Curling season

The curling season is nearing its end. The regular season is almost over, and my Monday night team has a solid chance of making it to the "A"-side playoffs. Monday nights are the competitive team night, so it would be great for the team to make it there. When the season first began, we had signed up a brand new curler (Tom Downey), recruited a junior curler (Nicol McNiven), and had two players that hadn't really played in the last 3 years or so (Ryan Cox and myself). The expectation for the season was pretty low and a .500 season was the goal. As this was a pretty competitive league, this goal seemed attainable and reasonable.

After 15 games, we have a 9-6 record. We are guaranteed to finish the regular season with a record above .500 as there are only two games left.

We have a big game on Monday night against Team Guthman. Guthman is a guy that we've had trouble with beating in the past. He's a very good curler and he represented our region at the provincials in the past. It's going to be very tough to beat him.

It's official

FINALLY!!! The deal is done! It was supposed to be completed on Monday, but due to a couple of minor complications, we had to postpone the closing date.

The problem started on Friday about 10am for me. I received a phone call from my real estate agent and he told me that there was something on the purchase and sale agreement that we had never seen before. He got me very worried. What could this be? Why now?

The seller had inserted 2 notes. One indicated that the water entered 73 Arlington before 75 Arlington and the other indicated that the sewer did the same thing. My property is 75 Arlington and I needed to know what this meant. I was afraid that this water thing could cost me a lot of money. It was particularly interesting due to the timing of the release of this information. It made me VERY skeptical.

My real estate lawyer got a hold of this and he gave me an analysis. He asked me if I had seen this before, I said I hadn't. He told me that the page looked like it had been edited. As in, the previous copy that had been signed had been modified, so that the two hand-written notes were inserted. In simpler terms, there seemed to be an act of FRAUD.

What had actually happend was that the seller's real estate agent did not communicate their information very well. When you are in negotiations, the information passes back and forth fairly quickly. It's reasonable that pages get lost in the shuffle I guess. Regardless, I was not about to accept this explanation without doing some additional diligence. I wanted to be sure that there was NOTHING wrong with the current setup.

I got a statement from the seller saying that he was not aware of any defects in the water or sewer in writing. This was a good first step. The second step was to get my cousin Jason, a plumber, to come and inspect the current water setup. The setup looked fine, so I was very relieved. Finally, we called the city to ensure that the splitting of the two systems was allowed. Since this was an older home, this was perfectly legal because it has become grandfathered into law.

Now, I had to do this diligence because if the current water and sewer setup is disfunctional, it may mean that I would have to get my own water and sewer hook-up from the street. This would cost thousands of dollars. I'm glad everything was ok. Since this was a material item, I was able to get a couple of extra days to perform my diligence. I got it done, and now I'm the proud owner of 75 Arlington.

You see, I was very afraid that this deal would fall through. First, I was not prepared to pay for a place that would cost me a fortune just to get up to code. Second, I thought the last minute nature of this information was released in order to kill the deal. If I actually found a problem, we would have to re-negotiate a credit to the purchase price and I thought that the seller may be able to walk away from the deal at that point.

The other interesting fact was that the seller did not disclose any problems in the Seller Property Information Statement about the water and sewer. Therefore, the last minute nature of the information scared the begeebers out of me. It's all settled now. I can take-off to Cuba now without having to worry about the deal going through. It's ALL DONE!!!

So close...

The house deal looks almost complete. Until every "t" has a dot, and every "i" has been crossed, I am going to wait to disclose the latest developments with the purchase of the house. There was some legal mularky that occurred, and I do not wish to say anything in case something comes back to me.

The deal is supposed to close tomorrow at some point, and I will pick up my keys. At that point, I will have to hurry to gather my things and prepare for my trip to Cuba. Once I get back, I should be able to discuss the "recent developments".

Closing the deal

Today was supposed to be the day of the closing of the house I had just purchased.

Due to some unforseen circumstances and complications, the deal should be closed tomorrow at some point.

I will rant about this issue at a later point in time, but due to the fact that I am really tired, I will just say that there are some legalities that weren't addressed in their proper fashion. Not my fault, but I have pushed the date of closing back to ensure that I can perform my due diligence.

Parking

My house only comes with one parking spot. I thought that I had better check to see how much a downtown spot costs for a month. To my surprise, a pass will only run about $50. For some reason, I thought it would be more expensive especially considering that it costs about $8/day around my house.

This is obviously a nuissance, but it means that it is still affordable for someone to rent a room and rent a parking spot. As a landlord, this is music to my ears. What is not music to my ears is the grumblings that have been happening at City Hall.

Recently, the City of Ottawa has had its share of budget trouble. The councilors are getting desperate for ways in order to raise revenue for the City. They are proposing to increase the number of parking meters in the city, raise the rates per hour, and reduce the number of hours of free parking.

For me, my largest concern is the number of hours that the City is planning to administer parking. Currently, there is free parking after 6pm on weeknights and free parking all weekend. I have no beef with the city increasing rates during business hours during the week. The role of the City in this case is to control the downtown traffic situation and the increase in rates will encourage people to avoid downtown during this time. Downtown in the morning is chaotic (in relative terms) and any relief to the congestion will make this a better city in which to live.

The reason I am opposed to the changing of the hours is the fact that the city does not provide adequate transit services on the weekends to justify charging extra on weekends. In addition, downtown is visited by tourists that want to see the likes of downtown and many of them are commuting in their vehicles. This parking ban would hurt business that rely on this weekend business.

For selfish reasons, I have just bought a house downtown and now my visitors may have to pay for parking. They will have to pay in order to visit me. I'm not going to have any visitors! I think it is retarded to make the city life less enjoyable by changing the hours of parking. This does not make sense to me for a few extra dollars. I'd rather pay a little extra in property taxes for the extra convenience.

Therefore, today, I contacted my local councilor and wrote him a nice little e-mail conveying my thoughts. I really hope that the city looks at other ways to make money other than changing the hours of parking. I can think of a few, and I can think of a few more reasons for why the hours should not change. I think the City is on the wrong path here, and I will pay close attention to who is voting against the parking and who is voting for.

House Hunting Tip

Looking for a house is very similar to looking for a girlfriend. Look them up on the internet and find out more information. You want to creep the house before you call it yours. JK. Seriously though, when it comes to buying houses, you do not want to make any mistakes. Any mistake can cost you tens of thousands of dollars. A girlfriend can cost you more :P

When purchasing the first home, I kept a close eye to properties in the Fringewood area in order to gauge the value. Luckily for me, current prices on the cheapest home in the area is now listed at $37,500 more than what I paid for my home. I'm hoping that the house I purchased is worth at least that amount, and could realize those profits if I decide to sell.

As a regular visitor to mls.ca, I gathered information on my existing home and gathered information about an area that I was interested in moving to. I wanted to live downtown, so I regularly tried to look up properties in downtown Ottawa or Ottawa-West.

There were a couple of properties that I had seen that looked like they would be solid investments from a first glance. They were listed as a couple of bedrooms at about $180,000. I was certainly interested, but also cautious about the listing price. There had to be something wrong. I called my real estate agent and tried to get some more information. He was able to send me some extra information including the exact address of the property.

My hopes were quickly quashed. The property was listed on Bell Street. Bell Street homes are probably the dumpiest places in the city. It is located in an area of the city with a few old warehouses and a poor reputation. If I bought this home, it would not matter how much money I would put into the home because nobody would want to buy it.

A couple of weeks later, after reviewing some properties that I knew I could not afford, there was a house listed back in my price range. Not overly optimistic about my prospects after the Bell Street situation, I hesistantly asked my real estate agent the address of this new listing. To my surprise, he told me Kent and Arlington. More alarms started to ring as I was very skeptical.

I decided to schedule an appointment to see the place. I wanted to get a better feel for what the place was like. When I stepped through the door, I noticed why the place was going for cheap. The students that lived inside had beer bottles and bongs all over the place. There would be nobody that would be looking for something to call their new home be wanting this place. The place needed some TLC.

In terms of location, I knew I could not beat the price. There are condos in downtown Ottawa that would be in the same price range, but they did not offer any extra bedrooms to rent out to offset the costs of a mortgage. The condos also come with condo fees which could end up being essentially paying rent to someone else. I knew that this place would be good for me.

My advice is this. Do your homework. Find out what you want in a home. For me, it was location. I knew what I wanted to pay and where I wanted to live. I was able to find the place I wanted by taking the time to find it. Ultimately, the house you buy will likely be your home and you should be happy with it from the start. In fact, you should almost love it from the start. If it is not for you, you should not buy it and wait until you find something to your satisfaction. If that means paying a little bit of a premium right now, it may mean savings in the future. You might be able to save on renovations cause you do not like something in a house that you are not 100% satisfied with.

I hope this helps.

Funny Video

This is not related to anything regarding my home, but this is funny. I think a little humour would be nice to share. Sarah Silverman is a funny bitch.