WE GOT AN OFFER ON THE HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After only 1 week on the market we accepted an offer on the house!!!!!!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

We signed the papers this morning and a nice couple who live in the same zip code will be the owners of our house. We just happened to be in San Antonio for a wedding and we stopped by the house to do some vacuuming. I always like the way that the lines looked in a freshly vacuumed room and since there have been a bunch of showings, I was afraid that the footprints would erase the lines. Granted I didn't do any work, but I supervised!

Sorry, that link didn't work yesterday. Try this one instead.

http://www.heidinoyes.com/content/listdetail.html/58643638?proppos=1&ag_id=503519&startpos=1&endpos=10&ids=58643638,54970919,58451658,58491335,56970361,55806154&propertyCount=6

So after another day of painting, cleaning, gardening and replacing all of the light bulbs, the house is back on the market. It was nice to be back in the neighborhood. We had a nice couple of breaks as old neighbors stopped by to say hi and chat for a little bit. The one thing that we miss the most about the house are our neighbors. It has such a feeling of community and everybody knew each other. In a couple of weeks there is the annual Halloween parade and party which we will miss but the kids are clamoring to visit in their new superman costumes. Anyway, here is the new listing!

http://sabor.fnismls.com/publink/default.asp?GUID=116d26a3-322a-442c-bbb4-7b963d4376b1&Report=Yes

Getting the house ready...

So I spent the weekend getting the house ready to be put back on the market again. I spent a couple of hours with a little spackle and touch up paint. The most effort went to the deck as I restained it. I figured that the house should look its best and if I can take a couple of hours restaining a 16 x 34 deck (544 sq feet) that is lined with Cedar.

Coming from the NYC area, cedar was always considered something of a fancy wood. Lined your closets with it, made shoe trees out of it, maybe hangars. I guess since its pretty plentiful they can make decks out of it.

I hired a landscape guy to redo the mulch, plant some flowers and mow the lawn. I also hired one of those 5 person cleaning crews to scrup from top to bottom. Hopefully everything will be finished today, pictures are taken tommorow and the house is put on the market on Thurs or Friday.

Getting ready to put the house back on the market

So our short lived tentants are moving out next weekend and our lovely house will be back on the market. I had a couple of comments on why we decided to lease it out in the first place. Well, with this subprime crisis looming, I thought that there would be some people who would have great cash flow but might have a harder time qualifying for a mortgage. We offered a lease to own option which they were very interested in. The deal was that we would collect the rent and then put $300 a month toward closing costs. At the end of the term, we would "give" back the money, the security deposit and a couple of thousand for the closing costs. Anyway, I thought it was a good deal, but only if you could afford the house.

Bad News

I stopped writing in the blog back in July because shortly afterwards we found someone to rent the house. Of course after three months of spotty payment, they asked us to reduce the rent or out of the lease. We granted their request and now will be putting the house back on the market. So anybody reading this please let your friends know that we have a house for sale in San Antonio!

Anyway, this is a picture of the playground at the Lookout Canyon. The whole facility is really geared towards kids. There are two separate structures, one for the little ones and one for the big ones. A tennis court, basketball court, swimming pool, and sand volleyball court complete the facilities.

The Backyard

One of the reasons why we decided to purchase this house was for the backyard. It is clearly one of the biggest in the neighborhood. We thought what a great place to have two little boys run around. One of the unusual features of the backyard is that I had Bermuda Grass put in. As I stated before, I grew up in New York and I like the feel of Bermuda under my feet. I think its softer and feels better. It seems to do a little bit better with the heat and with a little less water. The front of the house is St. Augustine. Its kind of this weedy grass that dominates most texas lawns.

This was my son's first birthday. In the Korean Tradition, the 1st birthday is really important. There is usually a big party and traditional dress. Three things are set before him; thread, a pencil; and money. Whatever he grabs, that's what he will be know for. The thread represents life, the pencil represents intelligence and well money is obvious. We just moved into the neighborhood so we only had about 20 people that year.

Of course the next year, we had about 60 people at the birthday party for my second son. Of course I didn't think that Korean tradition usually calls for a bouncy castle, we needed something for the neighborhood kids. I think that the two pictures above really give you a sense on how big the yard really is. The Jumpy Slide Required at least 30 feet by 25 feet of space. And it was 3 stories tall.

The realtor

Roland Gonzales is our realtor, he lives in our neighborhood and most of the neighbors have used him to list their houses. He comes with a wealth of experience and his own real estate firm. If you want to look at our house, it is the current Featured Property.


www.ecasarealty.com

The Resume

The house is located on 1551 Overlook Creek in a subdivision called Stone Crest located within Lookout Canyon.

It is listed for $279,500 (yes we have reduced the price 4 times) Price per sq foot is around $89. Prices in our neighborhood have sold from $85 to $100 a square foot.

The house has 4 bedrooms upstairs, a study, 2.5 bathrooms, a two car garage, and a large game room. It is 3,138 sq feet and sits on a third of an acre.

This is our kitchen, white GE appliances as well as a white glass cooktop. The pot rack that you see was purchased at this decorative store in the hill country. One of the best things about San Antonio are all of the day trips that you can take that are only 1-2 hours away. The store specialized in wrought iron. Tables, lamps, mirrors, and the ubiquitious Texas star thingy's you see everywhere. They make the pieces and then actually let the pieces sit outside in the sun and rain until it rusts. It turns into this wonderful brownish orange color. Most people like to finish and seal it themselves. Lazy people like myself (I grew up in NYC and I can't fix or do anything around the house) pay them an extra $30 to do the job for us. Lucky for the new home owner, we had it proffesionally installed. Into the beam and everything.

My House for Sale

Hey Everybody,

Welcome to my new blog. My name is Nelson and my house is for sale. Its been on the market for several months and for whatever reason its not selling. We loved our house and loved the neighborhood so I thought I would start a blog to list the best and worst parts of the house. I think of it like a job interview, we get the resume, we like it enough to call that person in. We know that it has the requisite qualifications but we need to interview to get a sense of that person, see his/her character. The intangibles.

Let me tell you a little about my family before we go to the house resume. I received an offer from Tesoro Petroleum and started work for them in 2004. We purchased a brand new home from Coventry Homes in September of 2004. We loved San Antonio and our second son was born at the Children's Hospital in San Antonio. We have two boys ages 2.5 and 3.5 and that is a picture of them Halloween 2005 on our front stoop.



I received an offer from another oil company in the beginning of the year. It was a better offer, a chance to work with an old collegue as well as returning to my wife's hometown and the decision was made. We moved. By the way, for all of you guys out there, when the wife is happy, the whole family is happy. (Took me a while to learn that one.)

But that left our house on the market. We watched all the shows, we listed to all advice and we put the house on the market after we moved out. Since we haven't been getting that great a response, I thought what better way than to market it through the internet and listen to the feedback.