Housing update & dilema

We tried. We did our best, open houses every weekend, craigslist ads, NY times ads (when I felt like spending the $120), & some self promotion ( we are featured on brownstoner, and renovation voyeur, with both good and bad criticism). But with no bites,we have decided to list it with Corcoran this week, with a significant reduction in price. I am hesitant, I of course would love to sell it way over its worth, but the market isn't supporting me on this one. Our realtor is confident that with a reduction on the price, it will bring in a large crowd and lots of offers, driving the selling price significantly above asking. I am crossing my fingers. At least we can go back to church now.

In the meantime I have been checking out the housing market here in Utah. I flew in on Tuesday for some relaxing fall family and friend time. I have already seen two homes for sale. Both are from separate eras, a bungalow from the Frank Lloyd Wright, Arts and Crafts era, and a mid-century rambler ranch style home, but are similar in price.

This place is so charming, set on a tree lined street in Sugarhouse, not much work needed. But small, oh so small. We wouldn't be able to stay longer than a couple of years.

And this place. So much potential, and so big, but a lot of work needed. Our furniture and the furniture we drool over would look so good in this place. We could stay for years, but the street has zero charm, and the location isn't as desirable.

In reality, we won't buy either. You see, our place is still on the market, and still waiting for the perfect buyer to offer us cash. Until then, I will be drawing up floor plans, deciding where to build and take down walls, and furniture shopping for our future home.

**Note, we may stay in New York, that decision has not yet been finalized.

Ready to wrap this up

As therapeutic as I thought this might be, I am ready to write about more uplifting topics, some that don't include tears.

We began renovation immediately. There was quite a bit of work to be done but our target date was by Christmas. We could honestly say that year all we wanted for Christmas was our own bed. We day dreamed about where our tree would go, where we would hang our lights, and our stockings, what it would be like to wake up and spend  the morning alone.

It obviously didn't happen. But,we were lucky to get a place to ourselves. Rusty and Sara Clifton offered their home for Christmas, while they spent it elsewhere, so we got to enjoy their tree, their bed, and their kitchen, where we cooked a big Christmas breakfast.

We finally moved into our apartment on January 8th, 2006. It wasn't near finished, in fact there was only half a kitchen, the walls weren't painted, and it looked like a construction zone, but it was perfect. And three weeks later, Luke was born.

What was the best news about this whole thing is Mr. Wrong didn't have such an easy time getting into his place either. He lived in the basement of the deli right next to us for quite a while. So in other words, yes, I got to see him everyday for the next few months. As time has passed, I have become much more polite during my encounters with him. I say hello back, ask him how he is doing, and if he is enjoying his new place. Even now, I still see him. I guess time heals most wounds, or at least helps you forget, until you decide to write a blog post about it.

Here are a few "during renovation pictures" to enjoy. You can see, I was just about ready to "pop".

This particular day of renovation was by far the best. When we opened the door, it literally brought tears to my eyes (no surprise there, except they were for joy). The most beautiful sight ever, clutter free, beautifully stained floors.

So, we hope this story has a happy ending. We hope we sell our place, as close to our asking price as we can get, hope to move on to a bigger space, and hope that all of the memories we have made while living in it far surpass the ones we made along the way. So far, I am confident they have.

Renovation Crunch Time

Thanksgiving weekend, it was all cleared out. It was time to begin. By now, it had been 15 months since I had seen the place, and during this time, it had changed dramatically in my mind. The space was bigger, there wasn't a fireplace that I could remember, and the condition of the apartment wasn't so bad. We realized quickly there would be a lot of work. Surprisingly though, some things we thought needed to be replaced just actually needed to be cleaned.

We had a short period of time to get things going, and needed quite a bit of money. We decided to take out a equity loan on our apartment, we had gained quite a bit of it in the time we let the apartment just sit there. I called several banks trying to find someone that would finance a co-op. I finally found one, went through all of the paperwork, and again, almost ready to close when they wanted to just have a few more questions answered. Just basic ones, in fact, the same ones they asked me when I put in the application a week ago.

"Is this a co-op?"

"yes"

"Oh, I'm sorry, we don't do co-ops."

"What do you mean, we already went through this over a week ago?"

"I'm sorry, I guess that was overlooked."

More sobs. Wasn't I done with the crying?  Shouldn't it have been smooth sailing from that point?
I spent hours that day calling several other financial institutions, hoping someone would help me. Finally that night after verifying several times they actually did co-ops, we were on our way. This wouldn't have been so stressful if everything else had worked out as planned, but why would they? Our contractor had already started tearing the place apart, and wanted his first payment within a few days. It would take at least two weeks to get the loan signed and deposited into our account. Thankfully, our contractor, was very understanding, very un New Yorker like, and said, get it to me when you can.

We didn't get it to him for another month.

This is what we had to work with. He did live in the apartment for over 13 years, keeping his clutter tidy, but I don't think he ever actually scrubbed anything, or used an ash tray.

As I mentioned before, I thought Mr. Wrong had the T.V. on 24 hours a day. It turns out, it was the soft glow of the glossy wall color he used in his bedroom. I also thought we would have to replace the windows because of the dark tint they had to them. Turns out, they were just stained from 13 years of nicotine, and dirt.
Thank you Rusty for the photo op and attempting to clean it.

The floors obviously needed some significant work. And why yes, those are cigarette burns.

A lot of work and not much time. We wanted to be in at least a couple weeks before I gave birth. But after walking through with the contractor and actually seeing the list, we became a bit concerned.

Were we too nice?

The days and weeks we waited for our official "kick him out of the apartment" day seemed to drag and drag. I was on my last couple months of pregnancy, work was wearing me out, and the four flights of stairs we had to climb several times a day to get to our temporary home seemed like mountains. Needless to say, we were past the point of being ready.

The day came, and we waited. Waited to hear that the Marshall posted the eviction notice on his door. Waited to get the official "its all yours". But, it didn't come. We followed up with the Marshall's office and at that point, not surprisingly, their office wasn't all that on top of things. He was backed up and the secretary couldn't give us any sort of time frame. More sobs.   

Tom, bless his heart, was a lot more forgiving during this process than I was. He called Mr. Wrong and agreed to help him move out. I was not so happy with this, I didn't think he deserved any help. Tom even payed for a UHaul and some how got some of our friends to help out too. They moved a bunch of his big stuff, but didn't really make a dent in the place. He knew he was supposed to be out by the date he signed to, but he wasn't moving with any sense of urgency.

The Marshall's office finally served the eviction notice, a week and a half late. We were notified, and relieved that there would finally be an end in sight. Mr. Wrong called us the same day and said he had just received the notice, but he wouldn't be leaving until the very last day possible, which would be another five days. I smile now thinking back on that phone call. It was the first that I had heard Tom actually raise his voice to Mr. Wrong. In Tom's words, "How could you do this to us, especially after my friends and I helped you move?" I could believe it, he didn't have any problem putting a pregnant girl on the streets. We of course explained things much more dramatically to him, but in my head it seemed justified. These five extra days we had to wait would seem like nothing to anyone else, but to us, it seemed like another 5 months. It was the middle of November at that point, and we had already scheduled an appointment with the contractor.

To his word, he did finally leave, but not until the last possible minute.

And he left us with this.

The next 6 months went something like this...

We decided that an in person conversation with Mr. Wrong was needed. He agreed to meet us outside the apartment on the street. It started off friendly, at least the exchange between Tom and him did. I just stood there angrily staring him down, I was pregnant and very upset. Tom so nicely explained that we had been trying to help him find a place, which was true, but he was being very picky. Tom spent many nights searching apartment listings trying to find him a suitable home. Turns out, nothing was quite right. Either the neighborhood wasn't good enough, or the apartment wasn't nice enough, and he really wanted to stay nearby. I guess I could understand, I mean he had been there for 13 years, but he had since August to find a place. He was basically being priced out of his neighborhood, but so were we. We would have liked to buy on our quaint tree lined street, but we just couldn't afford it.

It takes a lot for me to get upset, or at least visibly upset. I was  sort of trailing behind while Tom and Mr. Wrong walked down the block. I couldn't hear what they were saying over the bubbling anger in my head, but I assumed the conversation wasn't going anywhere quick enough. I just started yelling. Yelling at Mr. Wrong, telling him the obvious, he was living in our house, we were paying for him to live there while we lived on the streets. Of course we weren't really on the streets, our dear friends were taking us in, but some days it felt like it. He proceeded to yell back at me, quite a scene we caused walking down Washington Avenue. I laugh now thinking back on it.

A few more months passed by. I got bigger and bigger quickly, and more and more uncomfortable. We slept on anything ranging from the floor, to air mattresses, twin beds, pull out sofas, and even just sofas. Eventually we had to ship Addy off to Utah, we had a hard enough time asking people to take us in, let alone a dog. The Riches got in trouble for storing our stuff so we had to rent a storage unit for our junk for only $200 a month. It got difficult knowing that I only had the stuff that fit in my suitcase to keep me sane.  We had to iron and re-iron the same clothes week after week. I at least had an excuse to buy some new things, I didn't fit into much for long periods of time.

By August we had stayed in at least 11 different homes of our friends. Some of them more than once.
Cliftons, Pulfer's, Palmer's, Butler's, Romney's, Moore's, Reynold's, Esposito/Heywood's, Polizotto's, Lindsay's, Riche's. I am sure I am forgetting some.

Things hadn't changed by August either with Mr. Wrong. After one particular phone call, we knew we were in for the long haul. In New York, tenants have crazy rights. They become legal occupants of a space if they are there over a certain amount of time, regardless of a contract or ownership. He became aware of this law at some point and told us in so many words that we would have take legal action if we wanted him out of the apartment.

Imaginably, this wasn't great news. We had heard of cases like this taking years to resolve.  But we didn't have years, we had a couple months before there would be three of us. And we were growing very tired of no privacy, uncomfortable beds, eating out, and walking on glass all the time. Don't get me wrong, we owe the world to those that put us up, but after a while it begins to wear on everyone.

We found a lawyer, discussed our options, and decided to take him to court. We left it all in the hands of our lawyer. Our hopes were high, but let down quickly when we were told we needed to wait at least a few weeks for her to schedule the date. After we didn't hear from her after three weeks, we called and it shouldn't have surprised us at that point, but she "misplaced" the paperwork, and never sent it in. Great, add another month of waisted money and uncomfortable living to the pot. Sob. Sob. Sob. The soonest the court date at that point could be scheduled was for the first of October. And even then, this didn't automatically grant us the rights to the apartment. It could then go on for months after that.

Things started to look up a bit when a dear friend in the ward asked us if we wanted to stay at her place for a month while she traveled to Europe. This was music to our ears. A three bedroom apartment to ourselves for a month? It saved our sanity. We also ended up staying with her for at least another two months later down the road. She liked the company, and we liked not having to move ourselves around every weekend. She had enough space that we could kind of take over her living room at night, and when I had a day off in the week, I had the place to myself.  I don't think I could have made it without her.  I felt bad for her  too. There were many nights she had to listen to my sobbing or yelling. Things just didn't seem to be happening for us, at least not quick enough.

The court date finally arrived. I made sure I wore the tightest shirt possible just so that my belly would be front and center. Mr. Wrong didn't have a lawyer representing him, and actually agreed to settle out of court. We settled on him moving out in a month, on the condition he didn't have to back pay us the $8,000 he owed us. The judge must have had sympathy on us too, she apparently didn't have a reputation for signing favoring landlords, she usually sided with tenants, giving them at minimum 2-6 months to vacate. We got ours down to a month, I guess the bump won her over. Our lawyer couldn't believe it, she insisted that someone was looking out for us. If that was true, it seemed a little late for that. He was to be out by November 12th if I remember right, and if he didn't the Marshall would drag him out. At least that's what we thought.