Under the House

After I spent a couple hours working on the yard and "A" worked on the tables we set down outside to relax. She had her frozen mocha frappuccino from Starbucks that had been in the freezer for a couple days. I tried to make a double espresso with the machine we bought last month at a garage sale, but it just turned out to be a REALLY strong cup of coffee.

For the last four years I have wanted to go under the house and check out the footings but never had the motivation to do it. After having that cup of mud (which was good), I found my motivation and donned coveralls that I had back when I was in my late 20s. Surprisingly, I found that I had put on a few pounds and the coveralls were pretty tight, oh well.

With flashlight and camera in hand I went in. I have to tell you, if you have just a little bit of claustrophobia, then this was not for you. I was doing a serious low crawl. At times I actually had to exhale to crawl under the joist. I also had to snake my way around because some places I could only get through if the ground dipped a little here or there.

I made it about halfway to the fireplace and was really tired, so I decided to turn around and come back. I did find an old milk bottle at the fireplace, probably discarded from a worker. It has cement stuck on it and I need to find a way to get it off without damaging the bottle. Looks like it came from Arden Farms which merged with Gelson's up in LA.

Apparently the entire floor of this house is concrete with the wood sub-floor laid over. Interestingly there are a few holes in the concrete with metal plates that have screws going into the sub-floor. I guess that was to ensure the sub-floor didn't come loose or buckle. It looks like the used tar over the bottom of the sub-floor to keep the wood from rotting since it is laid on the concrete.

Overall it looked pretty good with a few exceptions of rust on a few re-bar joists and some of the cement sagging through the metal lathe. There are a few pillar supports and quite a few wall supports that bear the load. But I think there should be a few more pillar supports and might have it done sometime in the future.

To crawl through this I had to put my arms through first, like I was diving. I still barely made it.

Very rusted.

Coming out

Almost there!

Finally!!

Inspection and Appraisal

Wednesday we did the inspection and appraisal on the rental property. I also took the opportunity to have two contractors come out to give me a bid on the painting and counter tops. We could do the painting ourselves but I want to turn the place around as quickly as possible to get it on the rental market. Overall the bids came in about where we expected.

I spent most of the time running around getting measurements and drawing a floor plan so that we could plan the remodel and get decent sqft. for the flooring. The owner and the agent lives in Orange county and there is no lock-box on the unit.  So when we want to see the place he has to call his brother or father to come open it up.  Since it was never listed in San Diego's MLS there wasn't really any competition for this place. "A" found it on one of the real estate websites, even our agent didn't know about it.

Nothing too exciting came up on the home inspection. But I know what I will do if I want an easy job. Holy cow I could have done what he did. Since it is always a "visual inspection" how freaking hard can it be? Meanwhile 1.5 hours later and my wallet $350 lighter I pretty much knew where I stood 1.5 hours earlier.

And if I somehow fail as a home inspector then I could always be an appraiser. This guy walked in took some photos and spent all of 10 min. Now I know that they have to go and get other comparable units, but come on! Not sure how much he cost since it will be paid through escrow but probably around $400.

The appraisal came in on target so things are moving along. I am now waiting on the disclosures from the seller/HOA, hopefully next week.

 

I drew this in Excel and it's not to scale, but it will give you an idea of what it looks like.

Happy Mother's Day/ A day at the beach

Today the high was forecast to reach into the 90s so we thought a trip to the beach was in order. Coronado is generally the only beach we like to go to because it's easy to get there and usually we have no trouble parking.

I forgot my camera, but fortunately I had my iPhone and it takes decent pictures so as we drove over the bridge "A" snapped some pics.  I noticed that there was a fog bank over Point Loma and it made for a really cool panoramic pic.

Neither one of us was very hungry so we ate a salad at Panera Bread, which is pretty unusual if you know our eating habits.

That's about it, a lazy Sunday/Mothers day.

Approval Granted-Escrow Initiated

If you remember back on February 22 we had the acceptance of a seller for the short sale of their condo. Today the bank came back with their approval of the short sale. We are now in escrow.

Escrow is for 30 days and are inspection is scheduled for Wednesday.

Yea!!!!