July 20, 2005
Another Offer Turned Down
Stike Two. Well, we were turned down again. We had put an offer on another home in Redondo Beach late last week and found out yesterday that the owners had accepted another offer.
Apparently the home in Redondo Beach went for $30,000 more than the asking price. To make matters even worse, the people who put the offer on the home waived the appraisal clause. What this means is that if the bank lending the people the money for the home appraise the home at a lower amount, the buyers are willing to make up the difference in the form or more upfront money.
Now don't get me wrong, I really want to buy a home in Redondo Beach, I mean we really like the South Bay. I refuse, however, to pay more than a house is worth. Southern California housing prices are already beyond belief. Can anybody really tell me that a 2,400 square foot townhouse in Redondo Beach is worth $850,000? I highly doubt it.
Well, just wanted to vent some frustration. We will continue to look and I guess if we put in enough offers, one will eventually be accepted.
Posted by Dogger at 02:54 PM | Comments (0)
Real Estate Offer - Redondo Beach Update
We put an offer on a really nice home in Redondo Beach last week and an odd thing happened while we were waiting for an answer. To put it simply, our real estate agent disappeared. For anyone who hasn't put an offer on a home before, let me tell you this is a bad thing, especially in a hot real estate market like Redondo Beach.
We had put an offer on a home on a Thursday and were supposed to receive a response by Saturday afternoon. We didn't really think we had much of a chance because we only offered full price, which seems to be an insult in Southern California. Any way, Saturday passed with no word from our agent and by Sunday afternoon we started to become upset.
We left numerous messages with our real estate agent to no avail. The thing that made us nervous was the fact that he had a $25,500 check for escrow in the event our offer was accepted. We finally called the sellers agent and asked if our agent had submitted the offer on the house in Redondo Beach. We were releaved when she said that our agent did indeed submit the offer, however, she quickly stated that the home had already gone into escrow. Boy were we ticked. The selling agent said she had left a message with our agent on Friday morning stating they had a better offer but he never called her back.
It turns out our trusty agent was on vacation with his family. Obviously, this in itself is fine. Everyone is entitled to vacation. He told us, however, that his phone didn't pick up a signal in the mountains and this is why he didn't call us. Fair enough. the question I have to ask is if he knew he was leaving, why didn't he have somebody else in his Redondo Beach office look after our offer? The answer is simple, it didn't occur to him. Today is Monday and we have submitted another offer on a different home in Redondo Beach. Needless to say we are using a different real estate agent who is more trustworthy and who specializes in Redondo Beach properties. Our Southern California real estate quest continues.
Posted by Dogger at 02:51 PM | Comments (0)
July 15, 2005
Laser Eye Surgery $499
Laser Eye Surgery $499 - A Good Idea?
I've had problems with my right eye since birth. I suffer from both a cataract and astigmatism in this eye. Lately, I have been considering laser eye surgery and have seen a number of deals. The question I am asking myself is $499 laser eye surgery seems kind of cheap and is there a risk involved with a cheaper service? I've read a lot of reports stating that when LASIK (Laser-Assisted In Situ Keratomileusis) centers offer laser eye surgery for $499 to $999 per eye, they are usually cutting corners.
Some of the problems with discounted laser eye surgery are inaccurate eye measurements, lack of standard eye sterilization techniques, inferior equipment and worst of all, an inexperienced surgeon. The reports also state that you should be skeptical of any LASIK surgery that costs less than $1,600 per eye.
I actually saw a good comparison on a reputable laser eye surgery site. It states that your eye is connected to your brain and most sane people would not go out and look for a discount brain surgeon. This makes perfect sense, why would you want to put your eye sight at risk in order to save a few thousand dollars. If there is one sense you don't want to mess with it is your sight. I don't think anybody would forgive themselves if they became blind due cheap LASIK surgery.
The nice thing about writing this entry is I have now convinced myself that laser eye surgery $499 is not for me. I will spend more to make sure i don't put my sight at risk.
Posted by Dogger at 04:33 PM | Comments (0)
July 13, 2005
Interest only Loan
Home Loan Options in California
Now that I have submitted my offer and am playing the waiting game, I need to think about how I am going to finance the home. I have been pre-qualified for the amount I need to purchase the home but haven't decided on a lender or the type of financing.
To be honest with you, I don't have a lot of options when it comes to the type of loan. Due to the ridiculous prices in Southern California and the fact that I don't have a small fortune for the downpayment, I need to go with an interest only loan. This goes against everything I have been taught but I don't have a choice if I want to buy a home.
Also, the fact that I don't want to pay PMI means that I need a piggyback loan or HELOC which will also be interest only. Now within the interest only loans, I need to decide if I want a 5 or 7 year arm and if I want to pay points. Each point costs 1% of the loan so I am looking at 1 point costing $6,800. I also need to determine if I want the second mortgage tied to prime or fixed. If I choose a fixed loan, the rate increases by a point to 7.5%. This is probably the best option because it only increases my payment by $200 a month and gives me the peace-of-mind that my payments won't increase everytime the Federal Reserve decides to increase short term rates.
I am going to take a long hard look at the 5 year arm vs. the 7 year arm tomorrow and whether or not I want to pay down the rate with a point so stay tuned...
Posted by Dogger at 10:55 PM | Comments (1)
Redondo Beach Offer
Well after 2 months of looking we are finally pulling the trigger. My wife and I found a 2,600 square foot home in Redondo Beach within our budget. We are putting an offer in this afternoon and then we will play the waiting game. I already told my wife not to get too excited because I know there will be multiple offers on the house and I refuse to get into a bidding war over a piece of property. Granted it is the nicest house we have seen in Redondo Beach (and trust me we have seen everything on the market) but my philosophy is that if we don't get this one we will get another one. After all, we aren't in a hurry to move away from Santa Monica, but I would like to stop throwing money away (paying rent).
The one thing we have going for us is that it appears that the Redondo Beach housing market has slowed down a bit. I think a month or two ago this house wouldn't have lasted a day on the market. Don't get me wrong, I'm still offering full price on the house, but my agent said he didn't think we would have to go higher than the asking price. This is funny because I think it is common in almost every other state to bid less than the asking price and then have the sellers counter your offer. In the South Bay, however, if you really want a house, you need to offer full price to even be in the game.
I am going to see the house in Redondo Beach one last time this morning before the offer is submitted, just to make sure this is what we really want to do, but at this point I think I'm going just to see if there are any glaring defects I didn't see the first time around.
After that, the offer goes in and the waiting game begins. More to come.....
Posted by Dogger at 09:42 AM | Comments (0)
Relocation Companies in UK
Relocation, Moving or Removal Company?
A friend of mine recently moved to London and had been looking for relocation companies in UK. He told me he was having a hard time finding a reliable moving company to move his stuff. After he told me this I immediately thought that England has the same issues as the US when it comes to moving companies. After doing a little bit of research, however, I think I may have found my friends main problem; it seems that in the England, moving companies are actually called removal companies.
Now as an American, this doesn't seem to make too much sense but if you really think about it, you are not only moving your belongings, but you are also removing them from your current residence and moving them to your new home. So whether you are from the US and call it a moving company, or British and call it a removal company, it is safe to say they serve the same purpose.
Regardless of the name, you always need to be careful when hiring a relocation service or moving service. Normally, if you are being moved because of a job, the company that hired you will take care of the relocation. If, however, you are relocating or moving yourself, it is always a good idea to get a few different estimates and check the Better Business Bureau to make sure you are not going with a moving company that has a lot of complaints.
Moving is a very stressful process, especially if you are moving to or from a foreign country. The last thing you want to worry about is if your relocation company is going to show up with all your stuff. I have personally relocated 3 times, of which once was internationally, and the process never gets easier. I've had two very good experiences and one really bad experience with relocation companies. The best advice I can give is make sure you are very involved in the entire process and keep a watchful eye when your belongings are being boxed up, loaded, unloaded and unpacked. As for my friend looking for relocation companies in UK, I'm going to tell him to try removal companies or removal UK.
Posted by Dogger at 09:39 AM | Comments (0)
July 11, 2005
Green Card Lotary - A Good Idea?
In one of my previous blogs titles Green Card Lottery, I described the basics behind the diversity lottery. Each year, 50,000 foreigners are granted legal entry into the United States as a result of this government sponsored event. There are 2 basic requirements that one needs to meet in order to enter the Green Card Lottery. First, the applicant must come from a country that has not sent more than 50,000 immigrants to the U.S. over the past 5 years. Second, the applicant has to have the equivalent of a high school education or meet certain training requirements.
The requirements seem simple enough. The real question is should the U.S. continue with this program in light of how the world has changed over the past few years. I'm not necessarily talking about terrorism because I would hope that sufficient screening and background verification is performed prior to granting permanent resident status to any foreigner. What I'm getting it is isn't the United States diverse enough right now? The Green Card Lotary is officially called the diversity lottery and is meant to guarantee that the U.S. remains diverse. Fundamentally this sounds like a good idea, I mean the U.S. is a melting pot and was built by a dynamic group of people. I think you would be hard pressed to go to any large city and not find a large mixture of ethnic and cultural groups. I don't know this for a fact but I would bet that the United States is the most ethnically diverse country in the world. Assuming this is true, why then do we find it necessary to have a green card lotary? Do we really need to make an already diverse country more diverse? Maybe this wouldn't be such a bad idea if we were better at controlling illegal immigration. When you add up both the legal and illegal immigrants, there are most likely hundreds of thousands of people coming to the United States to live each year. I think this within itself helps make the United States diverse and I believe that if the Green Card Lotary were to disappear tomorrow, the U.S. would still be as diverse as ever.
Posted by Dogger at 10:48 PM | Comments (13)