First Winter Storm Coming....

I'll take some pix here today, and then some tomorrow for the "before and after".

NWS says anywhere from 4" to 10" depending on what the storm track winds up being.

In the mean time, I'm helping our extended family members get the garage/shop area cleaned out so they can store a couple of boats in it, and also clearing room for the Supra whenever that gets here......

Counteroffer Accepted, And The Clock Is Running!

Now we're sceduling the appraisal and inspection, and looking into high-speed Internet providers.

Should be in the house the 1st or 2nd week of November.

Holy Smokes.......I Think We Just Bought A House!

WoW........The realtor just called, and the sellers countered with $385k!

I had expected them to come back at $395k, but I guess they really do want to get rid of this property and avoid the financial drain of holding on to it until spring.

Now my wife is (finally) beginning to fret over the electric baseboard heat, where she's going to put the furniture (can't block or cover the baseboard units), where the big TV and entertainment center is going to be ("we simply can't put the couch there!"), blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.....

I mentioned these things the second or third time we looked at the house, and I might as well have been talking to a tree......blank stares from her. Nothing registered......

I suggested tonight that we go look at the house again so she could get all these "woman" things out of the way and she was "Oh, NO!!! That will look so dorky to ask to see the house again before we accept their counter offer!!!!".

DUH!

We have until 1700 on Thursday the 5th to accept or walk away.

I talked to the in-laws "Tree Guy" today and he told me that depending on if he could get his bucket lift to the tree, or if it would be a "climbing job", the cost to get rid of all the dead limbs could be anywhere from $1k to $2.5k, including clean up. He said you can burn Laceleaf Cotton wood in your fireplace once it's dried, but that it has "an odor", and is better suited to burning in a heater or stove in your shop or garage. Most people burn pine here because it's cheap, and when I asked him about pine's reputation for clogging up your fireplace flue, he said you "just burn a hot fire", and it isn't much of a problem.

A cord of hardwood goes for about $350 here, so I'm thinking the fireplace will not be used as a source of heat.

Written Offer Submitted

Just finished going over the official offer to buy, making sure the i's were crossed, and the t's were dotted.

The sellers have until 1700 tomorrow (Thursday) to accept, reject, or counter.

I'm expecting they'll counter, as we offered about $20k less than the listing price.

The interesting thing is that the owners are real estate agents and lived here in Fort Collins for many years. They should have (and probably did) know that the city would never allow them to turn a house in a residentially-zoned, "single family house" area into a mini-apartment building.

The price we offered is what they paid for the house when they bought it back in March, which is why they'll probably counter-offer.

As our DIL's Dad says, "Don't pay for THEIR mistake." He thinks we made them a very fair offer, and he knows the market here very well.

But, it's been on the market for over 60 days, and we're they only offer they've had. I really doubt they'll want to sit on it until Spring because they'll have the mortgage, utilities, taxes, and other things to keep paying for.

Just have to wait and see what their response is......

Made An Offer On A House.....

The owners are absentee landlords (East SF Bay area) who bought the house this March for $380k, repainted it inside and out, installed new carpet and appliances, fixed a bunch of things, and advertised it as a rental unit for CSU students.

Until the city stepped in and told them that use was forbidden in a residential area.

Frustrated in their attempt to be landlords, they put the property on the market at $420k and waited.

They dropped the price to $419,900 to get it under $420k so it would show up in more searches on real estate websites, and waited.

After a while, they dropped the price to $399,900 and waited.

They had two open houses, lots of lookie-loos, and no offers.

The only thing that bothered me about the house is that it's "All Electric", with electric heat, electric stove, and most likely an electric water heater.

I'm not even sure if it has a gas line running in to it, but I'll look for a meter next time I go by.

Anyway....it's been on the market for 61 days, and NO offers, but a fair amount of interest.

So, after getting all the billing info on gas and electric usage, and talking to both the City of Fort Collins and the Larimer County building and zoning people confirming that YES, I can put up the 40' tower and antenna, we decided to go with the "All Electric" house. It will cost several hundred dollars per year more to heat it than the other house we were looking at, but this one is closer to town, has a bigger garage with an extended back wall to fit a work bench, and is a bigger house with a really cool layout.

Front of house:

Back of house:

And one of the downstairs rooms (it has a fully finished basement with another full bath!) that will most like become my "Colorado Radio Ranch" room:

The house has five bedrooms, 3 full baths and a half-bath, is 3389sqft, and is on a 10,477sqft lot in a very nice section of Fort Collins.

My wife flipped out when she saw the front door was painted red, one of her favorite things, and I like the neighborhood because it has street names like "Constitution Ave", "Valley Forge Dr", "Yorktown Ave", "Essex Dr", and "Independence Rd".

Good omens for both of us.

I would expect them to counter our offer, but our agent, their agent, and our contractor in-law have all said that if we aren't the ones to buy it, it will probably sit until Spring, as the real estate market is winding down for the season here.

There was snow here yesterday above 7,000', and frost everywhere this morning.

Winter is coming!

Better Fuel Economy at 5300' elevation??

Just a side note to all that's going on here.

My fuel economy has improved by approximately 1.8MPG.

The only thing I can think of is the quality and type of gasoline going into the tank.

Most of the pumps here, and all of the pumps we refueled at during the trip, have the disclaimer "May Contain Up To 10% Ethanol" on them, so it's not like I'm getting 100% gasoline all of a sudden.

I've read in reputable publications for 20 years or more that gasoline in Kalifornia is very strictly regulated, and blended quite differently than that sold in other states.

Either Kalifornia uses some zombie-blend that kills fuel economy, or the 1100 mile trip pulling a dual-axle trailer really loosened up my engine!

And Then There Were Two......

In addition to the 12 houses we've already looked at, we've looked at another four in the past few days.

Some were quite nice, but in areas that I doubt would allow a 40' tower with a "proper" Yagi antenna on it, and others "needed some work", to be charitable.

If I were 20 or 30 years younger, they'd be good buys, but as somebody here commented (WSF, I think), I don't need a place where sweat equity is involved.

Sunday afternoon we, The Kids, and our realtor went and looked at the three contenders on the list.

One of them we scratched because the layout was a bit "obtuse", which left us with two.

This morning we did some "Drive By Viewings" of another four, and scratched those.

Back to the two prime contenders.

We sat down and scratched our heads for a couple of hours, writing down all the pros and cons of the two finalists.

We called the realtor to tell her we were going to make an offer on one of them, and then I mentioned to my wife that that particular house had 100% electric "baseboard heat", and there wasn't any ductwork that I could see in the house, making central air conditioning a very expensive retrofit.

I'm also not sure that we really need central A/C, as even the kids say it's not too bad on hot days....kind of a "dry heat" thing, which I'm not sure if I believe. Still, it would definitely be nice to have it rather than relying on portable or window units.

The heating system works very well (it was the only house besides the "#2 house" that even had the heat turned on), and since EVERY room had it's own thermostat, you essentially had "zoned heating", where you could shut the heat down almost completely in any unused room or space.

Since it's located *in* the city, and I've been told the electric company gets the power restored ASAP if it goes down, we probably wouldn't have to worry about freezing to death during an extended power outage. It also has a fireplace, so I suppose we could all huddle around the hearth and roast weenies if it came to that.

House Hunting in the Fort Collins Area.....UPDATED

Well, as of today we've looked at 12 houses, and are down to TWO definite candidates.

There's an open house on Saturday for one that just popped up last night, and we'll be driving over to see that one as well as one that went on the market this morning.

The one I was hoping for, and the one our contractor in-law looked over for us the other evening, has officially been "scratched" by the wife. She just flat out will NOT buy a property that needs major work.

PERIOD.

It wouldn't bother me too much, but while she doesn't want a 100% turn-key ready place, so wants one that's, oh....maybe 95% turn-key ready.

And another one we both loved, and the wife wanted to make an offer on, got scratched after we realized:

1) We don't need a THIRTY-SIX HUNDRED square foot house for the two of us

and

2) It has an HOA that specifically states NO "Communications Antennas" unless they can't be seen, and are approved by "The Committee".

So we're down to to two. One is out off CO-14, Mulberry Street, just past I-25, and is drop-dead beautiful, and the asking price is $420k. Since this is rapidly turning into the "off season" for real estate, sellers are anxious, and buyers are few and far between. Our agent is pretty confident we could get that particular house for well under $400k.

The other one we looked at today is also quite nice, in a quiet, well-established neighborhood, but has a few glitches.

#1, it has three layers of shingles on it, and some are starting to "lift". This means a complete tear-off and re-roof in the Spring.

#2, some of the rework wasn't done to a very high standard, and while it's just some goofs in the drywall, they kind of jump out at me.

#3, the owner won't close before 27 November due to capital gains issues, so we won't be into it before Christmas.

We're going to look at another house in about an hour that also looks promising. This one is a 4br, 4ba,  2540sqft house on a 12,200 sqft lot.

I'd really like the "#1 house" to be our home, but the "#2 house" has a bigger lot (15,500 sqft), and is further West.

None of these have HOA's, and as far as we can tell, the also don't have any restrictive "CC&R's" that would prohibit a tower.

Hey, if I can't have my separate garage, than I'm damn sure going to get a 40~50' tower with a KT34M2 on it, and a new radio!

UPDATE 

We just got back from looking at two more. The first one looked real good "on paper", BUT.....it's going to need ALL new siding in a year or two ($$$!!!), and had a couple of other issues, so we scratched it.

The second one we looked at just became the wife's new "#1 house", and it's a stunner.

3390 sqft, 5br, 3 full baths and a "half bath", fireplace, fully finished basement, on an 11,000 sqft lot. Quiet neighborhood, located on a cul-de-sac, mature trees, fresh paint inside and out, new carpet, etc, etc, etc. The HUGE insulated (but not heated) two car garage with separate, NEW insulated doors and a large work area are a big plus, and there's enough room with good access to build another "car-and-a-half" garage if I decide I need it.

No apparent HOA's or CC&R's, and I saw some TV antennas on homes in the neighborhood.

I posted a question on the NCARC email reflector asking local Hams about it, and I'm stating to get some replies.

Busy Two Days.....!!

Been looking at houses, and have it down to four contenders from the 12 or so we've looked at.

We have one more to look at tomorrow, and we're going back at 1700 to the last one we looked at today. Our contractor in-law is coming with us, and he'll give us a "GO-NOGO" decision on it. It needs a bunch of repairs caused by overly deferred maintenance, and we want to change a few things on it. If he tells us there are no major issues, AND we can get it for the right price, it just might be "The One".

The other three houses are knock-outs, and turn-key ready to move in to, and the one we're looking at on Thursday looks pretty good from the listing pictures.

No, YOU Move!

Found over at Old NFO's place.

I like it!

Getting Settled In.....

The trip here was remarkably UNeventful, except for the YUUUUGE traffic delay in East Vail along the I-70.

The night before, while we were in Grand Junction, a semi that was Westbound on I-70 "lost control", crossed the median and both lanes of the oncoming Eastbound traffic, hit the ditch, flipped over, broke up and came apart, and caught fire.

The trailer was upside down and in big and small pieces, and the tractor was nowhere to be seen.

We just heard tonight that it was further down in the ditch, and not visible from the highway.

Normally, going through East Vail is one of those "don't blink or you'll miss it" drives, but this trip it took us a little over an hour to get through there. And I was low on fuel......

I should have stopped in Vail proper but didn't. We coasted into Copper Mountain with 2 or 3 gallons in the tank.

The other "low fuel" incident occurred when we got off I-15 and on to I-70. There were dozens of gas stations in the 5 miles leading up to the junction around Sulphurdale, but we had about 3/4 of a tank, so I kept going. A few miles East on I-70 I saw the "No Services Next 103 Miles" sign, and knew I should have fueled up.

Oh, well....Press On Regardless!

The country we drove through was absolutely stunning, and my son was just blown away by it.

But man, if you look up the word "desolate", you'll see pix of these areas as an example!

We rolled into Green River with about 1/8 tank. After that, the drive into Grand Junction was quite nice.

ANYWAY....the DIL's brother came by yesterday to move his boat out of the garage here, and then my son, my step-son, and the DIL's brother all pitched in to unload the 6'x12' U-Haul I towed here. We had it emptied out, and things neatly arranged in about 30 minutes, as the trailer was only a bit over 1/2 full.

We finished up just as the rain started to fall, and fall it did.

I had to take my son and wife's BFF to the Denver airport, and with the rain, the road construction, and the Saturday night traffic, it took almost two hours to get there from here.

Coming back, I missed the turn for I-25, and was almost in Boulder before I knew I'd really screwed up. Got turned around, but it took almost 3 hours to get back here.

Took the U-Haul back today, rummaged around in the garage for a while sorting things out, digging out a set of boots that were better than these things I've been wearing since "ever", got out a jacket, a liner, and some long pants, as tee-shirts and shorts with leaky shoes just don't cut it when it's 42* and raining!

Then we had dinner with The Kids, played with baby Noah for a while, and then back here.

If I can figure out how to transfer the pix off my phone to this laptop, I'll post the few I took.

And the dog is settling in, finally. She's back to eating, and seems to have found a preferred spot to do her business when shew wants to go out. BUT....just like back in Long Beach, if it's raining she'll stick her nose out, see it's raining, and then retreat back in.

Wonder what she'll do when it snows?