Prolong Your Roof Life! Repair It Yourself!

 

Fix that leaky chimney or flashing!

As having spent a few hours on my roof today to remedy an issue with our chimney I have to share that in a previous life, I worked as a roof inspector for quality assurance. We were a third-party entity that provided an RFP to roofing contractors, then enforced the SOW onsite. The end-user hired our company to represent them in all roofing matters, so for the purposes here, we were the end-user customer.

The way a roofing system works is there are several layers in this case for a ply system and aggregate roofing material on top. We provided what the system would be, the materials it was to be made of, and ensured that it was installed per our specs - which in some instances exceeded the manufacturer's specifications.

The underlayment goes down, then the roofing system on top of that, then the metal flashings, and if you're lucky - it includes the finishing roof cement, granules, and silver paint.

Repaired Chimney Flashing

Finished Chimney Flashing Repair

Fixing Flashings

On top of the roofing system, when you set metal flashings at every roof system penetration, you need to ensure that the water barrier is still intact. Unfortunately, in a residential setting, most roofing contractors do not finish the flashings in the manner in which we do in a commercial setting. What normally happens in a commercial setting is that the contractor sets the new metal flashing down on top of the roof system using tar and/or mastic (roof cement), complete with granules embedded and silver paint.

So today, I was informed I needed to get up there and fix it... since we are expecting rain. So I go up, and it is readily apparent where we needed some help at the chimney. So here is how you do it:

Supplies:

• Brush
• Broom
• Rags
• Nitrile gloves (more than a pair - this stuff gets messy, mastic is toxic)
• 2" putty knife/spatula
• Mastic - if you are expecting rain the same day or so get the 'wet' version.
• Webbing of some sort: the mesh used for drywall repair or fiberglass, or similar
• Granules: absorb, kitty litter, or similar
• Silver Paint; reflective roof paint preferred

Supplies

Click thumbnail to view full-size

Mastic - standard

How to do it:

1. Clean the debris from the area with a brush or whatever tools necessary.
2. Using a 2" putty knife or similar, spread the mastic along the area to be repaired. about the width of the putty knife, making sure there is a proper seal; no holes above the membrane.
3. Add the granules onto the mastic once completed, patting them into the mastic - not just sitting on top.
4. Paint the whole line of mastic/granules silver.
5. Do this at every area for repair, remembering that water flows downhill, including around all of the flashings*.
6. Check the flashings welded areas and rims, sealing any area that has come apart. Notate that you need new flashings, replace at next roof repair opportunity.

This should get you through the worst of it! Let me know how it goes!

Photo Gallery

Click thumbnail to view full-size

Finished Chimney Flashing Repair

Me up on the roof.....

How did it go?

How much roofing experience do you have? How was this for you?

• A lot, this was a piece of cake.
• A bit, I didn't find this intimidating at all.
• A little, I was slightly intimidated - and afraid of heights to boot!
• None, I was terrified. But I did it, ladder and all!
• None, and still none. I got to the part where I called the roofer and had them come fix it temporarily!

See results

I love reading!

I started reading very early, as my father was an attorney and had an extensive library. One of my earliest reading memories is from when I was in 4th grade. I had completed the Highlights-based assignments signed off by the teacher. During our reading session, I was sitting with nothing on my desk, reading a book in my lap. The teacher walked over and asked what I was doing, and I held up the book. She said 'there's no way that you understand what is happening in this book.' I was reading James Clavell's Shogun, which is at the very least at a 6-9th grade reading level, as well as over 1000 pages. I stated that I was on page 128 in the novel, and that she could ask me any question about what was happening in that section, and I would answered them.  Shortly after that, they pulled me out of class during the reading session to tutor the 6th graders at the school. I love reading; my entire family loves reading, and we do so on every vacation. One time, at a family reunion - sitting in a room of 19 people, the only 2 not reading were the one-year-old baby, and the person playing with her!

New Year's Resolutions

I'm not usually one to make extravagant New Year's Resolutions, but this year.... I am going to raise from the dead one from 2004.

In 2004 I had written down a personal goal for a course in Managing Quality at Keller Graduate School. Here it is:

	Personal Goals
Goal 1:	Complete SCUBA certification; buy all necessary equipment.
	Take additional Advanced Open Water Diver and Shipwreck Diver Courses.
Measurement:	PADI Open Water Diver certification course is in progress, open water dive is left.
	Have purchased:  Mask, snorkel, gloves, fins, buoyancy compensation device (BCD),
	dive computer, 4mm wetsuit, compass, dive log, air tank, gauges, and dive planner.
Progress:	Equipment needed:  Would like an underwater dive camera.
	Additional courses:  Advanced Open Water Certification course will be in March, followed by Shipwreck Diver course in July.
Degree of Difficulty:	Easily accomplished

While this seems like it was an easy goal, what happened after this was written changed the course of my life. I was in a really bad car accident that year. I had to discontinue school, spent the next 2 years in physical therapy and doctor visits, and ultimately I lost my house. All of it is getting back on track finally: I feel better, bought a new home, and share it with a great man. Now for the goals again... I want to reinstate them now! 

This was one, travel was another, restore my '64 Falcon was the third. I want all of these reinstated, please!

Restoration of a Land Yacht - Academia.edu

I published another paper on Academia.edu: Restoration of a Land_Yacht

I am gathering a collection... lol.

You can view them all here: https://keller.academia.edu/KariBovasso

This one is on our Airstream:

Helping the Community; Down and Out in Downtown L.A.

This weekend was a difficult one for me emotionally.... I am trying to de-clutter my world. So I started cleaning out my truck (finally found keys that would get into it after my landlord threw out the set I had provided for them). We had never 'fully ' moved into this house, since the truck still had about a dozen boxes in it.

We have now. Just in time... to gear up to moving again. SO...... I am going through all the boxes, throwing things out, listing stuff on eBay and OfferUp in an attemot to make some money and get stuff out of my house. Good times.

The first box I opened.... a picture of my first dog Siggy. I had her from when she was 4 weeks old, to when she was 16. I miss her every day.

So that brought tears to my eyes, and I fought off crying. The next items, I found were documents, birth, marriage and death certificates, doctor notes, handwritten notes, and more, from my mother and her husband. Both have passed. These all bring up weird emotions for me. We were not a happy family. She died 01-09-08 after an accidental fall on 01-04-08; she never regained consciousness.

In the end, she was generous and giving of her time to her community, and volunteered with the homeless in downtown Los Angeles with LACAN.

But... my mom was a prolific writer. So I am going to share some of what she has written, in no particular order as there is no way to tell when it was written. Some of it was to present to others, the other parts - who knows. I have typed these as she has written them (fighting my internal urge to correct any grammatical errors she may have made). If they are dated, I am going to put them in here under their actual date.

Peggy - My mom was always laughing.

It doesn't even matter WHEN these were written, the topic is always timely. The need is always there.

~~~

Saint Jerome's Speech by Peggy Cummings

Good morning to you all. My name is Peggy Cummings and I would like to let you know what the Catholic Campaign for Human Development has meant to me.

Three years ago my husband was dying of bladder cancer. Both of us had to leave our jobs - him because he could no longer walk with the tumor rapidly growing inside him; and me, to care for him at home.

After his death, and exhausting all of our savings, I had nowhere but downtown to find a place to live.

Not only that, but Social Security was paying me a widow's benefit until they realized I was too young to collect. They put a freeze on my checking account, then took the $1,600 I had there. Also told me I had to repay the $6,000 they had given me.

Without a dime to my name, I learned that the Union Rescue Mission would allow me to stay for free until I gained an income again.

I was determined to give back to the downtown community for helping me when I needed it the most.

My case manager referred me to the Los Angeles Community Action Network - LACAN. They always welcome any help I could give.

They have been working over six years creating opportunities for low-income and homeless people such as me to gain a new start in life.

I volunteered my services for 1 1/2 years because I had finally found my place in life. LACAN's efforts to give power and voice for residents and their issues is building safer neighborhoods through our Community Watch program and providing education that allows residents to succeed in fighting City Hall to recognize that something needs to change so that needy persons are helped with housing and services.

LACAN is also providing a means of earning additional income through our Vendor Training program where they are licensed to solicit donations by distributing the only street newspaper in L.A....the Community Connection.

Six months ago, I was hired as a policy intern and organizer to work for our outreach efforts to a community in desperate need of support. With the unavailability of affordable housing, let alone nutritional food, and the horrendous "28-day shuffle" - LACAN continues its struggle to make the "power that be" change the plight of 90,000 homeless people within our city limits.

We've managed to place a moratorium on SRO hotels selling to developers to have replacement housing provided before renovations are begun, and residents are no longer forced to the streets. Our Residential Organizing Committee meetings are held twice a month.

Please help us to continue to give our low-income and homeless residents the life they need.

It's wrong for our government to continue to spend billions of dollars around the world - and depriving residents of America the same resources.

We need to help our downtown needy persons first.

Thank you so much for the caring. Please give as generously as you are able to the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. Those 90,000 homeless in L.A. are struggling for dignity.

Difficulty of Real Estate Searches

 

The Decision

All of my life I have made decisions that affect me, for a large part based on the desires of others: my friends and family want me to stay close; my friends say the prospects for boyfriends I have are in jeopardy if I take that job traveling. Naysayers saying “you don’t want to put all of your stuff in storage, do you?” Well, the reality is, I should have done all of the above and had some more life experiences to pull from. I recently found a sentiment on Facebook, author quoted thoughts on Pinterest, which states:

Shake Things Up

She things up, where are you meant to be? | Source

The Process

I really believe in that. For me, it is about all of the chances not taken. Had I put all of my stuff in storage, I would have traveled the world sailing for a year, and seen much more of it than I have currently. This life my fiancée and are living right now, is not the life we want: living almost paycheck to paycheck in a rental that costs us $2400 a month (outrageous). Well in order to get the life we want, my fiancée and I have decided to relocate. Where? Somewhere not in California, as we cannot afford what we want here. We both want waterfront property with enough space for our six+ vehicles, deep water access to put the boat in it off of our own property (hopefully). That is a hard ticket to find here in Southern California in an affordable range for us, so we are now gearing up to move to Louisiana.

So how do we discern what risks are involved for us in this move? Together, we (my fiancée and I) weighed all of the Pros and Cons we could figure out for us: But how do we figure this out? What kind of risks do we face? For a move like this… let’s look at the basic day-to-day and what affects you every day: friends, family, being social, where you live, where you work, necessary money to eat, clothe yourself, and stay healthy... and never mind all of the smaller incidentals: groups you belong to, activities and hobbies you engage in locally!

For this project, we establish the Inputs – my fiancée and I, the activities: project sizing (full move across country and all that entails), initiation meeting (my fiancée’s discussion with me), scope (again, a full move – everything that affects the life we have established currently), time (we established a timeline of no more than six months), cost (downpayment for a home, inspection costs, homeowner’s and flood insurance, earnest money; moving costs, travel expenses to go view the homes, and more – deposits for utilities may be necessary as well), quality (of everything – we want a decent home, we need good data to assess what we need to establish for this move, objectives – we know we want a waterfront property, and wish to keep working as we are currently (crossing my fingers for my current employer to approve it), tools (we need a car transport, movers, all moving supplies and accessories): reporting and review (my fiancée and I need to keep each other updated on any changes that affect our move in any manner to assess if the affect flows into any other aspect), definitions of scale (how is this defined? by our objectives, risk thresholds (for us, the main risk is finding and buying a home that ends up needing more work on it than we had originally thought, employment for me if I am let go), outputs (all of the answers to our questions and results of our endeavors on all fronts).

• Friends/Family/Social: Family would love us closer than we are now already. None of our friends live in the area. The few who we do many outings with may be willing to relocate, eventually. Everyone is sad about that. Plus, we are on a bowling league and participate in many activities on a regular basis as participants.
• Housing: Rent or buy? We decided to buy… but how do we see the houses? A long weekend of house viewing is in order.
• Employment: Both of our positions are nationwide, so he is certain, but mine depends upon my supervisor, and company policy.
• The Physical Move: who likes moving? Sorting, Packing, Shipping, Unpacking – while still trying to be useful/useable for your basics. The vehicles: RV, Jeep on the trailer, Boat w/trailer, five other vehicles (two to be sold). What tows what? We need transport - when can he do it? Changing our addresses on everything we receive or gets shipped to us.
• New Neighborhood challenges: not at all familiar with the area, except for the maps on Google and Zillow, and the US Coast Guard charts for the waterways available online (via http://www.nauticalchartsonline.com), new culture, new weather dynamics, and new state laws to abide by.
• Health Insurance: It used to be that you couldn’t get insurance with any pre-diagnosed conditions. At least now that everyone must have insurance that should be a little easier if my employer does NOT let me work from home.
• Hobbies and activities: We are “car” people – we go to shows, events, car cruises with our friends, and more. We will miss all of that. California is one of the biggest venues for this hobby. We also enjoy the Renaissance Faire when it is here for nine weeks. We attend regularly, and this will be missed. Sure we can go visit once or twice on vacation for a week at a time, but it won’t be the same. We live fifteen minutes from the location now!

First, on the list, we review the Housing issue. Oh, what a task this is. Rent or buy? Well, that question is a little trickier… It behooves us to buy a house. But how do you shop for one when you live 1900 miles away from where you want to move? Online. So that works… sort of. You search and search and search. Find the perfect house, figure out its costs, then try to prequalify for a loan for that amount. For us, right now, we are sitting at a proposed cost of $200,000 for a waterfront home with a boat launch/dock, and a grassy yard for our dog. Now here is the real challenge for us. Getting qualified for that $200K loan.

Two weeks ago: My fiancée has been self-employed for three years; however, he bought out his business associate and is now a Small Business Owner, but only for the last six months. So... from the Lender? We can’t even put him on the loan or factor in his salary as the rules have changed and he would have had to be a sole owner for two years worth of taxes. From me? Oh, dear. Fiancée’s salary is much higher than mine, and we were banking on that to qualify for the $200K loan we want. I send in all of my documents: W2’s the last two years, tax returns for the last two years, bank statements for the last two months. However, I am thinking we won’t even get near that $200K amount. The Lender pulls my credit. While my FICO score (your Credit Score used for any entities to rate you for approval for loans, etc) has been raised due to my due diligence on making timely payments; no late payments, getting my school loan statuses corrected on my report this last year (they were reported twice), and getting any errors off of my report. I qualify... but for how much!?!? Far less than the $200K. But wait, there’s more….. One week ago: I found the PERFECT house for us. Dock, land, garage, and a pool! $199,900. School Loans are in deferment but were only reporting out to this October. In order for them to not factor into my payments, I find out they need to be deferred out for a year. Guess what? My perfect house… falls ‘Off-Market.’ It felt like a knife to my heart. So I contact the loan provider, and yes – my school loans should be in ‘School Deferment’ with them, which is currently in progress for a date out to April 2017! Perfect! Even though we lost that house… our search continues. It could take a long while to find another that fits our needs in the area, and our price range.

The Perfect House

This was my perfect house! Off Market..... | Source

The Loan Process

Yesterday: I provided all of the school loan documentation to the lender, so now what do I qualify for? $270K. You can imagine my surprise. We now know what the payment and insurance will be, and it is far less than the rent we currently pay already. Win-win. An article I found by Suze Orman1 states that your “…housing budget should be low enough so that you can afford to make progress on all your other important financial goals.” With that in mind, we are ahead of the game, with the mortgage payment and insurance being half o what we are currently paying now, and we are still able to save.

Alright, so one HUGE obstacle is down. With all of the documents I provided, that not only gets us the pre-qualification letter (already in my hands) but also gets us funding approval already, which is a Buyer’s advantage over another buyer who may or may not get funded. In a situation where a Seller gets multiple offers, this could be a huge benefit for us. However, there is another point Suze Orman made in her article2, that I absolutely agree with: we will not compromise on the Home Inspection Contingency. Suze states one huge mistake Buyers make is ”Making a Bid That Waives the Home Inspection Contingency. In some markets where demand is high and the inventory of home sales is low, some prospective buyers make offers that waive the home inspection to make themselves more appealing to sellers. That’s insane; if there are major structural or mechanical issues you could be in for tens of thousands of dollars in added expenses. A smarter move is before you bid, shell out the money for the home inspection. If your bid isn’t accepted you’re “out” the cost of the inspection. But that’s smarter than winning a bid with no inspection and then being hit with a slew of problems later on.”

The Loan

The Money hole....

The Job and More

Next item? Employment. I mentioned above that both of our positions are nationwide. He works in a service delivery field for security/retail sales processing equipment for several large chain companies. He has technicians on both coasts, in the Midwest, and more. The only aspect that will change for him is that the area in which he personally services the locations will be around our new house instead of here in SoCal. For me, again it depends on many factors that are out of my hands. My supervisor has to decide to allow me to work from home. I work for a Cable provider that does not have a presence in the state we are choosing to move. I feel my supervisor will not be able to approve this, as if she opens it up to me, she would need to open it up to everyone on our nationwide team (we physically sit in five different cities throughout the nation). While I have a home-based business, and have a faster than usual Internet speed, and have a home office and the capability to work from home with efficiency – I know there are others on our team that would not have that advantage or work ethic.

Next item? Friends/Family/Social: His parents and mine are retired, and travel extensively – they would come to visit. The area we want to move to is a tourist attraction, so all of our friends would most likely come to visit at some point as well. The reality is that we currently see the majority of our friends and family on holidays and birthdays. That may not change – we will only be a short flight away instead of an hour’s drive. Family? Check. Friends? Check. Yes, we have even closer friends we do many events with, and I will be saddened that they aren’t immediately around us… however, some have already expressed thoughts along the line of going with us, even if at a later date. Close Friends? Check. We even offered to put up our friends while they build something after purchasing a lot near our new home (once found).

Next item? The Physical Move. As I said earlier, we have a lot of vehicles that need to be moved/transported 1900 miles. Now a couple of them may end up at a storage facility, but that is not our hope. The house we are in now is a three-bedroom with a two-car garage/storage and a lot of stuff. We currently cannot park cars in the garage due to its being set up as a workshop and the amount of stuff stored in it. That is a lot of stuff. We need to sort, sell, donate, etcetera to whittle down to what we need, and what we want to move to the new house. Packing it all up… now we need the necessities: boxes, packing tape, paper for wrapping, markers, and a clear area to start stacking them up for the movers. We also had to review some other laws for the state due to one of our hobbies: firearms. This aspect is a huge responsibility and needed to be reviewed prior to entertaining wherever we wish to end up.

Lastly? New Neighborhood challenges. We won’t know anyone there, won’t know the streets or the city layout. We cannot really ‘get-to-know-the-neighborhood’ until we move out there - which is also one huge disadvantage of choosing a home remotely. We did entertain renting a house for a year or so, but we dislike moving. Who wants to do it another year later?? Do you leave your stuff packed? Go without your hobbies for a year? That could be miserable. However, it could be done. You could just fill in your time with getting to know your neighbors, the same article from Suze Orman’s website: http://www.suzeorman.com/blog/four-expensive-home-buying-mistakes/ neighborhood – the more accessible activities and hobbies. Most importantly, in the past, when I wished to select a new home and was local enough to drive there easily, I would visit during the day: morning, evening, nighttime - and more, to see what the area is like prior to moving into it. We do not have that luxury for this move. At most, we will take an extended vacation, and schedule some house viewings with our realtor in order to make a more educated offer.

All in all, we are approved for funding for a loan, and we are now searching for a home. Our revised goal is to just get there. Once we are there, if we hate living in the house we choose on a day-to-day basis, we can keep looking and rent that first house out once we are able to add my fiancée onto a loan for someplace else. At least at that point, we will be local and be able to actually go visit and drive the areas to find the neighborhood we really want to be in, which has been a difficult part of this process, being as remote as we are. That will start the next phase of our business – property ownership and management!

The Rabbit Hole of the Internet

However, we have to find a house first. And that, my friends, is where the rabbit hole appears. Of the scams of the Internet! "Call us today at 888-888-XXXX we have your dream property! Well, if you just send us $1000..." to this address in Nigeria. No, thank you. Also, while the data is *supposed* to be fresh on all of the realty websites, driven by the MLS, it is not always so. I have had a few disappointments so far where I think I have found the 'perfect house!' and then it falls off the market, and is not really available. In some cases I think that the realty company leaves it a little while due to a number of reasons - the 'look we sold it!' aspect and the 'we can help you too!'

It is disappointing, to say the least. Plus, in addition to the stale ads, you have the oh-so-misleading labels such as Waterfront on a house that is NOWHERE near water. Oh you mean the neighborhood is called Lakefront? Really. Where is the lake?

Also, as I said earlier, we are car people. We need room for an RV, a boat, a car trailer, and 5 other cars. This could take a while. Not many of the listings I have seen a focus on the parking on the property. We may need to move twice to find what we really need.

Are you a spammer victim?

Have you ever clicked these ads...

• Housing/Apt Search: I can't meet you as I am an RN working in Nigeria, but I can send you the keys when you send me your $1000 deposit!
• Multiple ads: Hey, look at this house! It is identical to these 30 other ads. Wow, who knew they built so many identical homes!
• Contact info: When I Googled the phone number, I get "craigslist scammer' as a result.

See results

Suze Orman on Owning a Home

Difficulty of Real Estate Searches

 

The Decision

All of my life I have made decisions that affect me, for a large part based on the desires of others: my friends and family want me to stay close; my friends say the prospects for boyfriends I have are in jeopardy if I take that job traveling. Naysayers saying “you don’t want to put all of your stuff in storage, do you?” Well, the reality is, I should have done all of the above and had some more life experiences to pull from. I recently found a sentiment on Facebook, author quoted thoughts on Pinterest, which states:

Shake Things Up

She things up, where are you meant to be? | Source

The Process

I really believe in that. For me, it is about all of the chances not taken. Had I put all of my stuff in storage, I would have traveled the world sailing for a year, and seen much more of it than I have currently. This life my fiancée and are living right now, is not the life we want: living almost paycheck to paycheck in a rental that costs us $2400 a month (outrageous). Well in order to get the life we want, my fiancée and I have decided to relocate. Where? Somewhere not in California, as we cannot afford what we want here. We both want waterfront property with enough space for our six+ vehicles, deep water access to put the boat in it off of our own property (hopefully). That is a hard ticket to find here in Southern California in an affordable range for us, so we are now gearing up to move to Louisiana.

So how do we discern what risks are involved for us in this move? Together, we (my fiancée and I) weighed all of the Pros and Cons we could figure out for us: But how do we figure this out? What kind of risks do we face? For a move like this… let’s look at the basic day-to-day and what affects you every day: friends, family, being social, where you live, where you work, necessary money to eat, clothe yourself, and stay healthy... and never mind all of the smaller incidentals: groups you belong to, activities and hobbies you engage in locally!

For this project, we establish the Inputs – my fiancée and I, the activities: project sizing (full move across country and all that entails), initiation meeting (my fiancée’s discussion with me), scope (again, a full move – everything that affects the life we have established currently), time (we established a timeline of no more than six months), cost (downpayment for a home, inspection costs, homeowner’s and flood insurance, earnest money; moving costs, travel expenses to go view the homes, and more – deposits for utilities may be necessary as well), quality (of everything – we want a decent home, we need good data to assess what we need to establish for this move, objectives – we know we want a waterfront property, and wish to keep working as we are currently (crossing my fingers for my current employer to approve it), tools (we need a car transport, movers, all moving supplies and accessories): reporting and review (my fiancée and I need to keep each other updated on any changes that affect our move in any manner to assess if the affect flows into any other aspect), definitions of scale (how is this defined? by our objectives, risk thresholds (for us, the main risk is finding and buying a home that ends up needing more work on it than we had originally thought, employment for me if I am let go), outputs (all of the answers to our questions and results of our endeavors on all fronts).

• Friends/Family/Social: Family would love us closer than we are now already. None of our friends live in the area. The few who we do many outings with may be willing to relocate, eventually. Everyone is sad about that. Plus, we are on a bowling league and participate in many activities on a regular basis as participants.
• Housing: Rent or buy? We decided to buy… but how do we see the houses? A long weekend of house viewing is in order.
• Employment: Both of our positions are nationwide, so he is certain, but mine depends upon my supervisor, and company policy.
• The Physical Move: who likes moving? Sorting, Packing, Shipping, Unpacking – while still trying to be useful/useable for your basics. The vehicles: RV, Jeep on the trailer, Boat w/trailer, five other vehicles (two to be sold). What tows what? We need a transport - when can he do it? Changing our addresses on everything we receive or gets shipped to us.
• New Neighborhood challenges: not at all familiar with the area, except for the maps on Google and Zillow, and the US Coast Guard charts for the waterways available online (via http://www.nauticalchartsonline.com), new culture, new weather dynamics, and new state laws to abide by.
• Health Insurance: It used to be that you couldn’t get insurance with any pre-diagnosed conditions. At least now that everyone must have insurance that should be a little easier if my employer does NOT let me work from home.
• Hobbies and activities: We are “car” people – we go to shows, events, car cruises with our friends, and more. We will miss all of that. California is one of the biggest venues for this hobby. We also enjoy the Renaissance Faire when it is here for nine weeks. We attend regularly, and this will be missed. Sure we can go visit once or twice on vacation for a week at a time, but it won’t be the same. We live fifteen minutes from the location now!

First, on the list, we review the Housing issue. Oh, what a task this is. Rent or buy? Well, that question is a little trickier… It behooves us to buy a house. But how do you shop for one when you live 1900 miles away from where you want to move? Online. So that works… sort of. You search and search and search. Find the perfect house, figure out its costs, then try to prequalify for a loan for that amount. For us, right now, we are sitting at a proposed cost of $200,000 for a waterfront home with a boat launch/dock, and a grassy yard for our dog. Now here is the real challenge for us. Getting qualified for that $200K loan.

Two weeks ago: My fiancée has been self-employed for three years; however, he bought out his business associate and is now a Small Business Owner, but only for the last six months. So... from the Lender? We can’t even put him on the loan or factor in his salary as the rules have changed and he would have had to be a sole owner for two years worth of taxes. From me? Oh, dear. Fiancée’s salary is much higher than mine, and we were banking on that to qualify for the $200K loan we want. I send in all of my documents: W2’s the last two years, tax returns for the last two years, bank statements for the last two months. However, I am thinking we won’t even get near that $200K amount. The Lender pulls my credit. While my FICO score (your Credit Score used for any entities to rate you for approval for loans, etc) has been raised due to my due diligence on making timely payments; no late payments, getting my school loan statuses corrected on my report this last year (they were reported twice), and getting any errors off of my report. I qualify... but for how much!?!? Far less than the $200K. But wait, there’s more….. One week ago: I found the PERFECT house for us. Dock, land, garage, and a pool! $199,900. School Loans are in deferment but were only reporting out to this October. In order for them to not factor into my payments, I find out they need to be deferred out for a year. Guess what? My perfect house… falls ‘Off-Market.’ It felt like a knife to my heart. So I contact the loan provider, and yes – my school loans should be in ‘School Deferment’ with them, which is currently in progress for a date out to April 2017! Perfect! Even though we lost that house… our search continues. It could take a long while to find another that fits our needs in the area, and our price range.

The Perfect House

This was my perfect house! Off Market..... | Source

The Loan Process

Yesterday: I provided all of the school loan documentation to the lender, so now what do I qualify for? $270K. You can imagine my surprise. We now know what the payment and insurance will be, and it is far less than the rent we currently pay already. Win-win. An article I found by Suze Orman1 states that your “…housing budget should be low enough so that you can afford to make progress on all your other important financial goals.” With that in mind, we are ahead of the game, with the mortgage payment and insurance being half o what we are currently paying now, and we are still able to save.

Alright, so one HUGE obstacle is down. With all of the documents I provided, that not only gets us the pre-qualification letter (already in my hands), but also gets us funding approval already, which is a Buyer’s advantage over another buyer who may or may not get funded. In a situation where a Seller gets multiple offers, this could be a huge benefit for us. However, there is another point Suze Orman made in her article2, that I absolutely agree with: we will not compromise on the Home Inspection Contingency. Suze states one huge mistake Buyers make is ”Making a Bid That Waives the Home Inspection Contingency. In some markets where demand is high and the inventory of home sales is low, some prospective buyers make offers that waive the home inspection to make themselves more appealing to sellers. That’s insane; if there are major structural or mechanical issues you could be in for tens of thousands of dollars in added expenses. A smarter move is before you bid, shell out the money for the home inspection. If your bid isn’t accepted you’re “out” the cost of the inspection. But that’s smarter than winning a bid with no inspection and then being hit with a slew of problems later on.”

The Loan

The Money hole....

The Job and More

Next item? Employment. I mentioned above that both of our positions are nationwide. He works in a service delivery field for security/retail sales processing equipment for several large chain companies. He has technicians on both coasts, in the Midwest, and more. The only aspect that will change for him is that the area in which he personally services the locations will be around our new house instead of here in SoCal. For me, again it depends on many factors that are out of my hands. My supervisor has to decide to allow me to work from home. I work for a Cable provider that does not have a presence in the state we are choosing to move. I feel my supervisor will not be able to approve this, as if she opens it up to me, she would need to open it up to everyone on our nationwide team (we physically sit in five different cities throughout the nation). While I have a home-based business, and have a faster than usual Internet speed, and have a home office and the capability to work from home with efficiency – I know there are others on our team that would not have that advantage or work ethic.

Next item? Friends/Family/Social: His parents and mine are retired, and travel extensively – they would come to visit. The area we want to move is a tourist attraction, so all of our friends would most likely come to visit at some point as well. The reality is that we currently see the majority of our friends and family on holidays and birthdays. That may not change – we will only be a short flight away instead of an hour’s drive. Family? Check. Friends? Check. Yes, we have even closer friends we do many events with, and I will be saddened that they aren’t immediately around us… however, some have already expressed thoughts along the line of going with us, even if at a later date. Close Friends? Check. We even offered to put up our friends while they build something after purchasing a lot near our new home (once found).

Next item? The Physical Move. As I said earlier, we have a lot of vehicles that need to be moved/transported 1900 miles. Now a couple of them may end up at a storage facility, but that is not our hope. The house we are in now is a three-bedroom with a two-car garage/storage and a lot of stuff. We currently cannot park cars in the garage due to its being set up as a workshop and the amount of stuff stored in it. That is a lot of stuff. We need to sort, sell, donate, etcetera to whittle down to what we need, and what we want to move to the new house. Packing it all up… now we need the necessities: boxes, packing tape, paper for wrapping, markers, and a clear area to start stacking them up for the movers. We also had to review some other laws for the state due to one of our hobbies: firearms. This aspect is a huge responsibility and needed to be reviewed prior to entertaining wherever we wish to end up.

Lastly? New Neighborhood challenges. We won’t know anyone there, won’t know the streets or the city layout. We cannot really ‘get-to-know-the-neighborhood’ until we move out there - which is also one huge disadvantage to choosing a home remotely. We did entertain renting a house for a year or so, but we dislike moving. Who wants to do it another year later?? Do you leave your stuff packed? Go without your hobbies for a year? That could be miserable. However, it could be done. You could just fill in your time with getting to know your neighbors, the same article from Suze Orman’s website: http://www.suzeorman.com/blog/four-expensive-home-buying-mistakes/ neighborhood – the more accessible activities and hobbies. Most importantly, in the past, when I wished to select a new home and was local enough to drive there easily, I would visit during the day: morning, evening, nighttime - and more, to see what the area is like prior to moving into it. We do not have that luxury for this move. At most, we will take an extended vacation, and schedule some house viewings with our realtor in order to make a more educated offer.

All in all, we are approved for funding for a loan, and we are now searching for a home. Our revised goal is to just get there. Once we are there, if we hate living in the house we choose on a day-to-day basis, we can keep looking and rent that first house out once we are able to add my fiancée onto a loan for someplace else. At least at that point, we will be local and be able to actually go visit and drive the areas to find the neighborhood we really want to be in, which has been a difficult part of this process, being as remote as we are. That will start the next phase of our business – property ownership and management!

The Rabbit Hole of the Internet

However, we have to find a house first. And that, my friends, is where the rabbit hole appears. Of the scams of the Internet! "Call us today at 888-888-XXXX we have your dream property! Well, if you just send us $1000..." to this address in Nigeria. No, thank you. Also, while the data is *supposed* to be fresh on all of the realty websites, driven by the MLS, it is not always so. I have had a few disappointments so far where I think I have found the 'perfect house!' and then it falls off the market, and is not really available. In some cases I think that the realty company leaves it a little while due to a number of reasons - the 'look we sold it!' aspect and the 'we can help you too!'

It is disappointing, to say the least. Plus, in addition to the stale ads, you have the oh-so-misleading labels such as Waterfront on a house that is NOWHERE near water. Oh you mean the neighborhood is called Lakefront? Really. Where is the lake?

Also, as I said earlier, we are car people. We need room for an RV, a boat, a car trailer, and 5 other cars. This could take a while. Not many of the listings I have seen a focus on the parking on the property. We may need to move twice to find what we really need.

Are you a spammer victim?

Have you ever clicked these ads...

• Housing/Apt Search: I can't meet you as I am an RN working in Nigeria, but I can send you the keys when you send me your $1000 deposit!
• Multiple ads: Hey, look at this house! It is identical to these 30 other ads. Wow, who knew they built so many identical homes!
• Contact info: When I Googled the phone number, I get "craigslist scammer' as a result.

See results

Suze Orman on Owning a Home

wth Facebook

OMG..... so frustrating.

So during my final for my grad school math class, I had some horrible technical difficulties. This class has been a challenge for me from the get-go due to my own health and med issues, so my grade was a C going into the final... my lowest grade in grad school... but I was okay with it due to the medical issues, not stufying, etc.

I made a post on Facebook, nothing naming the school, or any aspect of it, just the pics from the technical difficulties from the final, the phone calls are to tech support - closed on the weekend when we were taking the final:

I lost more than an hour's worth of time, rushed through the last few questions, barely answered the second to last, and didn't answer the last question. I failed the final.

I have sent an email to my counselor, in an attempt to petition to retake the final. or at least give me 2 questions and an hour to do them. Just waiting now.....

Here's hoping.

Anyway, I find it weird that Facebook deleted the post. Really? why the heck would they even care? People can leave all this anti-american, BS on their pages, but I can't complain about my final difficulties?? so weird.

Dreams....

My dreams can be so weird. It's like "what generates this stuff?"

Some of the things that happen are so incidental... I had a dream that my boyfriend and I were driving somewhere with some friends, a married couple. The husband was trying to show my boyfriend something in his laptop, while standing outside next to the cars, and delaying our departure. His wife was getting irritated - 'it's not work time, put that away' like her husband couldn't 'turn off.' (Absolutely not true in real life, and he doesn't even have a laptop.) 

So they start arguing at the cars, and it was just one of those moments, and I said 'come on guys... let's not argue.....' and we went about our day. 

What is that? It is so insignificant, what is the point?

____________________________________

One I had a few weeks ago, could be a fun gimmicky product.....

Picture sitting down to your favorite magical fantasy book, with a drink... and an additive that you can put into it to enhance your reading experience like you are drinking some magical potion! it fizzes and pops and crackles. Some have flavors if you want, most are flavorless. 

Dreams are so weird!

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So blogger deleted my old blog... no biggy, I have all of the posts. But I would like to upload all the posts here, so I don't feel as much pressure to fill it! LOL.... give me a few days to get it straight.

Contrary to popular belief....

I do not get into car accidents a lot. Weird things happen to my cars: people steal things from them, break windows, key the sides, etc. I have usually been the one to get hit, the 'hittee' not the 'hitter.' Well....

I hate ABS brakes. I had to hit them kind of hard yesterday, and the ABS released and sent me into the car in front of me.

her car... mostly okay. my car can no longer go on the freeway. the hood is messed up too much.

:( me sad

The lady I hit was great. it was like 5 mph, but because I was sooo close when it stopped, it surged into her from the ABS releasing and messed up the bumper on her car. we turned the corner, exchanged info. she works for the police department(yay me). she cracked a joke about sending her officers after me and i was like... deer in the headlights. she apologized. and was like just kidding! just kidding!

My car looks like crap. her car sat really high so it just shoved my hood in and now it won't open. i don't really care, as long as both of us are okay, uninjured, that is all that matters. Looks like it is going to be mostly painless. except for that lovely point on my record.

The worst of it is just that i can't drive it on the freeway, so i be a homebody for awhile.