Other Retro Pages
OWNING A VACATION HOME
Operation Lake Tahoe Cabin!
August 2008
We have owned our vacation home now for over a year - the extra set of mortgage payments have been a little rough - plus the extra monthlies - gas, electricity, water, garbage and a few that were new to me - snow removal service for example - I thought I would be able to do without that - until I spent a few weeks during winter up here when it snowed.
For some reason I didn't realize that it would be 4 or 5 feet thick in the driveway - I guess I assumed it would have the courtesy to just pile itself up on the edges. Kind of the same "Duh" as when I realized that it actually rains over the ocean - I always figured it wouldn't bother since the ocean was already plenty wet.
BUYING A VACATION HOME
Our 4 day ski vacation turned into the search for a vacation home in Lake Tahoe. It is quite a journey! I am keeping a little online journal of the process. If you are buying a vacation home, maybe you can benefit from our experience. Or maybe we can house-swap?
March, 2007 - We manage to sneak off to Lake Tahoe for 3 whole days of skiing, and one day of driving. We spend the last day with a realtor we found in a local newspaper scouring the greater Lake Tahoe area for an affordable cabin. Not an easy task!
Our realtor, who seemed to know more about what we wanted than we
did, steered us ever so subtly away from Lake Tahoe itself, and towards
a community on the other side of Highway 80 called Tahoe-Donner. After
seeing the country-club like facilities available to the residents, we
decide that Tahoe Donner is for us!
I spot a great priced house on the list, and insist on seeing it. Our Realtor cautions us that it is on a busy street. The house is vintage 60s, and in very good condition. I am certain that this is the house for us. Our realtor humors us and says we could make an offer if we like. We agree that we will work on an offer during the following week and as it is now already 3:00 PM and Sunday, we need to head home.
April, 2007 - Back up to Lake Tahoe to look at properties our very able realtor has scheduled for us. We look at property after property, each time deciding that "this one is for us". Finally, our realtor drives us up a hill and casually mentions a house that isn't on the market yet, and we almost don't look at it, until he says "view" which caught my interest and we get out an look. Finally, after 5 other houses that are "for us", we find THE ONE. It's small, especially compared to the other, far grander, houses in the neighborhood, but it is affordable, it has a great view, and is really cute. The view sold us though.
We went back to our realtor's office and wrote up an offer, which is really boring, and paperwork intensive, so I will spare you the details.
May, 2007 - After some minor haggling, and discussions of water heater straps, and appraisal this and inspection that, we settled on a price, and we had a deal. We had to show up for the inspection, which we did, and at the same time used the opportunity to visit the mortgage broker who was recommended by out realtor.
This is also rather dreary and after providing him with my name, rank and serial number, I escaped to go buy some shoes.
The rest of May went like this: frantic email, frantic email, fax, fax, scan, fax, email, notary, signature 150 times, conference call, email, email, fax, done. We closed on time, and on June 1st or thereabouts, the little house on the hill was ours. Spiffy.
A note about realtors and mortgage brokers. Finding good ones makes all the difference in the world. The real estate industry is one of those that attracts people of varying degrees of aptitude and work-ethic. We have wound up with some real duds at times; one time, when we were making an offer on our home we ended up firing our agent because she had pretty much settled on a price for us, after talking with the seller's agent and finding out what they would accept without countering. I was naive and thought that our agent would negotiate on our behalf.
(There is a built in conflict of interest when it comes to price negotiation, as the agent's main focus is to get the deal done, and a $5,000 - $20,000 difference in selling price doesn't mean much to them in commission, but it means quite a bit to the buyer or seller.)
Others we have fired because they couldn't answer basic questions about various issues that a real estate professional should know. 80% of them appear to think their job is to stand and point, hold an open house or two and then collect a check for $30,000. The other 20% are worth their weight in gold.
Mortgage Brokers: This was the first time we have ever used a mortgage broker, and I have to say it was awesome! He and his minions did all the work, they told us exactly what to do, what to send, sent everything to us FedEx, sent the notary to us, (so no running around trying to find one,) and got us a good deal. I love it when I don't have to deal with a lot of stuff like that.
Our wonderful realtor sent us to him, with an odd sort of recommendation, saying he was really good, but somewhat "aggressive" (apparently he had a woman client who hadn't liked him). My take on it? You want somebody to hold your hand and let you cry on their shoulder? Get a therapist. You want a good deal on your mortgage? You want aggressive. Aggressive is good. Just my 2 cents.
Buying a Vacation Home
There is a Las Vegas Area Seminar called:
"Profit from Foreclosure" that is FREE! It is sponsored by
Trump University. This is the third open for the public seminar they
have offered, so if you find yourself in Las Vegas, you may want to
attend the "Trump University Free Foreclosure Event"
