Category Archives: housing

Updata

Whoa, what a crazy week. Work has had me slammed all week, and it will probably be more of the same into next week. Still, it’s manageable, just doesn’t leave a lot of time for things like LiveJournal updates.

Waaay back on Friday we met up with daveqat, linnaeus, perro and darkwolph to see the Pride Edition of Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. It was a fun show, though not one of their best overall. We still had a good time. Afterward we walked over to Big Jones for what turned out to be a really enjoyable dinner. We worked our way through their cocktails menu, and my shrimp and grits was fabulous (if this sounds weird, imagine the grits being served more like polenta). Dan’s country fried steak was tasty as well, up to Heaven on Seven standards.

Saturday was pretty low-key. I went in to work in the morning, then that afternoon we had Paul, roho and genet over for dinner. We grilled up some steaks, chatted a good bit, sampled some mighty fine beers, and played the new Boom Blox game. And Sunday? On Sunday we didn’t do anything – just stayed in and relaxed. That was nice.

This week has been busy on the housing front. The home inspection for the new place was on Tuesday, and everything looked pretty good. There are a couple of exterior GFCI outlets that need to be replaced, but we’ll have the seller take care of that prior to closing. I’ll be meeting with our mortgage broker today at lunch to sign off on paperwork and hopefully secure as good a rate as possible.

Last night we got the letter we’d been expecting, a Notice of Motion to the Court of Lake County setting a trial date for the foreclosure of the townhouse we’re living in. The good news is that this is just another step in a long process, and the bank won’t take over the property for at least another four or five months – we’ll be long gone by then. The other good news is that in lieu of refunding our security deposit, our landlord told us we don’t have to pay rent in August. This is awesome!

In the meantime, planning is still going ahead full steam for the Midwest FurFest Summer Picnic, which right now has about 100 RSVP’s. Yikes! We’ll definitely have free strip steak for everyone (and some chicken breasts for non-beef-eaters); I’m working with a local caterer to figure out what the sides and desserts will be. I’ll be posting the menu next week as soon as we get it locked down.

And finally, there’s Anthrocon looming large on the near horizon. I need to deal with some items on my to-do list for that this weekend, and make sure that everything is ready to go. One advantage to having done this for so many years is that I’ve got lots of notes about things that need to be done before the convention. That will definitely save my sanity (what little I have left). OK, back to the grind!

Unpleasant Surprises

Dear Tom and Dan,

I wanted to write to you to let you know that you may be contacted about your home being under foreclosure. I am working to resolve this situation and I will keep you apprised of events.

Signed,
$landlord

I can’t say that this comes as too much of a surprise. There had been indications of difficulties over the last two months, so we were prepared for this eventuality. The good news is that, depending on where things are in the foreclosure process, we have between four and eleven months before we have to move. We had planned on moving out and buying a home when our lease was up in January, anyway, so this actually isn’t too much of a hardship.

Yeah. Interesting times ahead.

Well, that was disquieting

So, a few minutes ago, a Lake County sheriff’s deputy rang our doorbell. Apparently our landlord has another property in foreclosure and the deputy was inquiring if we knew how to contact him. He assured us that our property was OK as far as he knew, but that we should probably keep an eye on things.

Whoa. Well, that’s exciting. We just re-upped our lease effective a few days ago, so we’re kind of locked in here. A bit of googling led me to a useful reference, though: Illinois Public Act 095-0262, 735 ILCS 5/15-1701(h)(4) effective January 1, 2008, which states that
In a case of foreclosure where the tenant is current on his or her rent, any order of possession must allow the tenant to retain possession of the property covered in his or her rental agreement (i) for 120 days following the notice of the hearing on the supplemental petition that has been properly served upon the tenant, or (ii) through the duration of his or her lease, whichever is shorter.

Whew. So if I read this properly, the worst that would happen is that we would receive word that we’d need to move within four months. OK, I can deal with that. I’d rather not have to move for twelve months, of course but you take what life throws at you, I guess.

House-Hunting, and The Product of Compromises

So, as I alluded to in a prior entry, takaza and I are on the hunt for new digs. Once New Year’s was past and we could focus more on finding something, we really started looking seriously. And what we’re finding is…well, it’s somewhat disheartening. A lot of it is just learning the realities of real estate in the Chicago suburbs.

Our original plan was to rent a house in the Wheeling/Buffalo Grove area. That would be reasonably halfway between employers for both of us (he works in Mount Prospect, I work in Round Lake). Unfortunately, in our price range in Wheeling and Buffalo Grove, a house is out of the question and the available townhouses are…underwhelming. Apartments are out of the question – neither of us wants an apartment. There’s an unfortunate gap between Buffalo Grove and the affordable areas of Mundelein (well, not a physical gap, more of an economic one – that would include Long Grove and Hawthorn Woods, two very affluent towns). Mundelein and points north starts to get into difficult commuting for Dan, until Dan suggested that maybe commuting by train would be a good option. The Prospect Heights train station is a mile and a half from his office – walkable in good weather, and in poor weather he can either take a bus most of the way there or hitch a ride from a co-worker (plus, if he ever transfers to his company’s HQ, they’re right on the Metra line). So, this opened up everything on the North Central Metra line, including Antioch, Lake Villa, Grayslake, and Vernon Hills.

A little more searching, and now we’ve narrowed things down to two townhouses in Hainesville, just west of Grayslake, and about five minutes from the Grayslake train station. The two units have an identical floor plan, but here’s the dilemma before us:
Property 1 – Nice upgrades, including some nicely-painted walls (not beige! yay!) and a Pergo “hardwood” floor in the living room/dining room. BUT…the owners want $3,000 deposit, in addition to first and last months of rent.
Property 2 – In the building next to Property 1. Completely beige, but newly repainted and recarpeted. $100/month less than Property 1. Possible to put in DirecTV, which is probably not possible at Property 1. A more reasonable security deposit, as well. BUT…the unit has no refrigerator, washer, or dryer (Property 1 has all these).

We have a call in to the Property 1 owners pointing out to them that their security deposit is way out of line, and would the consider coming down on it. They’re on vacation in Colorado, though, and we don’t know when we might hear back from them. In the meantime, we’ve put in applications for Property 2 and we’re told that it will take about a week to process. We figured that should the Property 1 owners decide to come down on the security deposit, we can always walk away during the course of the application processing period. As for the appliances, well…Best Buy is offering 18 months same as cash. And that way we actually walk away with our own appliances (and get better-quality appliances out of the deal!).

As for the units themselves: they’re cozy. The floor plan is three levels, with the top floor being the master bedroom and the guest bedroom, with a shared bathroom between them (the bathroom has both a shower and a tub/shower combo). The middle floor has a nice large kitchen and pantry as well as the combined living room/dining room. The ground floor is a two-car garage (with room for storage) and a small (10 x 10) office. After talking it over, Dan and I realized that the 2,050 square feet we had in North Carolina was far, far too much for us. Looking at how we live, this is a much better fit. And it’s not like we’re sacrificing that much space – it’s a 1,500 square foot unit.

So now we’re waiting to hear back from representatives from both properties to see what kind of timeline we’re looking at. We hope to move smaller stuff out of our storage space during the week, and if all goes well, we could be moving the furniture from the storage unit as early as the weekend of January 20th. Don’t mark anything on your calendars just yet, though – there’s still several uncertainties to be resolved. I’ll post more when we have something a bit more certain!