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.

Home Buying Tip #1

I am cheap. Cheaper than a five dollar hooker on toonie tuesdays. I don't like to spend money if I do not have to. When I went to buy my house, I had the "option" of getting a home inspection performed. It was going to cost me about $400 plus tax. $400 is a lot of money when you've only been out of school for a few months. My "frugality" forced me to reconsider this extra cost.

I had seen the house. I knew that there were some issues with the home. Hence, why the house was in my price range. I figured that a home inspection would just tell me some things I already knew.

One of the things that I already knew was the fact that the floor had sloped a little bit. As a result, I was concerned that there was something wrong with the structure of the building. I wanted to ensure that the house would not fall down. I decided that it would be best to perform the home inpection.

The home inspector was recommended by my real estate agent. I figured that my real estate agent should know someone that is either cheap, or really good. Anyways, the guy showed up one afternoon and we went through the house. The home inspector went up in the attic, up on the roof, in and out of the house, and down through the basement. I felt as if he was concerned that I was making a good investment. As we were going through the home, he ensured that he let me know what he was looking for and if he had found any problems in my home. He wanted me to ask questions if I had any.

With the exception of the stuff I had expected, the home inspector was able to identify that the furnace was nearing the end of its life. The furnace was short-cycling, but I had no idea what short-cycling even means. Short-cycling indicates that the furnace would turn on and off in a relatively quick period of time. This indicates that the safety device in the furnace is forcing the furnace off because of something that it does not like, like a dirty filter or something similar. The furnace goes back on because the temperature in the house needs to increase slightly. The On and Off nature of the furnace indicates that it is not as effective as before. It needs to be replaced.

Now, I should take a step back and mention that a tentative deal had been reached at this point with the seller. We had negotiated a price that we were both comfortable with, but it was subject to some conditions. One of the conditions happened to be the home inspection. Now, instead of the deal falling apart because of some extra costs associated with the furnace, we had an opportunity to re-negotiate the price again.

In the home inspection, there were a lot of items that were identified. These included some light fixtures that need to be replaced, some painting to be done, etc. There were other items that were identified that were larger, but were obvious from my own inspection. I had tried to gain a credit for some of these things, and had tried to gain a credit for the furnace. Obviously, since the other items were "known", I was not able to get a credit. I did, however, get a credit for the furnace.

In summary, the home inspection saved me $2000 on the purchase price. With the $400 paid out, the inspection more than paid for itself. In addition, I get the peace of mind of having the home inspection performed. I know that I shouldn't have too many surprises with the home.

Therefore, I'd recommend that you get a home inspection every time you purchase a home. In my situation, even if the furnace was found to be in good working order, I believe I would be able to negotiate a better price. The report looks intimidating and could be used as good leverage during negotiations. You should be able to negotiate at least the cost of the home inspection given that the report is very detailed.