nothing major (the foundations are fine) that would prevent us from buying it at all, but still some things that will cost a considerable amount of money to fix. And this on top of all the stuff that we knew had to be done because of a serious lack of maintenance over the last ten years.

But worse was the news that the bank wouldn’t want to give us the mortgage we need. Not because our credit is bad, or the bank thinks we can’t afford it, but because they evaluated the building much lower than the price we offered. The building itself is worth it, but because it has more than one apartment they also look at it’s investment potential. The return on investment is not that great because the current rents are very low. So they are only willing to give us a much lower mortgage. Darn! Especially since the fact that we paid such low rents the last couple of years also made it possible for us to save enough money to afford the high down payment we need to make.

But our hopes of being able to buy our house were pretty low all of a sudden. Especially when we approached another bank and asked them if they would evaluate the house differently and the answer was no.

With this news we called the owner Wednesday and told her that we needed to talk. She was busy the next couple of evenings so we agreed we would meet today.
This gave us the time to do a lot of planning, prepare elaborate spreadsheets with all kind of scenarios and options. This is the maximum we can pay with this type of mortgage and then this will be our monthly costs. And the same with other options and amounts. A big thank you to the inventors of the spreadsheet is in order here. And no that was not Microsoft but a couple of math geeks who made VisiCalc for the Apple. But I digress.

Just a couple of hours before our planned meeting the owner’s friend, who helps her with selling the house and also does the lack of maintenance, called that she wouldn’t be there because she just heard her son had a serious accident and was in a coma.

But the owner herself did meet with us and she had a cunning plan up on her sleeve.

When we showed her the building inspection report and some of our calculations she was willing to lower the price with a considerable amount. And she proposed to lend us the rest of the sum (above what the bank is willing to finance), so in fact we would take a loan with her for a couple of years. We looked it up in our “how to buy a home” books and on the Internet and this construction even has a name. It’s called a Vendor Take Back Mortgage, and is not too uncommon.

We prepared a new ‘Promise to Buy’ document with the new selling price and the new financing method and both parties signed.

Of course this was all on a Friday evening, we couldn’t consult the bank and our notary, so we’re still not 100% sure.

Beginning of next week we’ll find out more. It looks much, much rosier now, though, but don’t congratulate us yet. We’re not there yet.

Just an ugly alley between two big buildings in downtown Montréal. If this was in the Netherlands at least three government agencies would have fined the building’s owner. Montréal is not a very beautiful city, partly because it’s poor. And also because apparently nobody cares too much about cleanliness and beauty.

Since today (coincidently the 24th) we don’t have cable anymore. We weren’t watching much TV anyway and with the big spending ahead we need to spend our money wisely.

So for my weekly dose of Jack Bauer I now have to rely on BitTorrent. After downloading I move my laptop to the TV room, attach it to the TV and press play. That works excellent and I even have a little wireless remote to control the computer so I can start, stop and rewind. A glass of orange juice, a nice cigar and I’m ready to get all worked up over the stupidity of the writers of 24. It’s getting sillier every season. The president of the US secretly planning a terrorist attack, who could invent such an improbable plot?

To deal with the stress of buying our house Alison decided to bake bread. It turns out beyond expectation (at least beyond my expectation) and is genuinely yummy!

Not one but two inspectors came by this morning. The home/building inspector was hired by us to see if there aren’t any major defects to the building that we hadn’t noticed. The other inspector was sent by the bank to see if they can give us a mortgage for this building. If it’s a shack that almost falls apart I’m sure they won’t give us that amount of money. Fortunately it isn’t falling apart yet, and after he looked at three apartments (of course I showed him the nicest ones) he was very positive and left within 30 minutes. So we might actually get the mortgage.

The building inspector was more thorough and rightly so because we pay him to be that way. He went up the roof (unfortunately I was with the other inspector at that moment; I’d have loved to see the roof myself) and looked in every nook and corner of all the apartments, inspected the staircases, the state of the brick and the windows and spend a long time in the basement. All in all his inspection lasted over two hours. WeI’ll receive his report in a couple of days but we already know that he found some pretty serioues defects. The walls in the basement are in a very bad state because of leakage. The owner has repaired the leakage a long time ago but hasn’t put in piles to take the weight off the crumbly walls. The inspector thinks these piles have to be put in, otherwise the house will, over time, sink into the ground.

Also the brick wall in the front has to be partly taken down and then built up again, because it has detached itself from the interior walls. The anchors that bridged the gap are probably rusted over the years (the house is built in 1928). Both issues are major repairs that I can’t do myself, and that will cost a lot of money.

So we might not buy the house after all, if the owner isn’t willing to lower the price. I’m sure she doesn’t like it, that’s for sure.

So don’t congratulate us, yet. But keep your fingers crossed.

On a more positive note: Our kitchen and bathroom passed the inspection!

The owner has accepted our offer!
Next steps: getting a mortgage, have the building inspected, make sure all the paperwork gets to the notary.

And then we can start worrying. Worrying about the economy, worrying about the environment, worrying about separation, worrying about our Southern neighbour, the US of A, worrying about job security. Lots of things to worry about.

Let the nail biting begin…

Alison helps preparing the Easter dinner, that we eat early because we have to be back in Montréal at 7 to pick up our dogs from the dog sitter. After seven she doesn’t let us in and we’ll have to pay another night. So we make sure we’re there on time because if we want to buy our house we have to save every penny we can…

Even though we’re not home, and already made our offer we can’t stop thinking about it. Will they accept? Wasn’t our offer too low? Can we really afford it? Will the bank honour the interest rate they gave us?
Man, what is this a nerve-wracking process.

When we come home, after picking up the dogs, neither of us dares to check if we have phone messages. No messages. Is that a positive sign or a negative sign? Sign! Alison runs to the front of the house and peeks out of the window. No sign! We’re save for now.

But I’ll sure hope they won’t wait until the end of the week to let us know, because we’ll be ready for a mental institution by then.

It started last Saturday when our landlord called. She inquired if she could pick up the wash basin she had given me for the bathroom, and that I hadn’t used because it was very ugly. “Of course.” And then, out of the blue she said: “Ehrm, we also want to tell you that we decided we’re going to sell the house. Are you interested?”

“Yes!”

This was exactly what I wanted. The house we’re renting is nicely located, in not too bad shape, and not completely renovated either (which usually means that all nice parts of the house are removed and replaced by their plastic equivalents), and above all, it’s a multiplex, so the tenants who live above us will help ease our mortgage a little but by paying us their monthly rent. Unfortunately the rents are really low because the landlady didn’t raise them every year, so if we can’t raise the rents, which is really hard in Québec, they won’t help us very much. But that same low rent also enabled us to save same money, so we can put down the hefty down-payment. But if we don’t/can’t buy it we will probably be kicked out very soon because the new owner wants to use our apartment himself or herself. And finding another apartment with garden and basement and such a nice kitchen and bathroom for the same amount of money will be impossible. Either way, our monthly spending on housing will go up. So if we can afford it we want to buy. But if they’ll ask an outrageous fortune we have to pass.

We made an appointment to meet Sunday morning and they revealed the price they were asking. It was a lot of money, but not completely out of our league. We agreed we got one week to see if we could get financing and make an offer. After that they would go with a real estate agent and put the house on the market. You know, with a sign saying “A Vendre” in the garden.

So we spend all week visiting banks, shopping for mortgages, and trying to get as much information about the process of buying a house as possible. This morning, after a week with a lot of sleepless nights when we were thinking about what could go wrong and if and how we’re going to afford this, we delivered our offer (25,000 dollars below the asking price) to the landlady’s mail box. She was probably hiding behind the curtains because she didn’t show , even though we had announced our visit. She is probably just as anxious as we are.

And now we’ve to wait if she’ll accept our offer. Or that she comes with a counter offer. Or, god forbid, that she’ll reject our offer completely and we’ll find that dreaded sign in the garden.

To be continued.

It’s officially spring now. I put my skis in storage in the basement; the grass is getting green again, after been buried under the snow for many months; the trees are starting to get leaves and the temperatures are getting higher and higher (it was 20 ∫C today).

I also changed my wheels with winter tires for the wheels with the summer versions. Tomorrow we’re going to Ottawa to celebrate Easter with Alison’s parents and to get some rest after this hectic week, and driving on normal tires will save some gas. And since the gas prices went up again we’ll save some money as well. We’ll have to be frugal. We say that to each other twenty times a day.