Historic Homes Workshop Tampa

This past weekend the Husband, Little Man and I hiked across the State heading west to attend Tampa Preservation's "Historic Homes Workshop."

This year's workshop theme was "Maintaining your historic home" with a wealth of classes on exterior details such as landscaping, roofind issues, creating maintenance plans and budgets, window restoration, and more. Go here for the complete list of offered classes! 

 

The husband and I played "Divide and Conquer" so we could attend as many classes as possible and compare notes. We learned more about roof issues, roofing materials and the structure of a roof, how plan and how to budget for a larger project, more about the exterior details of historic homes, and more about paint and primers and paint issues. 

 

The atmosphere was friendly and welcoming, and being in the company of other lovers of historic homes always feels special.Being one of the few "out-of-towners" didn't feel weird at all!

For lunch we checked in with "Foodspotting" and decided to try "The Bungalow" in keeping with the day's theme. This restaurant was located in a beautiful Craftsman style Bungalow right around the corner from the workshop, and had very pretty outdoor seating in a lush, tropical front yard.

It was SO worth it, and frankly, I can't wait until next year's workshop! This is definitely going to be a staple on our event schedule. I have more pictures of a certain class held in at a very interesting place right across the street from the main 'campus' but blogspot and/or my computer aren't very cooperative this morning, so I'll fill you in on this later!

A little old house of your own

[source: Wells Fargo Mural]

Originally I had a different entry planned for today but there were so many questions swirling about on various forums that I think I have to post this one first ..

"Advice from a novice historic home buyer"

or

"Buying a Fixer-Upper without having to rob a bank first"

There seems to be the misconception going around that you need a hefty bank account before you are allowed to even think about buying a property that needs work. Fortunately that is not true.

I say fortunately because not only is there a way for the historic home lover to buy a 1915s Bungalow or 1880s Victorian without having to wait for a huge inheritance or a winning lottery ticket to come their way, it also is essential to moving a lot of properties in today's real estate market.

While there are numerous home decoration and renovation blogs the sad truth is that there are also a lot of people who had to give up on making any improvements to their homes. Some even had to stop working and maintaining their homes entirely thanks to the economy tanking and taking the housing market with it (or was it the other way 'round?).

Either way, there are a LOT of distressed properties on the market. Whether it's a foreclosure with a leaky roof, an auctioned off 1980s Ranch with a missing ac compressor or a darling Victorian in need of new wiring and plumbing - they all need work and it doesn't come for free. What's a home buyer to do?

The magic words are "FHA 203(k) loan". This rehab loan was created by the Federal Housing Administration and is designed for people who want to rehab or repair a distressed property to use as their primary residence. Purchase price and rehab costs get wrapped into one mortgage package with one monthly payment. While it's not for the typical investor you -can- buy a multi-family residence, live in one unit and rent out the other(s) [up to 4 units max under this loan]. Since 203(k) loans are endorsed by the government, they encourage lenders to offer what's usually considered a slightly risky deal.

You'll have to poke around a bit to find a lender who has experience with such a rehab loan - not every lender offers them - but once you find one and meet the usual FHA requirements for a loan you're are usually all set to find the distressed property of your dreams! We had the same experience applying for the 203(k) loan that we had with a regular FHA loan: smooth sailing if you meet the typical FHA loan requirements.

There are two types of FHA 203(k) mortgages: regular and streamlined. The only difference is that regular 203(k)s are for properties that need structural repairs (foundation but also removal of walls, etc) and streamlined are for those that need only non-structural repairs and do not exceed $35,000 including all fees and a 10% contingency fund. The loan does not only finance the big ticket items such as electric, plumbing, foundation and so on, you can also finance new kitchen cabinets and appliances, interior and exterior paint and much more with it.

You don't have to use a contractor but you have to show that you are qualified to do whatever work you proposed. We felt that having a general contractor was well worth the extra - and what we considered reasonable - expense: their experience and advice not to mention their efforts in orchestrating the timely execution of work done by sub-contractors was invaluable.

Yes, there is extra paperwork involved which is why an experienced lender as well as an experienced contractor (experienced with both, the kind of house you're rehabbing as well as the 203(k) paperwork and funds draw process) are a must but other than that this is a very do-able project and not as far out as some people might make you believe. No, really.

Step by step:

• 
  
  find your historic neighborhood: each one is so different and unique.(optional but recommended: rent a historic place for a test run and find out if you can live with the many quirks of a historic home)get your paperwork in order and pre-approved for a mortgage.


• 
  
  make a list of things you are looking for in your home


• 
  
  start looking for a home using a real estate agent who knows your target neighborhood. It really makes a difference!


• 
  
  find a good contractor who has experience with historic homes. Recommendations from neighbors in your historic neighborhood are usually your best bet. It also helps if your contractor has dealt with the accounting system of the 203k loan before.


• 
  
  Once you find "The One" meet with your contractor for a first walk-through. Have a list ready of which things you noticed/want done as part of your renovation loan. Compare notes with your contractor. He might recommend works you haven't considered yet


• 
  
  Make an offer (and have it hopefully accepted)


• 
  
  Get your home inspection. Do not, never ever skip this step. Try to find an home inspector who has experience with historic houses and the way they are built.


• 
  
  Sit down with your contractor to modify the renovation bid to include issues found during the home inspection. Your lender might require you to add items based on the inspection report.


• 
  
  Tackle all necessary paperwork. Most of it will just happen naturally (title search, survey, etc.) . A 203(k) loan will also require an appraisal - basically your lender wants to make sure that they'll be able to recoup the money they are lending you so they have a professional appraise your house and


• 
  
  Close on your house and begin your rehab!
  

There!
That wasn't that difficult, hm?

The Cat's MIA-ow

Boots, our resident feline and furry family member, enjoyed the whole moving process even less than we did. She wasn't overly excited about trading her familiar comfortable digs with the Ugly Duckling but we didn't give her much of a choice on the matter.

The fact that she doesn't like the travel box at all didn't really help either. Ever since we used it to whisk her away to the vet to have her fixed, the travel box and even more so being locked up inside of it is a sign that the world is coming to an end and is heralded to one and all by the most pitiful yowling.

Alas, into the travel box she went, end of world yowling ensued and the adventure she could have lived without, thank you very much, began. We really tried to make it as easy on her as possible. Really. Her new life at the Darling Duckling started in our Master Bedroom with our old bed with 'smells like family' not yet washed bedding installed and a pile of dirty family laundry in place for additional comfort.

I kid you not. She (literally) digs that kind of stuff. Her kitty heaven will consist of mounds of dirty laundry smelling like family. There have been numerous times both she and I shrieked running unexpectedly into each other: me reaching for the darks to toss into the wash and Boots's dream interrupted abruptly because I thought of her as a towel.

Anyways, here she is, meekly hiding underneath the covers

[Yeah, that is so not a staged shot: mismatched bedding, no bed frame in place

and a miserable, depressed looking cat ... we slept just fine though]

Fortunately, Ms Boots seemed to be on the way to recovery: every day she'd perk up just a little more and even venture out into the hallway peering down the stairs to the - yet unknown - territory on the first floor.

Until the day the cable guy came ...

I guess the noise from attempting to drill holes into our house upset her little world too much and off she went in search for that perfect hiding spot. When I went to check on her, she was no where to be found: not underneath the bed, not in a closet, not in the Little Man's room, not in an empty suitcase. The pile of laundry was cat-free and there was not the meekest meow anywhere to be heard.

However, knowing her penchant for dirty laundry I decided to check the pile one more time (washer and dryer installation were still a few days aways so there was plenty). Maybe she'd dug herself into it and I'd missed it the first time around?

Watch out: dirty laundry picture ahead!

[Yeah, gross, I know ... ]

See that little hole? We peered through that to check out the situation underneath the tub (all nice and dry, by the way, so no worries there). My first thought was "No way, she couldn't have ..."

Famous last words.

That's when I discovered this

[Close-up of the ittibitty hole: Yes, that's soft white belly fur stuck to the edge

of the hole and waving in the breeze]

Oh no, she didn't!

Unfortunately she had indeed.

Ms Boots had squooshed herself through the tiny hole into the dark safety of the space beneath the built-in tub. With a bit of effort and a flashlight I was just able to spy the tip of her furry tail. Suffice to say, I panicked a bit wondering how much of a blow to the budget it'd pose if we had to rip out the bathtub in order to rescue our kitty? I mean, you couldn't let her stay in there. What if she was stuck for good? A dead mouse in the wall smells to high heaven, I don't want to even imagine how bad it'd be if a 20 pound cat went the same way...!

No baiting, no begging and no amount of pleading made her come out.

In fact, as the day progressed and afternoon turned to night, she obviously felt rather at home in her little space and she started moving around. That must have been the time when she discovered that there's an entire in-between level to our house thanks to the hung ceilings and interconnecting wall spaces that openend up a solid 1,100 sqft of cat crawl space to her.

Which she happily explored. It sounded like we had a supersized mouse roaming the inside of our house.

Well, to make a long story short: all is well that ends well. Around 9pm Boots managed to discover the larger crawl space above the laundry room which comes with a scuttle hole. Thanks to the magic properties of Salmon Creamcheese I managed to bait her close enough to grab her by her scruff and haul her out of her world of darkness and into the light. Hallelujah!

[Keeping an eye on what's going on on both levels]

So much about her escapade. Life has almost returned to normal for her. Sure, there are still those weird boxes everywhere and the food bowl keeps moving around but all in all, life's good as long as you have a family providing you with a steady supply of dirty laundry.

Well, that is if your name is Boots ;o)

Moving - The Saga

If anybody had told me that it'd take us close to three weeks to move all of our belongings from point A to final destination B, I probably would have shaken my head and laughed. Or run screaming. I mean, come on. How many things could you possibly fit into 3 teeny closets (old houses have really small ones), a narrow butler's pantry and a small back porch?

Turns out, waaay more than expected. Way, way more! And if you thought, you'd been good about sorting and decluttering before the first moving day (of three, total), think again.

We started off strong three weekends ago with a truck from U-Haul and armed with a big load of liquor store boxes. We loaded the entire truck, unloaded it at the Darling Duckling and congratulated ourselves on getting so much moved so easily. Ha! Ha, I say!

The following week, I made quick runs with smaller single car loads from rental to house but didn't feel too alarmed that the pantry shelves weren't packed into boxes entirely yet. We had planned for another truck and some beefy armed, gutsy movers to help us with the big stuff aka the sleeper sofa, the art desk, dressers, beds and the laundry set-up so we could easily toss another box or two on the truck and be done.

WRONG!

Moving all of our hardware - which isn't much, mind you; When it comes to actual furniture, our abode was and is sparsely equipped, really - took us two trips instead of one. At the end of the day, we were pooped. And there was still stuff left at the rental that needed to be moved. Argh!

Dear husband estimated that we had a good 8 hours of packing and moving left to do and while I took the 2 hours I used to set aside for painting and other DIY projects every day at the Duckling house and packed and moved for the next 4 days, guess what? Yep, there was still MORE.

What on earth $&**(??? It felt like every time we drove one load over, somebody stopped by and dumped a new load into the rental. It was utterly surreal. That couldn't all be our stuff, could it? I mean, where did we keep all of these things?! Truth is, our Butler's Pantry held almost incredible amounts of bits and bops: from tablecloths and vases to tools and discarded electronics and everything in between.

[Packed to the gills]

This past Saturday we made our final push: from 10am until 7pm we packed, loaded, drove, unloaded and headed back again. We sorted mercilessly, until nothing but our bikes and a big for sale/donation pile were left. Sunday we tried our luck at a very short notice "Stuff be gone Sale", made a handful of dollars and then every.single.thing.left went to the curb with a curb alert notice to the local craigslist.

Monday we had a cleaning lady come in to give the apartment a final scrub, we rode the bikes over to the Duckling and it was D-O-N-E.

[It's craaa-aaa-aaazy]

And that would be a great thing if it weren't for the fact that our Darling Duckling is now stuffed with boxes most of which don't have labels ...

-THUD!-

This post was brought to you in the spirit of "Keeping it real" ... heh

Breaking News!

We finally finally received the news: the city has agreed to a partial release of the lien and we should now be able to close on the Ugly Duckling on or before January 28th, 2011.

And there was much rejoicing in the house!

No, we aren't holding our breath (just skipping and squealing a little bit) because if we have learned anything throughout this entire house hunting adventure is that anything can happen anytime. I'm still signed up for an MLS mailer and keep a close eye on any movement on the market in our neighborhood. You never know ...

I'm not sure how much comfort it is for you out there still at the beginning of a house hunt or maybe even just toying with the thought of maybe someday buying your own home that our real estate agent assured me that we "got to see it all" so far and that she feels sorry for all the hassle we've been going through (fortunately with her by our side - I'm sure I'd have lost it entirely by now if it weren't for her levelheaded assurances and advice). HGTV certainly shows this whole process in a very rose-colored light (or would that be Honeysuckle for those paint aficionados?) and these days I have a hard time watching "House Hunters" without resorting to cat calls, snorts and snarky comments aimed at the screen peanut-gallery-style.

I can only imagine the reactions if we'd tried to wait out the seller's response over a cup of coffee at "Three Layers", the bestest place for a cup of coffee and some wicked good pie (or a glass of wine) in the 'hood. Heh, they'd be charging us rent by now!

Anyways, the later the evening, the longer my sentences so that's it for tonight! If all goes well I'll finally get to show off the Ugly Duckling in all its filthy, dirty, neglected glory in a little more than a week and get started on those "before" and "after" shots!

I'm done waiting - Are we there yet?

Lien on me

Remember that lien thing I mentioned in passing in this post?



Our city has some weird regulations when it comes to liens, it seems. (Although if you ask me it's less of a weird lien regulation thing, than a simple screw-up in a city department. None of the paperwork we looked at makes sense) This lien is actually not -for- our Ugly Duckling but for another property that at some point belonged to the same owner. Then that owner lost the Ugly Duckling in foreclosure and accumulated liens on the other property. Our city then happily slapped a shared tag on both properties - maybe to up their chances at one day getting their money? (And if that doesn't make any sense to you - join the club! I'm trying to follow the train of thought behind this but, boy, it escapes me entirely)

Yeah, well, and now that one's come back to bite us in our rear ends for a little longer because unfortunately you cannot close a deal on a property if there are any liens and/or back taxes on it. We have filed for a partial release but both our bank and our real estate agent recommended we push back our closing date a bit to give the city a bit more time to respond.

Grrrr ...

Hi & Lo

So far, the whole house hunting adventure has been a wild rollercoaster ride. Highs chasing lows, frustration followed by moments of euphoria and excitement replaced by bouts of "wanna-bang-my-head-against-wall" feelings. Here's the latest high and low our house acquisition Gods threw at us:

Hi :o)
Christmas eve we received our own personal house-hunting gift in the mail: the loan approval! Hurray! It looks like we've mastered most if not all of the required paperwork to get our financing ducks in a row.

Infused with renewed enthusiasm and reasonably sure that the in-laws would be able to see the potential hidden in our little dirt Ugly Duckling we drove over to the house for a quick tour the day after Christmas.

Lo:o(
That's when we discovered that the Ugly Duckling had been broken into. Not like there was much to take considering it's empty and has been vacant for more than a year but the thieves made off with the downstairs furnace, both ac compressors and a window unit. They also re-opened the window opening from the small outdoor utility room to the kitchen that had been dry-walled over. You know, I would have been okay if they had taken all window units and left it at that but nooooo ... they had to take the furnace as well. Oh, and the vent cover for the big floor vent inside the house (alright, that was ugly too and slated for replacement but still ...) Grrrr...

We'll drive over later today to make sure the bank's property contractor secured the backdoor of the house as promised and we're going to be armed with our own plywood and screws, just in case. Can't take any chances. This time they just 'took' things, next time they might 'leave' something behind (a squatter or two, human body fluids or God knows what other crafty thing they could come up with).

Now, this is not the Wild West. AC compressors are stolen all over town these days (although I believe it's even more petty than stealing a baby's lollipop - seriously, stealing somebody's ac in Florida??) and fortunately we'd factored in a new hvac system into our reno budget (but would have loved to use that money for something else instead ...). Oh well, here's hoping that this "Lo" will become a "Hi" somehow :o)

Update:
Thanks to the mad communication skillz of our awesome real estate agent the bank is offering us the choice between a replacement furnace-compressor system and a reduction in purchase price. We'll be going for the reduction in purchase price since that gives us the chance to pick the system we want. Phew!

Steep learning curves

Boy, were we in for an eye-opening experience once we began our househunting adventure!

With most of our knowledge regarding house hunting and house buying courtesy of HGTV we quickly learning that the sun does shine brighter on TV! A lot brighter!

Oh, how we envied those couples who had a love-on-first-sight experience! How we marveled when a seller's response took just long enough for your latte to cool down!
How there wasn't really an audible super sonic boom when Sandra whipped out the signed contract!

Now, we weren't and aren't really miserable throughout our house hunting. For the most part it was and is an exciting experience, an adventure, and more often than not it's really my not-so-patient nature that creates a certain frustrated tension.

You know, you wanna get'er done!

Now!

So you can get to the fun bits!

House hunting, however, has kept me fairly preoccupied through the past months. In lieu of crafting and painting I spent hours browsing MLS listings and reading books and webpages on home buying, loan options and home inspections, Husband and I can now talk fairly intelligently about financing and have added new words to our vocabulary. We can decipher abbreviations such as WDO, etc. We are no longer afraid to get down on our knees and crawl halfway into the crawl space of a house. Aaaand we know where -that- smell comes from when a house hasn't been winterized properly.

We wear sensible shoes with thin flat soles to feel our way around a house for structural issues and give the geometry of space between floor and doors a critical eye. And we're still in love with the old homes, the historic details and the undeniable charm of our neighborhood.

What have you learned from your own househunting days? What was the biggest lesson you took with you?