Category: Rentals, Remodels, Relocations and Real Estate

A funny thing just happened.

As you know, John and I have been planning on buying a second house in Santa Fe. I’ve been working with a fairly large budget because Santa Fe is expensive, and we had in mind that the new house would be approximately similar in “niceness” to his that we’re remodeling on the hill. The plan was to put all my new income toward the new house, and then eventually when we retired, we would just sell one of the houses (because we have to finance this one, and we’re going to retire before a large 30-year mortgage would be paid off, so something would have to be sold).

I found one house I liked, but I had just started looking, and it had already been on the market for a few days by the time that I started looking. So it sold before I had a chance to make an offer on it. I was bummed! But after I got over the initial disappointment, I realized it was more than I wanted to spend anyway.

I don’t know if you all know how obsessive I can get, but when I’m looking for a house, there’s not a single piece of property on the market that I don’t know about. But suddenly I noticed a really intriguing little townhome, and it had already been on the market for 24 hours. That’s a long time in a hot market. I emailed my agent immediately.

My agent is good, and will nix anything that I shouldn’t bother to look at. This townhome is very small, and very cheap, and somewhat run-down, so I expected her to say, “Uh-uh. Delete.” (Which she had done several times before for other inexpensive properties.) Eventually (it seemed like a long time, but it wasn’t), she got back to me and said she’d go look at it for me. An hour or two later she called back and said, “You’ve got to get up here right now.”

It’s not that this townhome is any kind of exceptional deal (there’s rarely exceptional deals in real estate). It’s just that different people are different regarding what feels like home to them. I want high ceilings and lots of light. I want to look out my windows and see trees, and not be looking right at block walls or right into my neighbor’s windows. I want the same kind of flooring in the entire house (and not carpet). I want a private backyard without any neighbors looking down into it. I don’t want to hear the freeway from my backyard. I want somewhere to walk the dogs and jog safely away from traffic. I want an upscale or “natural” grocery store nearby. I want to be within a few miles of my job.

This is a long list, and it usually takes a fair amount of money to check the boxes on that list. Yet here is this cheap little townhome, checking all the boxes. How could that be? Could I really get away with spending only half of my budget and still be happy with the house?

Here’s the marketing write-up, “Darling, single-level townhome with 2 bedrooms, 2 baths and a 1-car garage in a quiet, secluded subdivision. Home features a light, open floor plan with high ceilings, kiva fireplace and concrete floors with radiant heat. Recent upgrades include a new roof and hot water heater in 2016. Located close to all shopping, restaurants and the Arroyo de los Chamisos Urban Trail.”

I’m a total sucker for the words “close to…trail” in a write-up. LOL.

The townhome was showing fast and furiously. But no offers so far, after two days. Why would that be? For one thing, there’s no air conditioning. That would have to be added and there’s no existing ductwork because it’s in-floor radiant heat (which I love) instead of a gas furnace. Also it’s been a rental for 10 years and feels older than it is. It’s only 20 years old. But it feels tired and dated. I think that it being a bit rundown doesn’t bother me as much as it bothers most buyers. Which, by the way, is probably how I keep getting myself into these remodel situations. Ya think?!?

Actually, I know what you think. You’re thinking, “Would you stop yapping and put up some pictures already?” Ok, here we go.

It’s attached on one side to one other house (like a duplex), but it’s called a townhome because only one of the units is for sale.

There’s just one dining/living space. I love the vigas (ceiling beams). The kiva (fireplace) needs repainted – I’d do it a slightly darker shade, but not as dark as the floors. The floors are stained concrete, and I love them!

These are great pictures the listing agent took. But the reality is, this room is small, and a bit grungy. But it has cuteness potential 😉

Here’s the kitchen. It’s smaller than it looks like in the picture, dated, and also grungy close-up. But it could be cute. And a gas stove, yay!

This next shot makes the house look twice the size that it actually is, LOL. That’s the little kitchen, with the front door to the left, a hall closet, and the hallway to the bedrooms and bathrooms.

The master bedroom has a small walk-in closet (I don’t think it’s big enough to actually walk INTO, but it’s that shape at least). And there’s a small, but full bathroom with tub, and a window to the backyard.

It’s impossible for me not to think about potential upgrades, like replacing that window with a glass door to the back patio. And that closet definitely needs built-ins (sooner rather than later). Here’s the view to the backyard.

Here’s the other bedroom. I’d need to use that closet for the other half of my clothes, LOL.

Here’s something I love about the house. This is open space belonging to the HOA (home owners association), for drainage, located between this house and the neighboring house. This is what’s outside the living room windows. Trees!!

What I see when I look at out the windows is a big deal to me, because I hate having the blinds down.

Here’s the backyard. It’s small (I keep using that word), but it’s pretty and private and fully fenced. With trees!

I would want to paint the back wall and retaining wall a darker color. But note all the trees behind the wall on the back neighbor’s property!

This next picture is what’s on the other side of the back wall. Is that amazing, or what? The perfect rear neighbor. (I was standing on the retaining wall to take this shot, the ground can’t actually be seen from the main section of the backyard, just the tree branches).

The pergola needs a new covering, LOL, it’s a broken mess. But that’s easy to fix. (Right, John?)

 

Kira’s favorite thing (other than jumping into the fish pond, which I don’t have anymore), is rolling in the dirt and dashing inside. So I’d want to add landscaping when possible.

Here’s what it looks like across the street. Isn’t that pretty?

Here’s the mailboxes. The street is mostly small townhomes, a few are 2-story, and most of the yards are well kept.

One last fantastic thing about this house…the trail. It’s located half a block away.

Here’s the arroyo alongside the trail.

Great place to bike ride or jog or dog walk.

Oh, and one more thing. Did I mention this house is only 5 miles from my new office?

Also there’s a Sprouts market within walking distance! And a World Market. And a Sam’s club. And anything else you’d want, about half a mile away. The Natural Grocers (my favorite) is one mile away by car, but only about a quarter of mile if you walk across the arroyo. And just a little farther up the street is Meow Wolf! And Jackalope! And an Indian restaurant, and an African restaurant!

(The townhouse is not marked in this screenshot, but it’s in the lower right, just on the other side of the arroyo.)

You may be wondering what John thinks of this place. You’d think that he would be ecstatic that I fell in love with a house that only costs HALF of our budget! This townhome is literally half the price of those fancy houses I posted about a couple of days ago. But he’s wary. He’s worried that because I’m not spending very much, that I won’t actually end up liking the townhome, so pretty soon I’d want to buy yet another, more expensive, house. I can’t imagine why he’d think that. Can you imagine why he’d think that? Who would do that?

Yeah. I would. So I’m not promising that down the road someday, when things have changed, that I’d never want to buy another piece of property ever again. But I can tell you that I like this little place, and I’d be happy living there during the week instead of commuting every day.

So? Did I buy it? Yep, I made an aggressive offer. By that I mean, I offered a high price and wrote the offer to expire very quickly (less than 24 hours), so they couldn’t just sit on it and collect more bids without risking losing my good offer. If this property had been overpriced, or sitting on the market, or if the market was slow (like Placitas) I would lowballed it. But not in this case. And…

WE ARE UNDER CONTRACT! Assuming it passes inspections (which you can never assume), we’ll be the proud owners of a Santa Fe townhome at the end of October.

Here’s a piece of trivia for you (if you’re not already really, really tired of reading this long, detailed post). Do you remember that first house we bought in California, the one that I didn’t like and so we bought another, much more expensive house, two months later and it need a complete remodel? (right. that happened. that’s why he’s worried.)

Anyway, the trivia is, the street name for the house that I never liked was, “El Padro” which just annoyed us to no end, because it doesn’t really mean anything in Spanish (perhaps a variant of Pedro or Padre) and was most likely, simply a typo. And people would automatically correct it to “Prado” which is a common Spanish place name meaning park or meadow. (Prado Museum, etc.) We always assumed “Padro” was supposed to have been “Prado”. So guess what street the new townhouse is on? “Vista del Prado” (view of the park). So I hope I don’t get confused and say “Padro” out of habit and sound like an idiot!

The kitchen looks like this:

John is demo-ing the old cabinets. We had them painted but he still doesn’t like them.

Ideally, we would have installed the cabinets before the countertop, but that’s how it goes when the project keeps changing. They better not mess up that new countertop, it was expensive.

He likes these rustic style cabinets. Here’s how one looks with the new countertop (it’s not installed, it’s just set there for color comparison). I picture the countertop as a brownish color, but it definitely looks grayer compared to the cabinets.

I don’t have much of an opinion myself at this point. The wood floors are fabulous, the brick will be great when it’s in, and anyway, I’m working on buying a house in Santa Fe. And I start my new job in a week!

I’m really happy John has taken over this project.

Finally! Something is done and looks great!

The wood floors are beautiful! We went with mesquite, which is actually a bush rather than a tree. Some types of mesquite are invasive in certain areas. It is locally native in the US southwest and Mexico. It has tons of character, and it’s a very hard wood. And it’s environmentally friendly because it grows so readily.

Wikipedia says mesquite is one of the most expensive woods, but we didn’t find that to be true at all. Maybe because it’s locally native, or maybe it’s becoming more common to use it for flooring, so economies of scale is bringing the cost down. I don’t know, but it was barely more than oak and less than most of the speciality woods like cherry, etc.

It’s hard to tell the color in these pictures because it really depends on the lighting. In these pictures the stairs look darker and redder, but they aren’t really. I just took the stair photos yesterday evening, and the other photos this afternoon. In general this wood is redder and darker than most hardwood.

I could just stare at this wood all day.

Haha, I’m surprised I put the words “quick” and “remodel” in the same title. This update is the only thing that’s quick about the remodel. John is in charge of the project nowadays, and he has zero extra time because he puts in so many extra hours at work. So the progress has slowed considerably. But I am SO grateful to not be in charge of this remodel anymore. Sometimes I think that is the MAIN REASON I decided to go get a job – because I couldn’t stand being project manager on this remodel any longer. This is our 3rd remodel and I’ve decided I hate them.

I blamed the difficulty of our first remodel, in California, on the fact that we were both working full-time, and it was a really big remodel, and we’d never done one before. I blamed the difficulty of my second remodel on the fact that it was my dad’s property in Oregon, and I was living in California, so I was managing it from long distance.

I don’t have anything to blame for the difficulty of this remodel.  I live within walking distance. I’m not working except for my coaching clients. It really should have been fine, but I really hated it. I think I’m not very good at remodels. So I’m finally learning – no this doesn’t get much better with practice.  I am going to be so much happier working on my paperwork in an office. I’m actually good at that 😉

I think part of the problem too is that I had spend hundreds of hours – weeks – months – designing an addition and higher-end remodel that turned out to not be affordable. So that was a big disappointment as well as a waste of all last fall. I somehow should have gotten a better handle on the numbers before investing so much time and emotion into the project design, but I thought I was ok because I was working with an architect who knew my budget. I didn’t realize that architects don’t really know much more than I do about what construction really costs. I needed to have a builder involved. So the architect’s fee was the first (of several) big wastes of money with this project.

I would probably be comfortable doing a small amount of minor remodel and upgrading in the future because I really have learned a lot. But I hope I don’t take on a full gut-job ever again. (Notice I’m not promising I’ll never do it again. I don’t know what I’m going to be able to find in Santa Fe on my budget – it very well could need some upgrading.) John and I tend to buy yard spaces and neighborhoods and views, rather than interior upgrades. We have no one to blame but ourselves.

We actually did a good job of buying rentals that were in good shape. But still, all the rentals will need upgrades over the years. But it will just be one thing at a time. New floor tiles in the Eagle Crest house. Replace the evaporative coolers with central air in the other two houses. Interior painting as the tenants cycle out. But these things are single projects and I’ll only have to be working with one provider at a time. That’s not nearly as complicated as a full remodel where you have electricians and plumbers and stucco guys and drywall guys and window guys and tile guys and framers and painters and everyone has to be coordinated.

Anyway, the guy who is supposed to lay the brick floor was supposed to start on Sept. 2. It’s now Sept. 16 and we haven’t seen any sign of him. I hope he is not planning to disappear with our deposit.

The wood floor guy is good. He’s plugging away steadily. It’s going to be very nice when it’s done. It looks funny right now because he is patching the cracks and knot holes with filler. But it will look normal once it’s been sanded.

John has decided to replace the kitchen cabinets rather than just paint them. He’s pulled some of them out.

The sink and countertop are already installed, so he’s going to hold it all up with  adjustable sawhorses while he removes the rest of the cabinets. I think the new cabinets on top of the new brick flooring will end up as a different height, so he will probably need to redo the countertop and sink installation, and raise it all by an inch or so.

 

I’m sorry to have left off on such a negative note the other day. What I hadn’t yet had a chance to mention was that I was also, simultaneously, looking for something to rent. That process was every bit as scary and frustrating as looking for something to buy.

Santa Fe is truly a tourist town. Everyone with any kind of property that is remotely rentable will make vastly more money renting it as a vacation rental, on a daily basis, than as a regular rental on a monthly or annual basis. Obviously, I can’t pay tourist rates (usually starting at about $200 per night for something small, going up from there for anything larger). Even Airbnb is completely taken over by people catering to tourists. A bedroom in a shared house goes for $55+ a night (that works out to $1650 per month for a single room). If it’s a nice bedroom, it’s twice that amount per night. My first good, solid lead, through word-of-mouth, was $1,000 per month for one room with a shared bathroom. That’s as bad as the California Bay Area. And I’m really past the point in life where I want to share a bathroom with strangers.

What was I going to do? I’m not a natural networker, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do. I don’t know anyone in Santa Fe, but I put word out to everyone I knew in New Mexico, and every organization I had ever interacted with, religious and otherwise. This caused some consternation because it’s a complicated story. “No, John’s not moving too. Just me. No, we’re not separating. Yes, everything’s fine. Yes, I’ve got 3 dogs but they can stay with John. No, I can’t commute; migraines, coaching clients right after work, bla, bla, bla.”

Finally, yesterday morning, the Quakers came through for me. Most of you probably know that I belong to the “Religious Society of Friends” (aka “Friends” or “Quakers”). I joined in my early 20’s and regularly brought the kids to the Olympia Monthly Meeting throughout their childhood. I’ve only attended sporadically since marrying John (he won’t go to any kind of church or religious meeting).  Lately I’ve been attending a Presbyterian church because that’s what’s available in Placitas.

Anyway, I was put in touch with a Quaker friend who has a 1-bedroom casita attached to her home, which she had been running as a vacation rental through VRBO.com. But the vacation rental business is really difficult – you have to deal with crazy tourists – LOL. And she was getting tired of it. Plus, she’s considering moving out of Santa Fe altogether. So the property may go on the market at some point and I’d have to move again. But for now, it’s perfect.

She kindly dropped her rate to be more in line with a monthly rental (although it’s still very expensive). It’s a fair amount more money than my tenants pay for their 3-bed, 2-bath rentals in good neighborhoods in Albuquerque, and it’s less than half the size. Probably only about 600 square feet. But it’s cute, quaint, and close to my new job.

BTW, you probably know this, but the word “casa” means “house, and “casita” means “little house”. The term “casita” is often used to indicate a guest house. They can be attached to the main house, like this one, or detached, like at the house we almost bought in Placitas. The term “casita” can also be used to indicate any small house with southwest styling, particularly if it’s real adobe. It can be difficult to tell at a glance whether something is of actual adobe mud construction or just stucco on wood frame. But we don’t make the mistake of calling something “adobe” when it’s just stucco. Anyway, back to this particular casita…

The landlords are Marcy and Steve. Marcy is the Quaker friend. Steve, her husband, has a bit of a prickly personality, but Marcy is super-friendly. And it’s good to have them right next door, because I don’t know anyone in Santa Fe yet. It’s no pets, but Marcy is generously allowing me to bring the dogs up with me when John is away traveling, since he’s on business trips fairly often. When she told me it was ok to bring my dogs when John was traveling, Steve said to her, “We agreed no pets.” And she said, “This is a different situation.” And he wasn’t happy, and I felt bad!

Here’s some photos. I forgot to take pictures from the street, so here’s the google street view. The casita is the low section on the left with the light-colored stucco, and Marcy and Steve’s house is the 2-story section on the right and behind it. The driveway holds 3 cars, so I get the leftmost slot.

Here’s another street view pic. For those of you who’ve never been here, this is truly what a normal (actually fairly expensive) neighborhood in Santa Fe looks like. That’s why it’s so touristy. It doesn’t look like the rest of the country.

Here’s the photos I took while looking at the casita. I snapped these shots really fast and I apologize for their poor quality. I can post some better ones later. But I knew you’d be interested in seeing something.

Here is the front door. The black is mosquito netting, which is only needed for a very short time of the year.

It’s fully furnished. Here’s the living room:

Here’s the view out the front door into the courtyard:

Here’s the kitchen and dining nook.

Yay, gas stove!

There are two bedroom closets, which are empty except for some extra linens and bedding. Mostly it’s shelving inside, so I will be very limited in hanging space.

Yay laundry!

Door from bedroom to courtyard.

Tiny bathroom with cute Mexican tile. No bathtub, unfortunately.

There’s no backyard (being that it’s attached to Marcy’s house), so the courtyard is off the front. There’s also a narrow side section of the courtyard, which is where the back door from the bedroom leads.

It will be winter soon and dark by the time I’m home from work, and I’ll be in Placitas on weekends, so I’m not sure if I’ll get to use the outdoor space very often. But it’s nice to know it’s out there. And very useful when the dogs are visiting!

So that’s my new home for during the week in Santa Fe!

 

The house we liked went pending this morning. Sometimes, I hate this shit.

Yesterday I started a blog version of a “House Hunters” episode, but I only posted 2 houses. As you all know, the convention is 3. Here’s the third house!

From the outside, it looks normal enough for this area.

But on the inside, the paint job is crazy-amazing.

You can barely see it in this photo, but the wall to the right of the turquoise is purple.

This will wake you up in the morning. Hello! Good morning world!

There’s also a more conventional bathroom in case you’re not up to dealing with turquoise and yellow at 6 AM.

Here’s a closeup in the kitchen. Look at that backsplash.

I was taking photos of her art and rugs when I should have been looking at the house:

I think think the paint job looks great with the owner’s artwork, but I have no idea if I could pull that off. Of course, paint can easily enough be changed. Look at the enormous sliding glass doors!

So this house isn’t really southwest style either. There is a kiva fireplace. But mostly it’s just eccentric. My agent calls it “whimsical” and she’s nicknamed it “the rainbow house”.

Regardless of what you think about the paint colors, the real advantage to this house is the location is fantastic. It’s a much better neighborhood than the other two. It’s close in, within WALKING DISTANCE to my new job! It’s also within walking distance to Trader Joe’s! I could not pick two more useful places to be that close to.

Yet you think you’re in the countryside, with an enormous, tree-filled, half-acre lot that backs to open space.

As you can imagine, this house is over our budget.

 

 

Yes, seriously, will it ever end?  I went looking in Santa Fe today with a friend and an agent (if you missed why, here’s why) . So here’s your house hunting show!

HOUSE #1

TOTAL IRONY if I were to buy this house. Who goes to Santa Fe to buy a contemporary almost-Asian style house? Umm, maybe that’s why it’s not selling? Also it is some sort of split level and has short runs of steps everywhere.  Stairs don’t bother me any, in fact, it gives it character, but it could negatively impact resale. Also there is only one garage space. Also ok with me, also a potential resale issue.

Pretty good neighborhood. A bit close to a high school for my taste in that there could be some traffic in the morning or sports noise after school. But the school is not right on the same street – it could just impact getting out of the cul-de-sac.

What I love about this house is the bright light, clean lines and simplicity. Also it’s the newest of the ones I saw today.

It even has some Asian-style interior sliding doors (but not the whole wall). In Japan the entire walls slide.

Laura, there’s even tatami mat upstairs! (But just under the bed, not the whole room.) There’s 2 bathrooms, both beautiful, understated, simple, although not large.

The yard is small and uninspired. It would take a lot of work to get it looking the way I’d like. And it’s not fully fenced, so that would have to happen before the dogs could join me. It has potential though. It’s up above the surrounding houses, so could be a beautiful, private space.

And there’s some views.

I like that’s it’s on a hill; it makes it quirky, and I like that it has several small decks. It’s interesting to me how the layout has an open, bright feel, but also enough variation; little nooks and turns and stairs – that it seems larger than it is. This house is only 1,500 square feet.

My main concern with this house is resale – lack of Southwest styling, and too many stairs everywhere. Funny – that’s the same problem we have with the house on the hill in Placitas! Lack of southwest styling and too many stairs. Yet it’s open and bright, with clean, simple lines. Hmmm, do I sense a trend here?

House #2

This house is not heavy on the southwest styling either, but it’s definitely got more than the first house. It looks very typical from the front (for this area). So many houses around here look like this.

I should have taken my own photos of this one, because I’ve just discovered that the on-line photos are really poor. So I can’t show you a fair comparison to the first house, which was staged and photographed well. This one does have saltillo floor tiles and the traditional round ceiling beams in the living room and dining room ceilings, and a modest kiva fireplace. It is 1,600 square feet and only about 5 years older than the first house. They are similarly priced (both a bit more than I want to spend, of course).

Also a fairly standard, somewhat updated kitchen.

The main appeal to this house is the views. Looking out, you’d think you were out in Placitas.

The backyard is a blank slate. It’s good sized, and walled, but contains almost nothing except a large rectangular brick patio and the rest is gravel. It has enormous potential, because it’s large and located up on a hillside so it would be private. And it would have great views. But it would take a lot of work. My agent kept saying “but landscaping is cheap”, until finally my friend, Clarice, said, “You don’t know how Kristina landscapes.” Thank you, Clarice. That is one way of putting it!

What? Yep, seriously, we’re thinking of buying a house in Santa Fe. Or at least I’m going to look into it. We still plan to keep the one in Placitas that we’re remodeling, but I just got a new job in Santa Fe and I don’t think it’s going to work for me to do the commute once winter starts.

As you know, I frequently get migraines. Typically they don’t get very bad, so I can continue to sit at my computer and write blogs, or read and write reports, or even coach clients with a moderate migraine. But what I cannot do with migraines is drive at night on freeways. And even if I didn’t have a migraine, that’s an activity that could bring one on, because of the glare and contrast between the headlights and the darkness. So I’ve always avoided commuting on freeways.

Possibly I could take the train or carpool, but I have moved all of my coaching clients into the evenings. I don’t want to quit coaching, and a commute would not leave much time for my clients. Plus, John works long hours, and is often away on travel. So he’s not around much during the week anyway.

I’m really excited about my new job, but honestly, I’m really tired of buying houses. I don’t want to sound ungrateful. I’m glad I CAN buy a house. I feel very lucky and privileged. But I’m just so tired of the process.

And the Santa Fe housing market is an anomaly. It’s a major tourist town with a double economy. Ideally I’d love to buy something small, cute, centrally located, with lots of southwest style. Vigas, kivas, latillas, nichos, saltillo tiles, bricks and Mexican tile! And quaint little high-walled Spanish courtyards!

But those properties are insanely expensive. They are Bay Area California rates ($400- $500+ per square foot), and no one makes Bay Area money here. Those houses aren’t for us locals! Those houses are second homes and vacation properties for well-off people who live out-of-state.

Luckily there are houses in Santa Fe for regular people, with regular state jobs. But they’re just regular houses, without the character that makes Santa Fe famous. And even those regular houses are twice the price of the ones in Albuquerque! I just need to keep my confidence up and my expectations realistic, and it’ll work out.

I bet you’re tired of hearing about houses! And surprise! We’re not done yet! (Oh, you’re not surprised? Well actually, I’m not surprised you’re not surprised.)