under the microscope

tomorrow we put the home-to-be on the stand and hopefully it won't break down in tears. i'm kinda nervous about the whole process and as much as it would be nice to get some points to negotiate (money-wise), i don't want any surprises. wish us luck...

we'll fill you in on the details later.

auctions and such

i have to say the home buying process is stressful. this is not a buyers market, it is not a sellers market. it is a patient market and i am not a patient person. in case you haven't heard already, we put a bid in on a small cape cod in the south burbs. we've been waiting for about two days now for a response and it's killing us. we don't want to call as to seem over-eager and at the same time we just want to know if they will accept, counter, or give us the finger.

buying a home is an auction in its simplest terms. a BIG one. the seller has a reserve price and if others are interested, a bidding war ensues. however, unlike ebay, sellers generally don't have a buy-it-now price. i'm pretty sure we'd be willing pay a little more to have the process streamlined. as of now, negotiations, inspections and closing take about a month! how old school is that? i'm just saying, if i can cook a potato in the microwave in 5 minutes, shouldn't i be able to get a damn house in like a week?

sup home-mii?

yep, that pretty much sums up the weekend. it was cold so when we were hundled indoors, we were either playing wii sports/zelda or i was working. when we went out, it was to check out some homes in the homewood-flossmoor area. the real estate market is in quite the funk now. for buyers and sellers. sure factors are turning in the buyers' favor now, but sellers are hesitant to put existing homes on sale for fear of a loss or worse yet, sitting too long on the market. s and i have limited resources but we're adament about getting a single family home close to the train station.

call us jaded, call us anti-social but we don't want really close neighbors. we're tired of hearing noises, sharing walls/roofs/driveways/air with other people we didn't choose. a little green between me and crazies next door is just what we need.

given those limitations, the market goes something like this. we like the current area we're living in, but a MLS search in our price range for a single-family home in downers grove, lisle, westmont, lagrange, clarendon hills and western springs offers 16 hits within the last month. and they're all shit. next!

let's take a stroll down I-294 to homewood-flossmoor, an older area with a little more "charm" and it still has a train line. we checked out 5 homes this weekend, of which one didn't have a working lock box, one was a friggin joke of a rehab, one was only partially rehabbed (read: ran out of moola), one was decent but too close to the train line and one we're giving some additional consideration. this whole process kinda blows...