3 posts tagged “housing”

In the continuing house-hunting saga, BH saw a house yesterday afternoon that had just gone on the market the day before.  Cute Spanish style home, well maintained in a nice neighborhood.  Here's the listing.  Immediately the issue was whether I could come out to see it the same day.  Now, mid-week house hunting from 35 miles away is challenging at best, add to that working regular hours, needing to find day care since Schmaz is out of town, and the fact that I have two major final projects for my classes due within a week.  So, really, you want I should go look at this place tonight?

We work out a sitter.  I go to the school to pick up Little One, only she's not there.  WTF!!  After a period of panic, I determine she's at the B&G Club ('nother story about why this happened).  Head over to B&G Club and drop her off at her play date, and off I go.  Hit the 110 at exactly 5:30.  House is open until 7 p.m. and I had told the realtor I'd be there between 6:15-6:30.  Fat chance now.  Nearly get plowed by a semi who was switching into my lane and didn't see me, I guess.  Listening to the local NPR affiliate and learn there's a Dodger game at 7 pm, which, of course, is gonna make traffic worse than it already is.

I make it to the house at 6:40.  There's quite a bit of traffic of other interested buyers with their agents milling about.  Clearly a hot property.  And, yes, the house is nice.  Among the nicest we've seen in Gdale, though Pasadena had some that rivaled it and were better value per sq. ft..  But Pasadena schools are reportedly very poor. At 1400 sq ft., it's definitely not large.  Has a nice guest room off the garage and a decent yard.  Talked with agent after walking through a couple of times.  The sellers want offers in by Friday midday and they are clearly going to get multiple offers, which translates into the fact it's going to sell for more than the askng $599K.  If we are serious about it, we would have to drive back to meet with the realtors tonight and sit down for a couple of hours to write up the best offer we can.  Only 600 was our limit and that's already pushing it.  As this LA times article details, the buyers' market is a myth for the areas where we're looking.

I walk around the area to get a better feel for the location, since it's not one I'm really familiar with.  Flat, quiet, people actually walking around.  Good signs.  Elementary school in walking distance (I'd done a little research on the schools, and at least in the conventional sense of test scores and parent reviews they seem quite good). Walk over to Kenneth Village about a mile away; a mini-strip of boutiques and french bakery.  Kind of like a very, very small version of Montrose.  Walk down to the main drag on Glenoaks Blvd.  Nearby library branch.  Check out the local grocery store.  Lots of Armenian and Russian products and that jibes with the fact that all the other people looking at the house were Armenian and most the people I saw walking around were too.  So, is it a livable area?  Yes.  Is it as nice as Montrose?  Definitely not.

Left the place at 8:40 pm and it took me 40 mins to get back to San Pedro.  Talked with BH about it, looked at the numbers again, and looked at other things on the market in the area.  Pricey area -- lots of homes pushing the $1mil mark (though, of course, much larger, so not really comps).  BH likes the place, but she's also not head over heels, and the numbers don't add up.

This is gonna be a long haul.  I don't know that I have the nerves for the sort of hectic decision-making involved.  I mean, I just find it next to impossible to make a $600K decision based on a 20 minute inspection of a house and a 1-hr. walk around the neighborhood.  I spend more time investigating a $100 car stereo fer chrissakes.

Seen lots of houses in the last few weeks.  Can't say we've been blown away.  The long and short of it is, the market is still at a level that it is really beyond our means to get something we'd really like, and I don't think it'll ever come down enough.  So you have to compromise or stay out of the market.  Then the big question becomes what do you compromise on, and here is where Better Half and I probably have the biggest divergence of opinion.  I'm all about location.  I can live with a house that is not perfect as long is it's livable and the location is good.  By that I mean, good schools nearby and a walkable neighborhood.  Today we saw what absolutely fits the bill in my opinion.  You can see the listing here.  It is just a block away from THE best part of all Glendale, the Montrose strip on Hononulu.  It's got all the good schools.  The catch is the house is old and undoubtedly needs some work.  How much and how soon we wouldn't really know until after an inspection.  But for BH, it's a non-starter more because of the layout -- a feng shui thing.  The layout doesn't bother me at all and I think you could still do a lot with the place to make it more comfortable, but location you can't change.  Dunno if we'll ever find something that suits us both.  Pretty darn sure we'll never find anything in this area (known as Sparr Heights) at this price again unless the market were suddenly to collapse (and by all indications, it seems to be picking up again).

Stumbled across a zoning map database from the city of Los Angeles the other day.  You can look up any property in the city and get some interesting stats about the place.  Naturally, I looked up our place.  Waddya get for a little over a grand a month in this town? A whopping 684 sq ft.!  That's 63.5 sq meters for you metric buffs.  A veritable McMansion. Sheesh.