The house I'm in now is 'Colonial' style (or so I've been told, I have no idea) with a wrap around porch; two stories, with dormers. Lots and lots of dormers. I think every place where the dormer meets the roof there is a tiny leak. The leaks have been patched before by the previous owner and by me. It just seems that if you have dormers you'll be paying for roof work every 8-10 years. I've been a bad home owner and let the most current leak persist long enough that there is now water damage to the ceiling directly underneath it. And of course that ceiling is the 80's classic 'popcorn' ceiling which is impossible to patch. So I have a lot of work to pay for and it just gets hard to write that check when I know if I sell the house I probably won't see that money.

Of course with a gazillion new or newer homes sitting empty within walking distance from my 30+ year old treasure I think I can just give up on selling anything anytime soon.

I wish I had read this posting earlier, but...

I sold a house in Pennsylvania after I moved to SC, this summer. On the advice of my real estate agent, I put about $10,000 into improvements to make the property more attractive. I did not want to spend some of that money, but I am glad I did. I had two offers in less than a week, and we closed earlier this month.

The market is tough, and buyers want everything to be perfect. Sure, I wish I could have kept the $10,000, and I certainly wish the house had sold for what it was worth three years ago, but it did sell, and a lot of other houses in that area are not moving!

Regarding the leaks around the dormers, I bet you need to install new flashing. As for the popcorn ceiling, you can buy a spray can of popcorn ceiling patch, and it does work. The management company that managed my SC house sprayed it on a spot in my office that was damaged by a leak from a bathroom. They painted the ceiling, and I can't tell where the repair was done.

Good luck!

I misspoke, the leak turned out to not be from the roof but from faulty plumbing so the roof is not in need of expensive repairs, but it could use a shingle replacement (over 10 years old).

The only house I would consider buying, the house that started me down this path, is now getting ready to go into foreclosure. I believe I need to jump on it if I want it because from all I've heard it can be a long and difficult process to buy a foreclosed house and that the banks don't sell property at a discount.

Over time my backyard garden has grown and matured. Even though I do not have perfect light or orientation I can grow a lot of food in my large garden. It is that success that makes me think about buying a place with even better light, more space and better suited for a large vegetable garden and maybe even selling produce at the farmers market. Also the current home is in Garner, a suburb of Raleigh that does not allow chickens or livestock (even though my yard is just over an acre!!). The other house is in Raleigh which does allow livestock so if I were to move I could have chickens again or something with hooves and fur.

Personally I don't really care how much space the house has I could sleep in a cardboard box if I have to. I just don't like losing money. I have trouble paying money to fix up a house to sell and then NOT get that money back when I have to lower the price in order to move it.

One day I think there is no time like the present and that I should just bite the bullet and buy the junked out house and start the long process of fixing it up because in the end I will have a better house for me gardening wise. The next day I think the best plan of action is to stay put and spend my money on changing the current house into something more usable (take out around 40 large trees, bring in compost/top soil, rework the well to use as a garden water source, etc.)

Part of my flip flopping is that I recently lost my mother whose health went down hill fast after my fathers death last year. Both of them dying in their 70's made me start to panic about my life and what am I doing with it (I'm 50). So, I will inherit some money soon when the family place gets sold and the estate sale sells off all the vehicles and equipment. I can either redirect my life and fix up an older farm house (has NO charm whatsoever!) with land that is better suited for a large garden or spend my money fixing up where I am even though there are limits to what I can end up with. By the way, I like my house but I don't like constantly repairing things and it is one of those houses that needs constant repair and I hate cutting down a mature forest to make way for a garden. I moved here from the land of no trees so to cut down large trees pains me. But I love to play in the garden and my garden could really use the light.

Sounds like you have to answer the question do you want to invest in your current house and stay there or invest in your current house and then move. What will moving achieve? If you invest and then move will you have money to invest in the new home and yard assuming the market stays the same and you "break even" after your investment in improvements. What shape is the new house in? Which yard will bring you more enjoyment in the long run? If you made the improvements to the current yard would you want to stay? Because at that point it is only of matter of chicken and livestock. For me personally, we looked at adding on to our old house and investing in it but realized that I was never going to be able to add more yard nor make the improvements that I would like. And we were always going to need to repair something. For the first time in 8 years DH and I have had a couple of weekends where we didn't "have" to do anything. No leaky faucets, hole in the roof, rotting floorboards, painting etc. It is so nice. In some ways we have more income even though our mortgage is higher. We are not constantly going to Lowes or HD to buy stuff to repair or improve the house.

But as a buyer and a seller from just over a year ago things seem to have slowed down quite a bit at least in my part of Raleigh. Houses that wouldn't have been on the market for more that a couple of weeks aren't moving. I don't know what your price range is but the houses which seem to be selling the fastest are between 120-200 but even those don't seem to be selling as fast as they were. Can you handle 2 mortgages for a couple of months? And people are looking at how far they will need to drive. DH and I kept our options in a certain driving distance. With 2 kids and extracurricular activities $5 gas prices made an impact.

I spent 3 months trying to buy a foreclosed house in early 2007. The chimney was pulling away from the house so my mortgage company didn't want to write the loan. The bank decided to repair the chimney, but not to satisfaction. REOs are time consuming and expensive. Any structural issues will result in long battles. I eventually gave up and bought a house in town with a nice backyard.

John, I am so sorry to hear of your Mom's passing - becoming an orphan is kinda shocking, huh? My sincere condolences.

Your dilemma is interesting and loaded with 'it all depends... ' type scenarios. My knee jerk reaction is for you to procure the new property, rent the old and garden BOTH (adding chicks etc. to the new). Me thinks the rental market is already warming up, and with a little vetting, finding the right tenant isn't impossible and can be a blessing. This, of course, all depends on many things, but might be food for thought.

Once my knee stopped jerking, instinct was to reign in for the near future and explore the idea. If the new property is in disrepair it probably won't fly away real fast (and if it does, so be it). And if your personal living requirements aren't too lofty (cardboard box???) and if this place can get a CO, you're probably okay. Looking at your current home thru the eyes of a prospective tenant and addressing it like a landlord, I think you'll find there's not that much to do to make it a decent rental home. Popcorn ceilings, formica counters and non-stainless appliances do not impact rentals for the most part, and that acre of land, however heavily treed, is really worth hanging on to.

Letting the forclosure house simmer for awhile will give you time to think it thru, crunch your numbers and fantasize over the potential of becoming a landbaron :o)

As for buying a foreclosure, my son did just that one year ago. Lots has changed in that short year, but his purchase was no more aggravating or time consuming than a regular purchase. Only diff I could see was that the 'as is' held tighter than normal. When he first inquired about it, house had been on the market for a couple of months and he was quoted a price. Not ready to commit, he delayed and called again months later for a showing - price had dropped! He viewed, he liked, he offered full asking and closed on it in just over 6 weeks. Not bad. The 'as is' was carved in stone, but nothing he couldn't cope with. Btw, he did this with the help of a treasured friend, real estate professional, who literally lost money on the transaction, but saw it thru to his advantage. Said RE Pro was invaluable - I'll share if you don't have one in your bag of tricks!

Hope this helps .....

Of course with my silly family - we were all fighting over who would be adopted by Angelina Jolie/Brad Pitt first (now that we are orphans!).

On the one hand I feel that my parents gave us all a gift in that they got really sick before they died, so their deaths were no shock and kinda like a relief. Also the fact that they gave us this gift while we were all in our late forties and early fifties so that we could take care of them towards the end. I believe that without his accident my father would have lived to be 100 or more, and there's no way any of us could have done the hands-on care we did when we are in our late 70's.

Well I talked to a remodelling guy today and the improvements to the old farm house will not cost as much as I thought. In fact they are about half of what I expected and he had solutions to problems that were so much cheaper than I had thought up - always good to talk to the experts.

Neither the farm house nor the house I'm in now are in what I would call great neighborhoods. On the surface my current neighborhood looks peaceful but there are some real scuzzball people living here and some very hostile folks too. They oppose the idea of me having a few chickens but their dog stays up all night and wails to be let back into the house. Three people on this short block have backyard kennels with one to three large dogs in them. The barking drives me nuts. One neighbor flat out told me that the problem with chickens is that it would give his dogs one more reason to bark!

I like my house but I've done just about all that you can do gardenwise and that ain't much (in my book). There is so much root competition with the mature oaks and so many voles... I do have a succesful garden but I can't grow everything. I thought the property would increase in value but so far it hasn't. If you do the math, in the eight years I've lived here the house has gone down in real value when you factor in the true rate of inflation.

The old farm house is in a much better location, pretty much cutting my commute to work in half. The neighborhood is full of renters (renting homes built on an old family farm, most of the renters are distant relatives of the old original family). There aren't that many houses and due to some strict state laws very little of the area will ever be developed. So I could live close to downtown Raleigh but look at farmland every day.

Part of the reason to even consider it is that I want to be a person that jumps on the solar power bandwagon when photovoltaic panels drop even further. The farm house offers much better orientation - the roof wouldn't even have to be altered. The house would be smaller (I see this as a plus!) but hopefully better layed out and environmentally sound. One good thing is that some of the property around it is heavily gardened so I would be in the company of serious gardening.

It is odd that while the economy is crashing my financial situation is better than it has ever been. I doubt it will ever be this way again.

Good thought process going on here, John. Keep it up, weigh the factors and don't despair that your situation is better than most. However you're earned it, you HAVE earned it so run with it and make it work for you! Now!

TJ I am sorry to hear about your parents as well. The last thing I had read about was after your dad's accident and you and your siblings going back and forth helping them out.
If the farm house has more land area and open space and this is turly what you are looking for and can deal with a smaller home, PLUS lessens the commute to work those are many +'s for that home. However, you also have to factor in how the heating and cooling of an older home such as the farm house is going to effect your cost of living, will it need these upgrades and improvements? Are you willing to put money into it for say new windows and more insulation in the walls if needed.
OR does it already offer these improvements meaning less cost for you over time.
What other improvements will the farmhouse need vs what your current home is in need of?
Is the loctaion in your opinion better? How important is it for you to have farm animals? Would you have time to care for them after you come home from work?
I am sure you have considered these questions and more, like zigzag said keep weighing in the pro's and con's actually sit down and make a list of both for both homes and see which one wins in the end and you might just have your absolute answer to these questions/problems you have.

:) Fran

John, our plan as we've been looking for land is to rent our current home for at least a year maybe two. That will give me time to, dig, move and take cuttings, etc... of the gazillion things I don't want to leave behind. That would also allow us to sell in a better market, when we're ready.

We hatched and raised a few 'pet' chickens many years ago when the kids were little and I've been thinking about doing it again. It was nice having the fresh eggs and manure and they're such great bug eaters! There is a pretty good poultry place not far from you that I was just checking out the other day online,... they're in Holly Springs. There are also some really good chicken boards that might be helpful. You should check what the actual laws are in the area you're looking at. Some of the regs and rules have changed recently and/or are being changed. Some areas you can have a limited number of hens but no roosters, certain footage from property lines, neighbors permission and so forth. You get a neighbor that just wants to be contrary and it's all over. We have a friend way out in the country with 5 acres that can have a horse but nothing else like chickens, rabbits, goats. Not even a minimal amount, which I could sort of understand. The houses are ok, nothing that fancy, some farmland and a mix of dwelling types. If I find 5 acres I need to put on it want I want!

Anyway, here's a cute site on chicken tractors you might get some inspiration and giggles from....

http://home.centurytel.net/thecitychicken/tractors.html

.... and I'll link that place in Holly Spring near you (Sumner-Byrd Farm and Hatchery) and a few others...

The City Chicken
http://home.centurytel.net/thecitychicken/index.html

Urban Chickens : Dedicated to promoting backyard chickens in urban residential landscapes.
http://urbanchickens.org/

Welcome to Mad City Chickens
http://www.madcitychickens.com/

BackYardChickens.com - Raise Chickens, Build Chicken Coops, Hatch Eggs
http://www.backyardchickens.com/

Here is a link that might be useful: Sumner-Byrd Farm and Hatchery

Root - thanks a bunch. I know folks in Holly Springs so going over there to pick up chicks would be no problem.

Moving is a hassle but in the end I believe I would rather live in the farmhouse rather than where I am now. But I do think the amount of work to shape it up will be daunting.

I do have to check out the livestock rules for that part of Raleigh - no one has anything other than housepets as far as I can see. The place does have a chicken house already on it so I hope that means that chickens are ok. I know a person that lives a couple of miles away in a much fancier neighborhood that has had all sorts of livestock without any problems (this included a pig, which I would assume many people would be opposed to.)

Thanks from me too, Rootdigger! Those links are fun - my son has chicks (and his last batch included a few unplanned on roosters so he's scrambling 'bout now!) and I've forwarded the links to him. He's out in the country (about 25 miles NE of Raleigh) where most anything goes.

John, I sense you're on the scent of the ultimate decision - stay in focus and good luck!

Y'all are welcome. Here's a cute video of a family in Brooklyn raising chickens. After they got a rooster they found out they weren't allowed. Oops! Supper time!

My fatherinlaw got our son some of the Golden Seabrights (bantams) and they were great. That little bantam rooster was awful contrary for such a little feller. Then we wound up hatching araucanas (sp?) which lay the colored eggs and we also had Rhode Island Reds (very sweet and gentle) and we hatched a duckling too, which was too cute! We just gave it back to the guy that gave us the egg. Won blue ribbons at the country fair for a few years. All in all it was fun and a great learning experience for the kids.

On one of those earlier links there was a person that had set up a cam inside their chicken coop. The sounds chickens make are soothing to me for some reason, like a cat purring. hehehe :)

Well, don't want to hijack your thread with chickens (lol)... Good luck with it all, hope you find and fulfill your dreams!

Here is a link that might be useful: The Craze for Urban Chicken Farming

Though I read and re-read all the messaged here I think the real kick in the pants came the other night at the local arboretum's lecture on apple growing. You may remember that I have professed a love of all things apple and have long dreamed of living in apple country. So growing apples in my own yard is a HUGE deal even though Wake county is not even close to being the perfect location. Well I learned that the buds for blooms are set in the summer so if you don't have a lot of summer sun you'll never get enough springtime flowers. My current yard has just enough sunlight to set a few blossoms but nothing like what would be considered ideal. So apples are influencing my decision making, well that and the fact that voles have swarmed in again and munched most of my most precious seedlings (they take over every winter while the snakes are sleeping).

The situation now is to drag out the process long enough to take advantage of the new 4.5% interest rate but not take too long so as to have the house go into foreclosure and get tied up in bank procedings.

In a way my situation is perfect for me - I'll be thrilled to get the new place even though it is going to tie up a bunch of money and time but if it doesn't happen I can easily stay where I am. Both places require some work but the other place will let me grow apples.

All this reminds me of what an ordeal it was to move here and explain over and over to the realtor what I meant by "must have space to garden".

When my brother gets ready to sell my parents place back in Oklahoma I am going to campaign high and low to sell it to a gardener. My dad fixed it up with a small pond and pump so that you didn't have to use city water to water the place, a nice sturdy fence to keep out the varmits, and years of teenager/forced labor amending the soil. Not to mention a chicken house, flower beds, windbreak row of pines,, etc.

What's that comment about acorn not falling far from the oak?

John, sounds like the apple doesn't fall too far from the apple tree ;> Dirtrx

I've started calling him johnnie appleseed! ;~P

One of the strange requests my mother made as she got older was for me to paint a massive mural of an apple tree on the wall in the living room. She added an apple to it for each child and grandchild over time and my father added a worm coming out of one of the apples. If you did anything that upset them they would claim to all that visited that YOU were the apple with the worm! She also wanted a huge mural of a dark blue sky with white puffy clouds in the dining room. Oh yeah, that house is gonna sell quickly!

Hey- maybe it'll sell to an artist that likes to garden. Not out of the realm of possibility... It's all about the marketing spin. People pay lots o dough to get that done. I love the wormy apple idea. heh heh- we know where you got your wacky sense of humor!

I don't know what i'll do about all the murals in our house if we ever decide to sell. TJ's seen them, but for the rest of y'all, the kid's old bedroom, now playroom, has 2 walls covered in very bright Dr. Suess scenes and my office has 2 walls of burgundy on periwinkle blue, essentially off the top of my head, wall sized doodles. Custom wallpaper if you will! Not to mention the painted tiles on our bathroom floor upstairs. I have a friend who's painted nearly every surface of her house with stuff- it's super cool, not at all tacky, actually.

TJ, honestly, I would LOVE your mom and dad's place. I personlly though not having seen them can invision both murals and very much so can tell you I am sure I would like both.
So don't discount the fact that it COULD happen!
The right person just has to see it!

:) Fran

Unlike me, they did keep up with the normal house maintenance so the general stuff is all up to date. But after my dad passed away last year my mom went on a frenzy of changing things to her liking - this included having the indoor/outdoor carpeting removed from the kitchen and breakfast nook, it was butt ugly before, now I hate to say it is much much worse!! Inspired by something she saw on the Ellen show, she had them jumble every color of Pergo flooring and randomly apply them to the floor. I'm sure it would look fine in a large industrial setting but in a normal sized home it just looks frantic and very odd. There ended up being a lot of red tones in the new flooring but before she saw it in place she picked out new countertops in a dark blue/gray color that does not work with the floor at all. The entryway leading from the front door to the living room has these nice subtle colored pale pale blue Mexican tiles that are molded into flower shapes (very popular 35 years ago). She loved the bluish cast it gave to the space and to accent it she had the grandkids take bright blue sharpie markers and color in the grout work around the tiles. Now the room screams Mexican restaurant bathroom!!!

The house is a regular 70's ranch except that it has a lot of Spanish accents (rounded windows) and that it is completely made of large round river rocks. I have no idea where those rocks came from, they don't have rocks like that in Oklahoma. Trucking them in must have cost a fortune. That house ain't gonna go anywhere, the walls are very thick. In the living room the rocks show through the wall into the inside of the house to make the fire place wall. Oh oh oh, I almost forgot to mention how she talked my dad into painting the wood trim a shade that can best be described as "pepto-bismal pink" or her favorite "puke pink".

If I owned it I would alter it to look a lot more Sonora desert style rather than classic 70's ranch.

The down side to the rock walls is that there isn't any shade trees up close to the house and in the summer those walls soak up a LOT of heat from the sun. Keep in mind that it is not uncommon for Oklahoma summers to feature 30-40 days of triple digit temps and once things start to dry out the night time lows rarely get lower than 80!!!! And there are people that live there without air conditioning!!! This is why I am happy where I am and in no mood to move back no matter how nice the house and land are. I just can't take the extreme weather. I know it seems bad here but trust me there are places where things are much worse.

John - if it were up to me, you'd move in a heartbeat. Reason? You love to garden in the sun. You want critters. You want apple trees. You want quiet non-scuzzball neighbors. You can't have that where you are now. Fuming about constant repairs doesn't help your blood pressure. Open sun gardening would. Every house needs repair one time or another and some need it constantly. Even a brand-spanky new house needs something done all the time, if nothing more than the dreaded lawn mowing.

You've got to love where you live for a reason. If a new fully repaired house would be more expensive to live in than you can be comfortable with, that is not a good reason. If a new house with an affordable mortgage needs repairs but it has chicken-ability, this IS a good reason to move there. Yes, you could live in a broken down cardboard box if you had a big slice of sunshine with chickens cackling outside under a half dozen apple trees. You've said it all in your posts, I'm just repeating it. It's not the repairs you are complaining about, it is that you don't love where you live and you are saying you have an option to change that.

As for your folk's house in Oklahoma - they loved it, weird though it may be to some others. They fixed it to suit themselves. They did not want to worry about resale value, they wanted to enjoy their own place in the way they wanted to and did not want to be caretakers until someone else bought it by keeping it "normal". Floors can be ripped up, walls can be painted over, rocks walls are charming to some - we all have different tastes. And, there are a lot of gardeners out there who would love the outside of it even if the house itself was their version of a cardboard box.

Nancy the nancedar

John, I was a real estate agent for many years in Maine before moving here. Banks WILL sell foreclosed properties for less. While they want to get whatever is owed on the mortgage, they also know the longer they are holding the property, the more it costs them.
No, they don't like doing repairs, but they will let you make the contract contingent upon a satisfactory home inspection. If you hire a really good home inspector to go over the whole property with a fine toothed comb, you'll know exactly what repairs will be needed.
You'll also need to do your own homework regarding zoning issues, water and septic/sewer situations, radon, arsenic, and other possibly hazardous environmental issues. A good buyers agent should be able to do this for you.
Regarding your current home - why sell now? If you have years of equity in your current home, you can use that equity to give you the down payment for the new one while you rent out the old one until the market rebounds.
Yes, it might be tough to find a lender for the new mortgage, but if you can get equity from your current home that will amount to at least 20% of the sale price of the new home, and if your credit looks good and your income is good, a lender can be found. Note: they may charge a higher rate because the new one will be considered a second home. Always talk to local lenders (I recommend talking to at least 3) and stay away from online lenders who often promote what appears to be a great rate, then charge you miscellaneous junk fees when you close to make up the difference.

Good Luck,
Sandi

Nothing new to report. The bank is mulling over my low-ball offer since evidently this will be a short sale. How it got there is beyond me, my research had turned up what the default amount was on the house, I offered thousands of dollars over that amount, but the realtor says this will be a short sale. I guess there are fees and penalties when you don't pay your mortgage for months in order the send it to foreclosure. Anyway, the deadline for me to backout has passed, it is all up to his bank to either accept the amount offered or reject it. I told them it was my final offer, no more wiggling, no one acted like this was a problem at the time. Every day of delay is just a further lowering of the interest rate so I am NOT complaining.

What I've learned about the property - there are pockets of space in and around Raleigh that are part of the county but not part of the city. I mean INSIDE the city limits but for a number of reasons they don't provide services nor do they collect city taxes. This property sits in one of those areas. For those of you familiar with Raleigh, on the south side when you drive down Lake Wheeler Road you go past Tryon Road which makes an east to west loop across the bottom of the city. There is healthy development along both sides of Tryon (lots of condo's and townhouses). Behind the development is a thick band of forests/woodland which is the head waters for either the Neuse or some other river which is the water supply for many towns and cities downstream. To the south of this forest land is farmland. Miles and miles or corn and soybeans with the occasional cow pasture - all of this property is state owned with no plans for development on the books. Most of it is research farms for NC State and some of it is leased out where somebody grows corn or soybeans on it. The neighborhood I'm looking at sits on the south side of the forest with views to the south of these research fields - miles and miles of corn. Because the forests act as part of the watershed for whatever river, no city utilities can cross it, no water line, no sewer line. Therefore all the homes are on private wells with home septic tanks. As long as that law is in place no super tight neighborhoods will be built nearby. So you get the country living style with the development along Tryon conveniently within walking distance, a long walk but still. Because of the no-city-services there are no laws restricting livestock, so I can raise wildebeasts if I want to (I don't). Most of the houses near me are on larger acreage - but being this close to the city I can't afford those parcels. I haven't won the lottery yet.

When I lived in Oklahoma, I lived way out in the country. I've done the hour commute to work. That was one hour each way!. I don't really want to do that again. I would choose to live way out in the sticks if I didn't have to work, but I do, and I like my job.

The problem is that it is going to cost a bit of money to fix up that house. It isn't run down as much as it is poorly layed out and whoever owned it before the guy thats selling it now, started a bunch of remodeling and never finished it. So some of the work is home owner done, and done poorly and the rest of it is just started and not even half way completed. The guy living and selling it now has done nothing to fix it, he's been living there working around the mess (eating out rather than having a stove that would work!).

So I have to get all that fixed and re-done AND I have to fix up all the nagging, near-constant problems that my current house has. Problems that will probably never go away because they are mostly design flaws. Fixing it up and renting it out are a strong possibility and then once the economy perks up it will be worth more (it is 1.1 acres in the center of Garner after all) and it can be sold for a profit - I hope, I hope, I hope.

One other good thing is that if I do end up moving out there, this spot would be a good location for the plant swaps, plenty of parking, right off the highway, everyone could help pull weeds.... yeah, I'm still dreaming

Wow wow wow.
What a thread. TJ, honestly, I hope you get the house. It sounds like the circumstances are right even though the apple has some soft spots. Sun, wildebeasts, chicken manure, apple blossoms... wow. :)

The fixing up sounds like a major pain... but... hey, you'll have all that extra time instead of driving to work! ;)

By the way-- do you own a toaster oven? When I moved into my current apartment this spring, it was barely finished and the gas hadn't been hooked up yet. I cooked *everything* in my toaster oven (and, when I got it, my sister's hand-me-up microwave) and love it.

Arwen, or I should say Dr. Arwen - I do and I use it for virtually every meal! How I lived so long without one is beyond me.

I need you to resend your link to me (I was in the middle of mama dying when you contacted me). There is a strong chance that I will be going to Australia this fall and want all the details. Mostly, how to survive that plane ride! Homey no like to fly. I take 10 milligrams of valium just to get on the plane. The idea of sitting on one for an entire day gives me the heebie jeebies.

John,

You should have the link again! And you don't have to call me Dr. Arwen yet -- that's still in the future (though fast approaching. i've spent most of the afternoon doing "alternative work" to avoid doing the *real* work of pulling together the data analysis for my next (next-to-last!!) paper).

It sounds like you've had a pretty busy, sad year or so here. Hope things look up -- and going to Australia is definitely awesome! Which parts etc???

Plane ride- I'll tell you what seems to work for me, and if any of it works with you + valium then awesome.
look for the No-Jet-Lag pills. REI and Whole Foods usually have them, and there is a web site. I thought they helped on the way over.
I like Nyquil for when I want to sleep on the plane. Maybe the valium will help, maybe Ambien (my preference is to avoid this one; I just don't want to be *that* sound asleep on public transit), maybe benadryl.
Drink lots of water. LOTS. I usually have a 1-liter bottle with me, purchased after security, and I refill it or I keep my cup from dinner and refill that frequently. The latter gives you excuses to move around!
Move around. LOTS. Stretch in your seat, etc. I've thought about going to my dr and asking for a note saying, "Arwen needs to move a minimum of XX minutes per hour unless she is sleeping, in which case she should make up the time once awake" just in case anybody ever gives me a hard time.
NO alcohol.
Don't overeat -- better to go with small bits slowly, just enough to keep you from getting too hungry. Also don't go overboard with carbs (skip the biscuit with your meal, and save the wrapped cookie in case you get hungry between meals).
Try to match your sleep schedule to destination ASAP. I am usually ready to do this because although I pack early-and-often for long trips (to make sure I can fit everything into that one little suitcase), I usually end up with a desperate attempt to clean or work the night before leaving. On the Australia trip, my L.A.->Sidney flight was delayed two hours, so I was *really* ready to sleep on the plane. Usually they plan the meals around your arrival, and you can look at the timing and figure that the meal will be finished 1-2 hrs after take-off, and then as soon as the aisle is clear you can hit the bathroom and sleep for 4-6 hours.
I like to have my ipod for music in case I can't sleep, or movies once in a while, but I'll also try to bring a book in case I need to stay awake. Actually, if I can, I buy a book in a foreign airport -- it's always fun to see what their selection is.

Flying from NC to Sidney was one of the best international flights I've ever had -- because of the delay in L.A., I had to force myself to stay awake long enough to eat supper, and then I think I slept for 4 hours straight. I might have gotten another 2 hours in there somewhere, and then when I walked off the plane at 7am, I felt like I was in the right time zone and hooray for morning and sunshine.

Ok, that was a really long post. :)

Thanks a bunch. I got the blog stuff.

If the house purchase goes through it may tie me up financially so bad that I can't go to Australia (I'll go to Bogota instead).

If my brother sells the parents house and junk then I will have enough money to do both. It also all depends on how bad the economy gets. If my job looks dicey I may choose to just sit tight and wait til sometime in the future to travel. Or, if sh!t really hits the fan I may just blow it all and go far far away.

If I go to Australia it will be to tour farms so it will be attached to whatever the large agricultural school is down there. I have some friends over in the Chapel Hill area that will be going with me (babysitting me on the plane), they are organic farmers and will only want to check out farming stuff while there - which is fine by me.

In a perfect world I would like to spend half the time there in Australia and the other half in New Zealand but beggars can't be choosers.

I used to fly all over the world (grew up overseas) but as I have aged I just don't enjoy it at all. The valium helps but not as an anxiety suppressor - it makes you just not remember any of the bad experience so you don't panic before the plane ride. It kinda dulls the experience and makes me groggy but not really sleepy. I take 10m so I'll have to check to see about taking sleeping pills. Sleeping isn't too much of a problem - I am so nervous about flying that I stay up for DAYS before hand.

Any word on the the buying of the house? I hope you get it and and win the lottery! Dirtrx

Shannon - did I promise you a cut of my lottery winnings??? Its been a while since I've seen you and I can't remember what I said or offered...

No news. The real estate agent warned that it would take a while. I am getting antzy and I'm thinking about calling them up and demanding to know who the note holder is (all my online snooping did not expose this fact) and then asking for proof that my offer was even presented to them on time. At least I signed all the legal documents along with making the offer so I have legal recourse if things progress forward without me in the picture.

Because of all this I spend as much time online looking at housing stuff as I do gardening stuff. I am amazed at some of the deals out there. But finding a decent house with over an acre of workable land is very difficult unless you want to live an hour away from Raleigh (and I don't).

Nope, no promise of lottery share but if I don't win then I at least want to know someone who did :).

There are deals to be had but you have to do a lot of sifting and to not want it too badly. It is hard to find land in Raleigh having just moved ourselves last year. Besides you don't want to move during Feb. you want to wait until March or April so that the plants have a chance to break dormancy and you can take them to their new home. Shannon

John, a trick I used to keep that 'spray popcorn' patch from going 'everywhere' was to spray through an extra large version of those plastic things you put on a dog to prevent them from licking surgery sites,chewing stitches etc.

Do you know what I mean? It really worked well to keep the messy spray where I wanted it.

Though my dog has never worn one I know what you mean and that would make the job easy. Thanks.

The last time I had the plumbing leak fixed the repairmen said they could patch the ceiling where it would be impossible to notice the patch. They failed at that.

The most recent repairmen mentioned that the plumbing problem is due to the defective pvc pipe used in the original plumbing. I remember hearing about defective pvc on the news when I first moved here (about houses built in the 80's). The plumber gave me a website to check for government programs that pay all or part of the costs to replace the pipe in your house but it doesn't lead me to anywhere so either he wrote it down wrong or the program has been discontinued.

Call me crazy, or lazy but I really want to fix a million things that are wrong with this house after I move out of it, while it is empty. There are things that I can do and other things that pro's will have to do but I don't want to be stepping through a worksite everyday I would rather take my time and really solve the problems.

Part of that comes from the feeling that I won't be able to sell this house anyway so I should fix it up to rent it out.

Surprise surprise! The realtor came out of hiding and hints that the bank may be processing my offer within the next few months. I think I did the right thing, offering just a bit more than the default amount but just below what the seller wanted. He chose to not respond to my offer but to not reject it either- thereby freeing him to try and find another buyer and keeping me in his back pocket. So far no one has made an offer so as he nears foreclosure (again??) my offer is still on the books. State law says that he isn't required to respond to offers less than his asking price (if I read it right) so I was wrong to assume that he would make a decision within weeks (its been months).

It will still be at least a month away before anything happens but things are falling into place just the way I need them to. Interest rates staying low. Equity building in current house with each payment. I have resolved that 2009 will just be the year of house repairs so I will be down-sizing my gardening - yeah right!

Any news John?

Wondering if you have had the well tested at this other house and some assurance there is an adequacy of water given we've gone through two years of periodic extreme drought and the area will likely not be getting city water.
Plus, surrounded by crop land , is that cropland irrigated which is also drawing down the aquifer?
(another ex-Realtor and forever devils advocate believer in Murphy's Law)

Dottie - Murphy and I are well acquainted! I haven't heard anything from either the home seller, his agent or the bank, but I have gotten advice over in the Home forums about short sales and foreclosures so I am up to speed (I think).

When I talk to friends here in Raleigh that live rurally they always bring up the fact that the house in question is on the south side where the "good" water is. Evidently the boundary that divides the piedmont and the coastal plain runs diagonally through Raleigh. Those that live on the north side have more clay soil and wells the suffer during droughts. Those that live on the south side have sandier soil and better water. I currently live in Garner which is south of downtown and I have dreamy garden soil (black, sandy loam about 4 feet thick on top of clay or sand depending on which corner of the yard your digging in). The new house is only 10 minutes away to the west. The farmland around it looks sandy but not as dark.

The neighborhood around the new house is mostly non-gardeners, people not doing anything with their property that would place a demand on the water table. They are also not big homes and about a third of them appear empty. There is one mansion with a swimming pool across the street. Some of the lots on that side of the road will eventually sell and more mansions will be built. It is high dollar land with restrictions so the only people that will buy them are people looking for large country homes with lots and lots of land around them (one place is 65 acres that cannot be divided, most are over 12 acres big).

One neighbor gardens in a commercial or big way but the property contorts its way through and around the adjoining backyards so there is no way they can set up any sort of watering system - and none that I have seen. The land across the street is owned by NC State but appears to be leased out to grow corn on. I've been looking at this house for almost a year and I have never seen any sort of irrigation equipment in use so I doubt they irrigate at all. There are numerous small ponds that they may be pumping out of but they don't seem to be.

When the bank makes a decision one way or the other I plan on having the well tested and the boundary surveyed. The seller had an above ground pool so I know he pumped a lot of water to fill it from that well, but that was years ago and the pool has been removed.

I am concerned in a minor way about the boundary line. The county maps online seem to be shifted over about 5 feet which impacts the small backyard chicken coop - placing the attached chicken yard on my property but the actual coop on the neighbors yard. There could be some sort of hand shake deal where the neighbor allows the chicken coop because they don't use that section of their yard for anything... I don't know. There hasn't been chickens in it for at least 10 years. Those neighbors migrate between Canada and NC so they are only here for part of the year.

All my panic and fear is wrapped around selling the current house. I believe it will sell and I believe it will sell for enough money to make my life easy but I also believe it will take a long long time to sell it - that length of time is what I have a problem with. If I can't sell it quickly then I will probably fix it up and rent it out.

Well I got the call last night. The deal went through. I won't celebrate until all the paper work is signed and hands are shook but it looks like the little mini-farm is mine!

I misspoke earlier - the highly desirable lot down the street and next door to the one big mansion is $65,000 per acre NOT 65 acres. I don't remember what the acreage was but it was high and the realtor said that it cannot be divided. Evidently a lot of the plots in this neighborhood have restrictions on being divided (could be the water thingy).

The website where I stumbled upon the "heading for foreclosure" default amount owed on this property was using funny math, his actual default amount was close to 20 thousand more than what I saw. I offered a bit more than the default amount (the faulty number) thinking that it would speed things up. This is why I was confused when the realtor claimed it would be a short sale. Now I know the true numbers. The beauty is that because of the earnest money already put down and some sort of "extra" money left over from his bank forgiving almost $20K of his debt - the left over dollars get advanced towards closing costs. So coming up with the closing $$ is not gonna hurt much.

Looks like everything will be settled sometime next month (May). I will jump on getting the place fixed up and remodeled while doing homeowner repairs on the current house. It will probably take the rest of the summer to fix everything. (getting the kitchen and two bathrooms remodeled at my current house almost took an entire YEAR! and trust me I can get ugly when upset. I was not nice to this "kitchen face-lift" company and continue to bad mouth them whenever I run across them at one of the many home improvement shows). So I know how long stuff can take and I know how to withhold payment when the schedule isn't adhered to. Its all about the fine print on that contract. Keep in mind that I built my own house back in Oklahoma - it wasn't anything grand but I know how homes are built. This new house needs to be re-wired which is something I can't do.

Anyway -- anyone know someone looking to buy a house in Garner?? Nice garden out back. 1.1 acres mostly wooded. Center of town.

Yeah!!! Congratulations, I know that you are glad that things are starting to move again.

So does that mean that the fall plant swap will be at your house? We could each bring you a yard/house warming plant to start your yard off. It is a good thing you won't have to handle the fair this year- you'll be to busy moving to your new house. Shannon/Dirtrx

ooh ooh ooh I know! If we can get enough people to show up at the fall swap we could make a human chain stretching from Garner to South Raleigh (its only 10 minutes down Tryon Road!) and everyone could hand one plant at a time and move the entire collection - now there's a plan!

Yeah, I'm very glad to NOT be directing the fair flower show this year - and I've scaled back all my various volunteering to free up time to pack and move, clean and repair, etc.

Well John, now you have a reason and a timeframe to get that work done on 'old' house so you can sell it. In your shoes, I'd do everything I could to sell it rather than having to deal with tenants causing more wear and tear on it.
At the very least, you must have a survey done on the new property and pay for it yourself..don't rely on any previous surveys in the bank's possession. Determine once and for all if the chicken house is within the new property and away from any setbacks in your zoning. If it turns out to be over the line, have it dragged into your property. Don't go entertaining any ideas of 'adverse possession' because the timing for that restarts with each change of ownership I'm fairly certain.
Are you up to potting up all your plants you plan to take with you? Whew..what a job but it's got to be done before you offer the house for sale. Plant materials are just as much 'fixtures' as that overhead light in the kitchen.

Here's hoping the new place hasn't a single vole to annoy you. Congratulations!

There are a few plants in the garden that will be tricky to move, they just got so big so fast (after sitting still for years!). Most of the blooming bushes I have rooted cuttings of as back up in case the transplanting does not go well. And there are plenty of things that never really thrived in the first place so they may just get mowed down. What I wish I could do is haul out all my lovely dirt (the thoughts of an extreme gardener). I have worked on this soil for so long I just hate to leave it behind. In my vegetable garden you don't even have to use a trowel, just poke your hand down into the fluf, you can dig down at least eight inches without any problem.

The closing and all will be mid May, the survey and demolition stuff will take until mid June, then the remodeling begins and will probably take the rest of the summer if not the rest of the year (I'm using past experience as a guide, it may only take a month in reality). So all of this may take the bulk of the summer before I have to start moving plants - which is a good thing. Its going to take all that time to fix up and touch up all the current houses problems. So at least I know what I'll be doing the next few months.

I have no desire to be a landlord. The thought of selling a house right now is not the problem nor is the thought that it may not sell for much money... its the length of time it seems to be taking people to sell. My current house is extremely difficult to keep clean - its buried in the woods with constant raining down of tree canopy debris (the trees around it are at least 65 feet tall! some are 80!). The amount of effort it will take just to keep the front porch spotless will be daunting while I work a full time job, take care of the pets, deal with the new house, start a new garden... So "days on the market" are my problem. I have access to a steady stream of post-doc grad students at NCState that need temporary housing. They are often newlyweds with their first child in tow. They are not planning on living here longer than 2 years so they are not looking to buy. But they are also making little money so an expensive house payment is out of their reach. They are the only candidates I am thinking of considering at this moment but once money starts flying out of my wallet and into the banks open hand things may change, I may have to relax my standards. I just thought that getting a young couple or two grad students in as renters for the next two years while I settle things at the new house.. and then do a bunch of big work on this house to really fix it up and sell it at a profit - hoping that in two years the market has turned around.

About the plants - off the top of my head, a windmill palm is one of the babies that scares me. I planted it as a pretty small palm but it has now gotten head high and it would be a shame to leave it behind. When I looked at it the other day I noticed the base was very thick which makes me worry that digging it up will be difficult - the roots have probably grown to China by now.

I am thinking long and hard about how to get rid of voles and keep them out of the gardens at the new place. Now is the time to plan out some sort of barrier while the slate is blank.

John, why on earth is the survey being done AFTER the closing?? How can you possibly get title insurance without a survey?

John, this all sounds really exciting. And the post-doc (or even grad student ;) rental option doesn't sound bad at all -- especially the just-married-with-a-baby set. Plus, you'll have a couple months to look for incoming people before you start getting too nervous about it.

What did you figure about the chicken house? Are you going to be fertilizing your new garden with chicken droppings and collecting fresh morning eggs?

Dottie - whenever I talked about having the place surveyed the attitudes turned casual, like this was unimportant. So I thought I would have to pay to have this done but I was wrong. The bank did it the other day, weeks before closing. Everything is flowing along, we're just down to the scheduling all the parties to sit down and sign the papers. The survey markers showed even more land than I imagined in some areas and a little less in others. This piece of property is one of those jigsaw puzzle types where there are few 90 degree corners and nothing is square. So I lost a little of the deep woods across from the driveway (no biggie, its state owned land that will never be developed) and gained a large strip of land that extends up to the main road. Its big enough for a small orchard.

The entire piece is only 1.47 acres and almost entirely full sun, just grass with a few weeds, gently sloped and terraced like for farmland with long curving ridges carved into the soil to direct water away from the house next door (possibly the lowest in the neighborhood). I had 13 acres back in Oklahoma and don't really want to take care of a large piece of property again. This place has the room for good sized gardens in three directions from the house.

Doc - until I moved here I have always had chickens. I used to show poultry (as an adult, I was a science nerd as a child and didn't have anything to do with FFA or 4H. And remember that half my childhood was spent in Tokyo Japan where we lived in a busy suburb.. though there was an egg farm next door), my Golden Campine Cockerel won Grand Champion of a regional show. I also raised sheep and goats and llamas and had a pet Emu left over from the petting zoo. I don't miss having a million pets to take care of and will probably only keep a few things at this new place but chickens figured heavily in the decision to move.

I did another walk through/measuring of the farm house the other weekend.. It is a lot smaller and junkier than I remembered. Nothing horrible. Nothing that's a deal breaker. And I shouldn't judge because the guy is trying to move out and has friends staying with him to help clear everything away and everybody involved has a dog or a puppy and not everybody is housebroken. So the house isn't very tidy right now. But some of the rooms seem smaller. I would actually like to have a smaller house since I spend all my spare time out in the yard anyway I would rather not have too many bathrooms to keep clean.

So John..tell us true. Do you have enough land and privacy now to garden in the nude a la "Basil"?

Haven't seen Basil post in quite a while. He OK?

I know it sounded like everything was sailing along smoothly but at the last minute my bank appraised the property at much much less than my low low ball offer. There is some sort of new fangled way that appraiser's work - so properties are appraising at lower prices. In the old days buyers would just be expected to come up with the difference themselves. I made a big stink about the property being worthless so the sellers bank only took 7 days to accept the new lower offer.

I closed today at 1pm!!! yay!!!!

The house became mine at 5pm.

The seller hasn't moved out completely, the electricity has been turned off, food is starting to stink up the place... it is hard to swing by and measure things with the lights not working - ` but I am not complaining. It is going to take a bit of money and time to clean thing up but in the end I believe it will all be worth it.

Though nude gardening might be just the trick to keep the neighbors at bay I don't think the world is ready for it.

How about an update on the property,John?
Is the ex-owner totally out now? It's been over a month since you closed.
How much below your original offer was the appraisal?
It's good that appraiser's toes are finally being held to the fire for more accurate comp selections.
5 years ago, my lender's appraiser submitted an appraisal for the house next door instead of mine. Mine was bigger, had distinctive features (screen porch,extra bedroom,extra full bath,three of the bathrooms didn't have any sinks and most of the overhead lighting were $5. fixtures) and although I notified the appraisal company and the lender of the error..they left it in place.
That's how screwy the lending and valuing process was 5 years ago.
Getting holdovers out of a house after closing is tricky and annoying. Hope the ex-owner is long gone and far away so you can renovate in peace.

Well, things are chugging along. The things that were either wrong or annoying about the place have taken a bit more time to fix but nothing has been a horror story so all in all I am pleased. When they removed the faulty previous renovations to the attic (made into an office and bedroom) I thought there might be a lot of rotting wood because of the way things were stained on the siding outside. But rot was minor. The main focus has been getting that area updated since it was in such poor shape. The corrections to the supports and the installation of skylights really opened up the room and the whole thing has now been blessed by the county inspector (yay! a big relief). This old house was built solidly but out of two by sixes whereas now things would be made out of much bigger lumber - so getting things blessed by structural engineers can be tricky.

Currently the work is focused on moving the massive HVAC unit from the sunny front of the house to the shady back of the house, building a false chimney up the outside wall to carry the ductwork upstairs to the home office. This involved cutting new holes into the brick foundation wall and re-working all the ducts throughout the house. The old system was patched and in some places just homeowner done and not efficient. The problem now is that I really want to use as much of the basement as possible as a workshop but getting the duct guys to understand me has been difficult. There are certain rules about how sharp a turn and how many feet a duct can travel and I want as much of the ductwork as possible out of the way which doesn't look like it is feasible. So in order to get from one end of the room to the other I am either going to be stepping over ducts or stooping under them a couple of times. Not what I wanted. Most of the problem is that the HVAC unit that came with the house is monster big (actually a good thing), the previous owner didn't have it ducted the right way so it was unable to cool or heat every room and he used small ducts. My crew is putting in these massive ducts which will do a great job of keeping things ventilated and cool but I will sacrifice workspace down in the basement - so I should shut up and quit complaining.

The previous owner has never shown up to finish hauling off his junk. My understanding is that he really fell on hard times financially and just couldn't get it together. I've been piling it up and having the workers add it to their loads to the dump (and I've been paying for that pleasure).

In addition to all that - I been fixing up my current house to put it up for sale and things are going s-l-o-w. I had such big plans about really going through everything and tossing out the stuff I don't use or need but that just takes way too much time. I'm down to throwing stuff in boxes and piling them up in the corner and hoping that someday I will be able to go through it.

The realtor winced when she saw how much clutter I have (and my house is only a quarter of how cluttered my parents house is) and she suggested I find some newer appliances for the kitchen. She also warned that looking at the numbers I should not expect to get much for the house - so that's a bummer, but things are changing everyday so by the time I have it ready to sell and the new house is ready to move into the situation might be better.

You asked for numbers: My final low ball offer was just under $30,000 of the debt owed by the seller (remember I thought I found the actual payoff amount online but I was wrong. So I went in thinking I had the facts when in reality I was way off). This made it a short sale and his lender took about a month to accept my offer and forgive the rest of his loan (remember he was about to foreclose). Then my lender appraised the place at $20,000 less than my low ball offer and I said I would only pay the appraised amount. His bank took one week to accept. The realtor pointed out in the closing that the final price was less than half of the original asking price - so it sounds like I got a great deal but the houses value dropped even further after I bought it. So I got it for a song but if things had drug out for one more month I could have saved another $35,000!!!

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