It's the Big Blog Bonanza Issue!

A lot has been going on here in Wormy Burg. Here's big blog bonanza of what's been going on the last couple months (in no particular order).

Pond Cleaning 

Springtime means clean time and after a dreary, cold, wet, and pretty much disgusting winter our pond was one of our top priorities for a good scrubbing.  Pond cleaning includes filling large trash bins with new water, transferring the fish to a holdover bin, and sump pumping out the old water while scrubbing algae off rocks and such. It's pretty gross. We helped Roy's parents clean their pond, too.

Taken from the 2nd floor apartment above our place after we cleaned it.

A closeup shot. We didn't lose any fish this year during the cleanup thank goodness. Our tap water is so chlorinated it smells like pool water and we have to add something to get rid of it for the fish. One year we lost quite a few fish so we try to prevent that from happening again.

Here's a before shot of Roy's parents' pond. Green and icky. Ours pretty much looked the same.

After cleaning. Their pond is so big they have to get water trucked in to fill it back up.

The lily pads got destroyed by the power washer. A few small fish unfortunately perished due to overheating in the holdover kiddie pool. There are over 100 fish (we counted).

Our pond gets a few rare toady visitors but the Smith pond has many frogs. Here's one of the locals.

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Kickball 365

So awhile back I mentioned we quit the pool team, but we never really quit. We're still active on the team and we're in second to last place this session so it's been a bit of a drag. To change things up a bit Roy joined a kickball league. The league is run by Kickball 365 and they have leagues around the country. He's in a co-ed division and they play on Thursday nights. It's competitive but social, they actually have umps and the games stats are recorded, but you'll see people (mostly guys) drinking beer while they play and dressed in costumes or skimpy outfits (keep your eye on the balls!), too. The first couple of weeks got rained out but once the weather got nicer things got rolling.

This is kickball. Games start at 6, 7, 8 or 9 pm and last about an hour.

Kickballers go downtown afterwards to re-hydrate.

Rich and Roy of the Harrisburg Hot Pockets.

Roy plays third base. Their team is really good and they made the playoffs! As of right now they are in the top four. Tomorrow they'll play the semi-final game and if they win, the final game. Go Pockets!

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Tchotchke Convention

In May Roy and I along with a few co-workers went to AC for a promotional products trade show. I've been working in this industry for 11 years now and though I have been to a few of these it's nice to get out of the office every once in awhile. I would like to go to the Vegas show one year. It's held in January and it's supposed to be humongous. The only truly memorable thing at this show in AC was one of the booth models. She was so tan she reminded me of Magda from There's Something About Mary. All the sales guys over 70 were loving it. I wish I had a picture.

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Smittiesburg

Last November Roy closed on a 3-unit up the street from our house. Yesterday he closed on another 3-unit down the street (all are on our block). Everyone is joking that he's buying up the block but seriously, he is! Here's a photo of the "FOR SALE" sign of the one he just picked up. The photo is taken from the front of our house so you can see how close it is. There are two front units, similar to our place (top and bottom apartments) and there is one smaller detached unit in the back that needs fixed up. We're hoping my 76-year old aunt moves in back there so she can be closer to us, but we'll see if it meets her high standards.  

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Almost Summer

Well, it's that time of year again! School is out for the kiddos. My cousins are headed to Korea this time for a few weeks then onto Indonesia again. We are taking them to the airport hotel tonight for their early flight tomorrow. On Friday we'll be off to NOLA for our nephew Cade's baptism. Can't wait to see this little guy (and get some drive-thru daiquiris)! 

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And that's the end of this Big Blog Bonanza issue.  What's in store for your summer? 

To Sell or Not to Sell?

Back in July, Roy replaced the shutters on the stone house. The old ones were made of wood and they were rotting with peeling paint. The living room window didn't even have any.

He replaced them with black vented style ones and they look much better. We haven't done anything else to the house cosmetically since but we did get an appraisal done.

This week I sent in an appeal form to the county to get my real estate tax assessment reviewed because the county's assessment of the house is a whopping $36,800 higher than the appraised market value. It's not really a big difference if you're talking about million dollar homes (and I would love my house to be worth that much higher) but come on, man. The houses around it are assessed much lower and more in line with current market values so something is off here. Real estate taxes are just getting ridiculous.

Which brings up the question of whether we should sell the house in the near future or not. I've been pondering this for a while and I'm leaning towards selling. We have great tenants that pay on time but this house is not meant to be a rental property and it's not worth the ROI. I'm hoping the assessment appeal is successful and a lower assessment value will be more attractive to potential buyers if we do decide to put it on the market. The house needs new bathrooms and a kitchen, among other upgrades and rehabbing so the buyer will need all the help they can get. And right now I need all the help I can get!

The only thing keeping me from selling it is that my mom once told me to never sell the house. Doh! Not sure what the reason behind that request was but I'm guessing it's because she wanted her kids (and grandkids?) to always remember her and this is her memorial or something. I really don't know. But realistically, keeping the house is not beneficial financially unless we are living in it to enjoy the upgrades and modifications that need to be put into it (and that's a LOT). Her wishes matter a great deal to me but I wonder if she would still feel that way if she were alive. There's been both good and bad memories at this house and what if I regret selling it in the future?

I don't think I will though because it's a house. Yes, it's my mom's house but everyone has a childhood home and eventually it becomes a fond memory. We all become a memory. Whether the house is in my possession or not, my memories and love for my mother will not change. Hopefully Roy and I will find our own little house to start a family in so we can begin new memories. 

On the other hand, in real estate class our teacher told us that, as investors, we should never be selling, only buying. Transaction fees are killer too, so we'll see what happens. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: The assessment board hearing took place on 09/26/13 and they lowered my property value by $21,500.  Yay! That's a savings of about $356 a year in taxes.

Stoned

We had the river stone delivered yesterday. It looks a little plain right now but low to no maintenance is what we're going for. The grass bushes are supposed to get up to 4' wide so they should look nice after some time.

 

 

 

 



Still needs a lot of work but it's progress!

Landscaping Duty

From Happy Gilmore:
Nursing Home Orderly: Good news, everybody, we're extending arts and crafts time by four hours today.
Elderly Woman: My fingers hurt.
Nursing Home Orderly: What's that?
Elderly Woman: My fingers hurt.
Nursing Home Orderly: Oh, well, now your back's gonna hurt, 'cause you just pulled landscaping duty. Anybody else's fingers hurt?... I didn't think so.

My fingers, arms, back, legs, you name it, they all hurt. Roy and I were on landscaping duty all weekend pulling overgrown bushes out at the stone house. The pulling bushes part was the easiest because we borrowed his dad's skid loader. The hauling the bushes away, loading, and unloading part was grueling. Plus raking, removing concrete and (really) heavy steel edgers, bagging weeds and sweeping. All the work paid off though as you can see from the before and after photos below.

There's the skid loader on the right - it is a beast.

 

We planted two maiden grass bushes in the front and planted grass seeds along the side of the house, the walkway and the driveway. We plan to put river stone between the front of the house and the front walkway for easy maintenance. Once the stone is in and the grass grows I think the front yard will look so much bigger. If only my mom were alive to see this - I think she would have been very happy! 

May Flowers

April is coming to an end and I received some good news recently on some things I've oh so patiently been waiting on.

Last month, this happened and I was waiting to hear back from Geico regarding my insurance claim. Geico had deemed this accident no fault on my part but the other driver's insurance, State Farm, had only accepted 25% of the fault. Geico sent it to arbitration and yesterday they called to inform me that they would be sending me a check for 100% of my deductible! Hooray!

Upon waiting for the final decision, I opted not to fix my car just yet and Roy buffed out the side. It doesn't look that bad at all:

I think I can live with this for now and I'm going to put the repair funds into savings. Who knows what else might happen to my car, poor thing. It doesn't even have 50,000 miles on it yet.

That was the first piece of good news. The second came today in the form of an appraisal report. The rental property we finished rehabbing earlier this month appraised for $109,000! Whoo-hoo! We are thrilled about that. The market is definitely picking up. Our mortgage loan is in final underwriting now which is also good news.  Hopefully we can pick up the next rental property soon - we've already got our eyes set on one... more on that later if it pans out.

Tulips are in full bloom here in central PA. Here's a shot of a few at Roy's sister Kay's new house in Elizabethtown. I always loved Fall the best but I think Spring is becoming my new favorite season.

437 Finito

Hope you had a great Easter weekend! Roy and I spent Easter putting the finishing touches on our current rental property project. Here are the before and after photos:

View of the front entrance (tenants started moving in over the weekend).  The hardwood floors are original and were hidden under that sea green carpet. Roy sanded, stained, and sealed it. It looks just like his floor.  The layout is actually near identical to his house but flipped since this house is a lefty and his is a righty (semi-detached).

View of the dining room from the living room.  The paint color is Oyster by Behr.

A different angle 

Another angle (please excuse the bad lighting)

Here is the kitchen coming in from the back door.  The fridge was placed by itself in the corner before so we made sure to open up the space by putting the fridge by the counter.

Kitchen - To accommodate the fridge space, we had to eliminate the dishwasher.

Stairs looking down

Rear Bedroom - I had fun knocking those closets down using my fierce karate moves

Hallway looking toward the front of the house

Bathroom - the bottom photo doesn't match up, but you get the idea. Roy did the tile.

Middle Bedroom.  Paint colors are our go-to Behr shades: Chocolate Froth and Mocha Accent

Front Bedroom

Basement - Roy is OCD with 90 degree angles

Random Photos

It's amazing what paint and new carpet can do to a place.  Roy redid the entire bathroom and kitchen (down to the studs), added some dry wall and crown molding to the bedrooms, and with some help we demo'd the basement and filled an entire dumpster. It had all this wood paneling and it was enclosed because it was once a children's daycare (which is really, REALLY creepy). All in all, the rehab cost was around $8,000 - $10,000. We haven't tallied the total yet but it's probably more toward the $10K number (or more since we did buy appliances, too). Purchase price was $69,000.  We are getting it appraised within the next week or two so we'll see if we can break $100K.

So now we can sit back and relax for awhile, right? Umm no. I was asked to start looking for the next one this morning. Roy is a maniac! =)

Young House Love

I stumbled upon a gem of a blog last week after I googled "backyard weddings." It's called Young House Love and it can be found here.  The blog is actually about DIY home projects but the couple who author the blog, Sherry and John Petersik, also chronicle their family life in Richmond, VA. Their backyard wedding was a DIY project in itself.  I fell in love with their story and they've also published a book and everything. Not to mention their decor style is near identical to mine (white brick! YES!). Swoon! Their latest post on their family blog is a trip to IKEA (hello!? I LOVE IKEA!). I am so happy I've found it and it'll be a great inspiration when Roy and I get our own place.

Speaking of which, after we shared our engagement news, the first question on the tip of everyone's tongue was, "When are you getting married?" Well, unless you were female, then it was, "Let me see the ring?!"  Roy and I both agreed that it would be best to have something next summer so that we aren't pressured to plan something this year.  We have a few things we'd like to get accomplished and planning a wedding is only going to make us stress out (and broke). Roy is not into the traditional ceremony and neither am I, except I do love the dresses and flowers part! Ideally, we'd like to get our own place and just have a huge celebration in the backyard. Finding and buying a place we both love could take awhile though.

Right now we're giving our young house love to this new rental property we picked up last September. It is located 5 units up from Roy's place and it was priced too pretty to pass up.  We originally planned to have it rented by the beginning of this year but Roy got super busy with work.  Now we've put a strict deadline of April 1st on ourselves (we already have tenants planning to move-in) so we are cranking this baby out.  Here is a sneak peek of what we're doing (or Roy is doing I should say):

Roy is amazeballs - he did everything in this bathroom

Painting in progress - by yours truly (sea foam green and skin color are being painted over)

I'll have before and after pics once the project is over. The upstairs is done and now Roy is working on the kitchen. I'll be painting because that's pretty much all I know how to do (oh, and fetching tools for Roy).

After this I'll hopefully pass my real estate exam (again), broker up and be able to transact our own deals. We're hoping to pick up one more before the year's out then focus on finding our own place.  Once we do, the real planning can begin!