In Escrow

Believe it or not, I'm still here.

I do have a really good excuse, though: I'm in escrow to buy a townhouse.

"In escrow", as I eventually learned, means that I've made an offer and it's been accepted, and I've passed my down-payment on to the escrow company, which is basically the company which causes the money to be exchanged for the title and keys to the house. The process lasts several weeks, and involves a lot of work on my part.

The first big thing I've had to do is to arrange financing. This actually isn't too hard: I've already been preapproved for a mortgage, and just had to hook up with my mortgage broker, check the interest rates, and decide what sort of a mortgage I want to get. The basic trade-off in mortgages is the interest rate vs. the length of the mortgage (actually, the length of the mortgage before the rate ceases to be fixed and becomes variable - which probably means it will rise).

Making this choice was the first big stress point for me (after deciding to make the offer on this townhouse). Getting a 5-year hybrid mortgage had a much lower interest rate than any other mortgage, and I finally decided that the savings from the lower rate made it attractive enough to get, although I'll have to refinance (or sell) during that period. There's a certain amount of risk - if several things go wrong at once, I could end up being screwed - but I think the risk is small enough to be worth it.

The second stressful time was the house inspection. Here, a general inspector comes out to examine the property, which involves testing all the appliances, all the electrical outlets, the heating system, and inspecting the structure of the house. As it turns out, the place I'm buying has no structural defects, which apparently is extremely rare. But is a good thing! So this hurdle was cleared fairly easily.

I accompanied my agent and inspector on the inspection. I actually noticed a few things that he didn't, although they weren't major things. (Quite possibly I noticed them only because I got to that place first, and he would have noticed them himself eventually.) I got to look into some parts of the house I hadn't seen before, and learned some new things about it, as well as having several concerns addressed. Overall, it was a very positive experience. For those of you buying houses, I certainly encourage you to be present for the inspection.

The third hurdle - and perhaps the hardest so far - was reading through the disclosures and homeowner's association documents, which I received on Friday and read over this weekend.

The disclosures are the seller's statements regarding his knowledge of the condition of the property, as well as various inspections that he's had done. For instance, for pests. One thing about the Bay Area, from what I've heard, is that it's basically one big termite farm. Every house in the area gets termites eventually, and treating them periodically is just to be expected. Fortunately, the pest inspection did not report any evidence of infestation, which was a relief.

The disclosures, in many ways, are just a huge mass of information, which is difficult to evaluate without proper context. For instance, there's a report on contamination in the area. There are dozens of contaminations within 20 miles of the property, simply because the Bay Area is riddled with ancient gas tanks once owned by private residents, and which were never removed. It's kind of bizarre. I think for the most part they pose little danger, but truthfully I don't know. On the other hand, the alternative is never to buy property out here, and how silly is that?

There are also government-mandated health-related disclosures, disclosures about the inside of the property, and so on and so forth. Many of these documents are simply checklists and are difficult to put into context given their brevity. All-in-all, it's a lot of paper.

For those of you who have never lived in a condominium, a homeowner's association is the legal entity which represents the condo complex, and which is run by the owners of the individual units. The owners pay monthly dues which are spent maintaining the complex over the years. Moreover, the association has a Covenants, Codes and Restrictions (CC&R) document which details the association's responsibilities, the owners' rights, and their restrictions. For instance, typically you can't paint the exterior of your unit a color not approved by the association.

The CC&Rs are pretty straightforward at this complex, and most importantly I verified that I am allowed to keep my kitties, which obviously would be a big problem if I couldn't! I also received documents regarding the financial situation of the association, and minutes of their meetings for the past year.

All-in-all, the documents were fairly encouraging (for instance, the complex put new roofs on the buildings in the past year), but I did find many small items to talk over with my agent, which all together were a source of quite a bit of stress for me, because they were all things which potentially could be quite bothersome and which I hadn't anticipated going in. But, I talked with my agents today and he put most of my fears to rest, and was going to contact the sellers to resolve my other questions.

Overall, I'm definitely feeling quite optimistic about this place. I know that the monthly payments will be rather stunning for a while, but I think I can afford it. If the outstanding concerns I have are addressed in the way it seems they ought to be, then I will have few reservations of any sort left about buying the place. In some ways I think I've been pretty lucky to find it, but in others I know that it took some work and thought to get to this point. So really I think I have something to be proud of here as well.

The next stage is to remove contingencies on the property - i.e., to really commit to buying it - and then to wait for financing to go through and finally close escrow, where I really do purchase the property. And then I can move in!

Which is another can of worms altogether.

Things I like about the townhouse I'm buying:

1. It's in a good location, convenient to the freeway and in biking distance of a downtown area I like, as well as to some friends of mine.
2. It's in a residential neighborhood which is nice and green.
3. There's a grocery store in walking distance.
4. It has some nice windows in the front bedroom with sills for the cats to sit in.
5. Some part of the unit will get sunlight at all times of the day.
6. It has a nice back patio, with an equally nice porch off the master bedroom overlooking the patio.
7. It has an attached garage with plenty of storage space.
8. I really like the floor plan, and can easily see myself spreading out my life there.
9. It has stairs, which I think the cats will love.

Needless to say, most of my life for the last week has been taken up by work and by buying the house. But I did have time this weekend to hang out with Debbi and do some things.

Friday night we went over to Becky's and played Bridge. Actually, I played Bridge and Debbi read and just hung out. Becky bought a good apple pie from Safeway, while John made some extremely good vanilla and then chocolate ice cream with his fancy ice cream maker. Becky also brought out some of that always-good port she has. So it was a nice relaxing evening with friends.

Saturday Debbi and I went shopping. Well, mainly I wanted to go by Lee's Comics for their sale, where I picked up two of the three Cerebus collections I was missing. But we also went to the Stanford Mall where I introduced Debbi to a store named Papyrus which has some excellent greeting cards; she needed one for a birthday party. We also stopped off in downtown Palo Alto for some gelato, and I stopped in a Men's Wearhouse to look at new suits. Fortunately, it looks like a new suit is about what I expected - $300 - so I won't have sticker shock when I go to pick one out.

So we did all that - with a little surprise that we actually did every single thing on our itinerary! - and then went to Borrone to hang out for the evening, where I plowed through all the aforementioned housing papers.

Sunday Debbi got up early and went into San Fran where she was doing a walk for breast cancer (well, actually against breast cancer). No, I didn't join her. Getting up at 6 am on Sunday doesn't agree with me. I know, I'm a cad. She had a good time, though. She joined me in the early afternoon where we went next to the birthday party I mentioned, for the woman who does Debbi's nails. Debbi met her through her friend Lisa, who was also there with her boyfriend Michel. Everyone else there was friendly enough, although I was pretty dazed all day so I had a good time but didn't interact all that much.

It turns out I've been neglecting my sleep a little too much, and I was completely zoned by the end of the day. I went to bed early and got up late this morning, and felt much better. I felt less stressed, too, which is definitely a good thing. It's easier to bear the stress when you're well-rested, I think. Stress is tiring!

So I've been plenty busy lately. And I haven't even talked about the World Series, or the reading I haven't really been doing, or any of a number of other things. But, I'll either get to it or I won't. Because y'know, life's keeping me plenty busy right now, and I need to keep myself sane enough to write again, whether or not it's soon.

Right?