AC Capehart capehart

I accidentally went to mass yesterday. I’m going to pause for a moment and let you re-read and marvel at that sentence; I accidentally went to mass yesterday. (Sidenote: Carolyn says that since I didn’t stay for communion, I didn’t reallygo to mass. Read on for the details.) I was taking my dad on a tour of Altoona. We went to Lowes and Advance Auto, but also to the Wopsy Trail and the Horseshoe Curve.

I’m having trouble sleeping, so I thought I would “pen” this entry which I’ve meant to do for a while now… So, the other day, Carolyn and I were walking to the mailbox a few blocks from our house. We go there because the pick up is early-ish (11:30 AM) and we seem to have good luck getting our DVDs back to Netflix pretty quickly when shipped from there. Now, Altoona’s not really a pedestrian-friendly city in general.

I received an email recently from a “long lost” almost-relative, Rob. He had proposed marriage to my aunt Donna. She only declined because she was dying of Cystic Fibrosis and didn’t want to saddle him with that. My aunt is now long dead, as is Rob’s second (well, OK, FIRST) wife (also of CF). He’s recently remarried and he and his new wife bought a house. He mentioned in his email that they had 9 particular things that they’d wanted in a house, and this house had them all and then some.

Yeah. It’s the Sunday before the last week of the “spring” semester, and it’s snowing. SNOWING! To be fair, it’s a light, blustery snow that’s not sticking to anything. But, c’mon already. We were having a BEAUTIFUL spring. In Charlottesville, it seemed like there was always a week or so every winter in which it was balmy and beautiful. Don’t tell me that in Altoona we’ll get a week or so every summer in which it’s DARK AND SNOWY!

Well, after much back and forth, we have an agreement to buy the house. It should be a happy occasion, and truthfully, it mostly is. But I’m still a bit pissy about $250.00. That’s right. We’ve come to an agreement on approximately $150,000, and I’m pissy about $250.00. Let me break it down for you. First, the seller is an old lady. A recent widow who’s lived in that house since 1973.

Well, as I said we would, we made an offer on the house — 512 28th Ave today. And we received a counter offer this evening. The asking price was $155K. We offered $145K, and asked for a late closing date (so we don’t have to pay a rent and mortgage the same month), and every appliance in the place (even the snowblower!). We got a counter offer — everything but the snow blower, $149,500, but an extra $3000 in that goes into escrow with her agent (we already included $1000 in what my mom called “ernest money” to show that we’re serious about the offer).

Well, we finally engaged a real estate agent. We met with her (and an associated mortgage person) on Thursday, and put together a list of houses to see which we did, today. We saw a total of 5. Of those five, it breaks down like this: #1 Nice, everything we need, more on it later. #2 Funky. Old. Sideways-looking. Awesome neighborhood. Awesome hardwood floors. Semi-renovated. Too expensive. Sucky closets. Only heat in basement was wood stove.

I really didn’t expect this. We were going to a few open houses. That was all. We were going to see a few places to get a feel for the neighborhoods as well as what our money would buy. Who knows, maybe even find that exact gem of a house we are looking for. We saw a large and rambly 4 bedroom rancher from the 50’s. The only significant updates since then were some new appliances (the old ones were still in the garage) and a new roof.

Well, the “70’s palace” that I talked about herehas been sold. And no, not to us. I went for a bike ride yesterday and rode by the house. The for sale signs were gone, and there was a pickup in the drive way and stuff in the garage. On that same bike ride, however, I went past a house that I’d ridden past in the fall. In the fall, it was a FSBO, that when I finally got around to showing to Carolyn, the for sale sign was already gone.

Although it feels a little early for it given our lease constraints, we started home shopping in Altoona today in a slightly more serious way. Today, we visted the first house that we actually went inside. We took several pictures [link since removed since we didn’t buy this house -ed] but even as many as we took, I still want to have taken more. House summary: Built in 1983, it’s a 3 bedroom, 3 bath home with oversized 2 car garage on a 100’x120′ lot on the corner of Lloyd St and E.