Category: Rentals, Remodels, Relocations and Real Estate

I had an appointment to meet with a wood floor company up at the remodel. We had paid them to come out and measure the upstairs so they could give us a quote. Most places do quotes for free, but whatever. We are pretty far out here.

We had ordered and paid for the visit on July 15. They were supposed to call and schedule within the next day or two. After repeated attempts to reach them, they finally did call on July 26, and scheduled for today at 3:00.

So here I am, sitting in a vacant, half-demolished house, waiting for them. This is not where we’re living, and there’s no internet, so there’s not a lot for me to do here. At 3:20 they had called to say they were delayed. At 3:48 they were stuck in traffic (although my phone showed no traffic). At 4:10 they called saying they were lost. So I gave them detailed directions (they were very close by) and told them I would go down and stand by the road to meet them.

I stood by the side of the road for longer than it should have taken, and then called them again. They had run out of gas, within easy walking distance of the house. I told them they were within walking distance, and also offered to come with my car and get them. They refused to leave their car and said their boss would arrive “in 7 minutes.” At 5:00 I texted them asking them to please let me know if they were going to cancel, because I’m still waiting. They didn’t reply. So I called them again, and again offered a ride. They again turned down my offer.

At 5:40 they called and said they were on their way and be here any second. So I went out to the balcony to watch for them, and noticed police vehicle lights flashing through the trees about where they were stuck. I didn’t think too much of it, and thought maybe it was just the flashing of a tow truck bringing them gas.

Then at 5:45 I got a call from a different phone, with poor reception that I think was them saying they wanted to give me their boss’s number. But then the call dropped. So I didn’t actually know if they were still coming. So I called both numbers, and got sent to voicemail. So I waited a few minutes and called again at 6:00 (they are now 3 hours late and I am hungry).

So finally I reach one of them and he says that the sheriff made him turn around and leave Sandoval County! Uhhhh….! He said that it was because he hadn’t paid his insurance. But law enforcement is really lax here, and lots of people don’t pay their insurance. They don’t get run out of the county for it. Maybe it’s a good thing he never got here.

Meanwhile, a different wood floor company is scheduled for sometime between 6:00 and 7:00. It’s now 6:15, so here I am. No going home now. I had not expected this to be a 5-hour ordeal.

But we keep reminding ourselves, this house has great views. Great views! I can see police car lights for miles and miles.

I bet you’re wondering how the rentals are doing! No? Well, I’m a bit tired of the subject myself. Although it’s not been as bad as the dang remodel. Anyway, here’s the rental update, like it or not.

The first one, Academy Ridge, rented fast and easy. I figured I hadn’t asked enough rent, but was glad to get good tenants quickly.

So then I asked quite a lot more rent for the second one, on Eagle Crest, which is a house rather than a townhome. But wrong! Turns out I asked way too much for it, and didn’t get any interest. And my ad was being scammed, so I took the ad down and waited a couple of weeks while doing more upgrades.

I ended up deciding that it needed more work than I originally thought. First I had some of the interior painted, then decided I needed more interior painted. Then I decided it needed a new stove. Plus it needed new glass on nearly all the windows (broken seals). And we installed more landscaping.

I’ve finally put a new ad up, and have showed it to several people yesterday and today. I hope to have it rented within the next few days. I’m asking slightly more rent than Academy Ridge, but not very much more. Also it’s getting later in the season, and demand is dropping off.

The third one, on Peregrine, had a rent-back (the owner rented it from us for a couple of weeks, so she could leave after we closed on the sale). She’s only left a day or two ago. We are doing some tape-texture-paint around a couple of skylights. I’m also debating whether a couple of VERY blue accent walls in the bedrooms should be painted over.

Yowza, that is blue!

The yard needs some work too. My main issues are 1) bushes with no irrigation (tenants are not usually willing to hand-water), and 2) A lot of cement, some of which was once painted blue and now looks cruddy.

I don’t know what the most cost effective thing to do with this cement pad would be. I’d like it simply gone, but jackhammering cement isn’t cheap or easy.

We paid more for this one than the other two…but I’m not sure if it will rent for much more. I could start high and drop the rent rapidly if needed. Although Zillow records all that, for everyone to see, for all eternity. It’s like, what were you thinking? Why would you think that little house would rent for so much? (Uh, I was in California for awhile? I don’t know.)

I’m still obsessing about stucco color. I’m just putting these photos up here for my own reference…LOL!

Santa Fe Capitol Building:

Albuquerque Hotel:

A neighbor’s house:

And while we’re going with the government agency theme, here’s a couple more. The freeway was blocked (completely, there was some sort of issue, not just high traffic), so I went the back way through Bernalillo, which is the Sandoval County seat (Albuquerque is the Bernalillo County seat, LOL!)

By the way, that’s pronounced Bern-a-lee-yo. With the accent on the “lee”, and a nice clear “yo” on the end.  In Spanish, a double “L” usually sounds like a “Y”. Armadillo has it wrong!! Those Texans.

Our stucco came out way too dark, so we’re going to repaint.  Now we’re trying to do our research so we’re sure what color we want this time. It’s actually a lot harder than one would think just to pick a shade of beige already!

Here we are, running around to different buildings with a set of paint chips I cut out of brochures, trying to figure out which wall color corresponds to which paint chip. We took dozens of these kinds of photos, but I don’t think we’re any closer to picking a color.

Here’s a colorful building! Not that we’re going to paint our house yellow or pink, but we thought it would be a good one to try to practice matching paint chips. It’s surprising how light the chips look compared to the buildings themselves.

 

Here’s a nice boring beige, but even this one looks very dark from certain angles.

Here’s a nice one.

Hmmm, not finding a match…plus this one seems really dark close up.

I wonder if everyone thought we were crazy, excitedly running up to sides of buildings and taking close-up pictures of the walls on a busy Saturday afternoon.

It’s amazing how the same stucco can look vastly different depending on the lighting. Believe it or not, these next two photos are the same wall, and the paint chips, “adobe” and “cafe” are nearly identical.

John said the lower stripe on the Albertson’s store looked like “mashed poo”. But I’m like, no, mashed poo has more color in it than that. I mean, what are you eating?

This one’s too pink.

Can’t find a match for this one.

Hmmm, is that yellow or beige? It’s “wheat”! Do we even have a paint chip called “wheat”? No, but we should.

Here is an example of the “territorial” style like our house, which includes white trim and brick coping (along the top edge of the roof). This is a common stucco color used with the territorial style. Anyone know how to pronounce “Ochre”?

Apparently I liked my orange and pink striped shirt so much, that I decided to orange-and-pink stripe my skin too.

This happened when putting in landscaping along both sides of one of the rentals today. I really don’t like bare block walls. These aren’t good photos because the light was poor (the new plants are in the shade and hard to see), but you get the idea.

On this side, we planted things that should get fairly big, in order to create some privacy for the windows, since there is that 2-story house right nearby. We’ve planted scrub oak (a small native tree that slowly spreads in patches), desert willow (also a small native tree), and two butterfly bushes, which are hardy and fast growing. I also plan to buy flagstones to make a path. I’ll just set them in the gravel.

We planted mostly smaller things on the other side, because it has a nice view that I didn’t want to block; there’s no house to the right. This first plant (I forgot what it’s called, I bought it in a rush when I was at check-out and realized if I bought one more I’d get 25% off) Anyway, I recognize it and know will grow to be a small tree. But it won’t block any of the view because that’s the garage on the left. Then further in are lilies, lavender, sage, and a yucca. Those will be visible from the office and the living room. (Obviously, that square bush was pre-existing). This picture’s so poor you can’t really even see the sage and lavender we planted near the gate to the backyard. They’re small, but they will grow well.

This is the second rental. I was advertising it briefly, but it wasn’t showing well. So I took the ad down and we’re doing more upgrades. We just had most of the interior painted, and we’re changing out the stove and refrigerator for nicer stainless steel ones. This is also the house with the low quality laminate, that I’d like to eventually replace with tile.

I am sooooo going to go get a real job when we’re done with this remodel. I am getting really tired of all this! Plus, we’re going to need another income to pay for all the mistakes and redo’s.

Remember the tile saga? We couldn’t decide on tile, but finally we found someone who carried our original tile, yay! We knew it would be a different dye lot, but we thought – hoped – it would be fairly close. We were planning to make a patterned threshold between the two dye lots, so they didn’t bump right up against each other.  But it turns out the new tile is significantly different from the old tile.

This is supposedly the same tile! Obviously, it’s not.

I thought the two different kinds of tile looked fine together, but John really didn’t like the new tile. You can’t see it in this photo, but the new tile has a yellowish cast that he doesn’t like. So we’re back to square one with tile. Looks like we need to pick out new tile, and maybe take up the original kitchen tile as well.

Here they are, taking back up the new tile before it hardens.

We think the unopened boxes of tile we’ve already purchased can be returned. If not, I have a rental with low quality laminate flooring that is separating at the seams, and I’ll just have them install the tile there.

Meanwhile, we decided to take out the half wall at the bottom of the staircase.

Here’s how it looks with the wall gone:

And with the bottom stairs expanded:

This was very simple to do, and it gives it a much more open feel. Here it is looking down the staircase.

But now we have a carpet problem. We didn’t like the carpet, but we were going to delay replacing it until later, because it’s all though the whole upstairs and will cost a lot. But now we need to replace it.

We’ve decided that since we have to replace the carpet anyway, we might as well spend a few more thousand and get hardwood instead of new carpet, and then we’ll never have to replace it again. (This type of thinking is how remodels run away with you). All we did was take out a little wall at the base of the stairs, and now we’re putting in hardwood in the entire upstairs.

Of course we’re going to have to pick out the kind and color of hardwood. I’m thinking John and I aren’t very good at picking out colors of things. As usual, he wants darker and more dramatic, and I want lighter and more basic. Wish us luck!

Speaking of colors, we have decided that we are going to repaint the exterior. I had wanted really light, he had wanted darker. We went with dark, but now we both think it’s too dark. So we’re going to try to find a color somewhere in between.

 

Dear prospective renters, I’m sorry. I’m sorry you’re having to look at rentals half the size of your house. His house now. Or maybe he sold it. Along with your stainless steel kitchens appliances and your washer and dryer that handled your clothes just the way you liked.

He got the house, but you got the kids. And, unfortunately, you also got the dog. Because how could you separate your children from their dog, at a time like this? When they’ve just lost their father. The dog is making it harder to find a rental. But the dog is coming with.

I admire that you’re doing everything you can to keep your kids in their school district – the best school district in the entire region. Your credit report is still good, but you need an income source. I know you thought you’d just take a couple years off when they were babies. But it’s harder than you realized to go back. You’re sending those resumes out every day, but this is New Mexico. There’s not much for jobs here. And you can’t pay that much rent on minimum wage, not by yourself.

I see you frowning as you stand looking in dismay at this cute little house, and I understand you’re used to better than this. I want to tell you it will be ok. But it could be hard for a long time. I’m so sorry. I know you never expected this. In the end, it will all work out. But it’s going to take awhile and meanwhile those kids are going to grow so fast. They may never have the childhood you imagined for them. But they’ll be ok. Just keep telling yourself, they’ll be ok.

Our Eagle Crest rental is being scammed again. This time a guy is advertising it for $750 per month! (It’s actually for rent for more than twice that). He’s telling people that he’s unexpectedly out of town on a family emergency and to just look in the windows!

The scammer’s plan is to then have them send him a deposit to hold the house for them. If multiple people fall for it, he could make a lot of easy money. And then I’ll have to deal with the fall-out when they find out they haven’t actually rented this house.

The reason I know what he’s telling them is two different people have come by in just the half-hour I’ve been here. They feel dumb when they find out, because they sort of figured the price was too good to be true.

There’s not much I can do about it. I have contacted the police, and left a message on the answering machine for the “telephone reporting line” and someone is supposed to be calling back. But I know they can’t really do anything about petty internet fraud. I’ve also flagged the ad and contacted craigslist requesting that they take it down. But of course I can’t take it down myself.

I also happened to have paper, pen, and painter’s tape with me, so I just made  dorky, handwritten signs and taped them to the windows and doors. Already I saw one person look at a sign and leave. I just hope the signs doesn’t scare off my legitimate renters!

I’m missing the days when I just had a regular job to go to.

Update: I put my phone number on my improvised signs on the house, and now people keep calling me. They are so sad when they see my sign on the door and it’s way more rent than they’d hoped. So they call just to double check, and they lament for awhile. They’ve all been nice about it. Just very disappointed.

So far I haven’t heard of anyone who actually sent money. I hope no one does.

Plus now I have to figure out how to prove it’s my house to prospective tenants. I have my settlement statement, but I don’t really want to be showing everyone how much I paid for it. I also have a warranty deed but it only includes the legal description, not the address. And the response I got from the title company was, “We don’t insure addresses, only legal descriptions.” Great. And the on-line assessor’s records still show the previous owner. I have no idea how often those are updated. Maybe soon I’ll get a utility bill for the house in my name.

 

If I were a photographer, I think I’d be a photographer of doors. They are such a great metaphor. And New Mexico is a great place to admire doors. The front doors, in particular, have a lot of character. Some are turquoise, many are hand carved and imported from Mexico.

Others are done by local artisans, like this one, carved by a local real estate agent I’ve worked with.

Here’s the exterior door of the house we’re renting. It’s not hand carved, and I’ve seen this same door elsewhere in the neighborhood. But I still like it.

Here’s the front door of the house we tried to buy that ended up with septic issues:

Here’s from another house we looked at but didn’t buy;

Here’s more great local front doors:

But unfortunately here’s the exterior door of our house on the hill. Yeah…

At some point a few years ago a real estate agent convinced us to paint it red. Real estate agents like little bits of red to make things “pop”. It’s amusing to look through pictures of houses for sale that have been staged – they all have random spots of red. Red accent pillows, red bits here and there, scattered through the rooms. Anyway, it’s a terrible front door, with or without the red paint.

Wooden interior doors are also common here in these southwest style homes. Here’s the style of the basic ones in the house we’re renting;

Other interior doors are even more elaborate. We looked at this house twice, but decided not to buy it because it was too awkward inside, and had no views. It had character though! This is a beautiful door.

Our house currently has prefab hollow white doors that you see in every low-end apartment building across the US. I had trouble finding a picture of them, because who takes pictures of boring white doors? I think this photo was one of those accidental bumps of the shutter button.

When we first started the remodel, I wanted to install wooden interior doors. But then we thought we were moving to a different house, and it would be a rental. We were trying not to spend too much money, so I decided that our existing doors were good enough for a rental.

Then yesterday morning, John and I went out the house to check the remodel progress. And it looked like our doors had bred in the night and made duplicates of themselves.

There were white doors everywhere. John was like, “Here are our new doors.” And I was like, “New doors? What new doors?!?”  He said, “You wanted new doors.” And I said, “Why would I want new doors that look exactly like the old doors?!?”

I was so upset I was on floor crying. This has been such a difficult project. John was saying it’s only money.  But it’s over $2,000 we just wasted on doors. I couldn’t believe it. What a huge disappointment to spend that kind of money and not get anything for it.

I’d post a comparison picture of the old ones vs. new ones, but I can’t even tell the difference between the old doors and the new ones.

Here’s what I think happened. I was going over the plans with the contractor awhile back and I told him to not bother with getting new stained wood doors. I figured we’d make do with our existing doors in order to save money. I must have said that the “white is fine.” That “white matches the territorial style anyway.”

So he got new wood doors and painted them white.

It’s tragic! I’m trying to be ok with it, it’s just a couple grand. But such a bummer! I could have had new wood doors!

In middle of the night last night I was checking my email, (no, of course I’m not supposed to be checking my email in the middle of the night. But my story makes no sense without that piece of info, so I might as well confess up front).

So – in the middle of the night last night I was checking my email, and someone had emailed me asking about a discrepancy in my ads – my “for rent” ad on Zillow showed my rental available for a reasonably high amount of rent per month, but a nearly identical ad on Craigslist, with the same photos and everything, showed my rental available for a significant discount. And the contact information on the discount ad was an out-of-state phone number that was not mine.

I puzzled about this for a bit. I attempted (and failed) to get Craigslist to remove the bogus ad. Then I decided to wake John up, because it was 1 AM and I didn’t know how serious the situation was, or what to do about it.

After some google research, we determined that the scammer was probably asking people to send him application fees, or a fee to “hold” the property (since it was supposedly such a good deal), and then he would disappear with their money. He probably is out-of-state, and probably never has (and never will) be anywhere near the actual house. And he probably has lots of fake ads up all over the country.

We determined that there really isn’t much of anything we can do about it. We can continue to try to get Craigslist to take down the scammer’s ad, and they might eventually (in a couple of weeks) do so. We can put up another ad, which people might hopefully see, that refutes the bogus ad. We could call the police, but they really aren’t set up to deal with petty internet fraud across state lines.

So at 2 AM last night, we did put up a Craigslist ad, with the same first photo, explaining the situation. And I just hope no one falls for it.

I also hope I don’t have some irate person coming to me in a week or two, thinking they had sent me money and had rented my house.

Zillow does a good job of cross checking public databases, like county records, to ensure that the houses I claim to be mine, are actually mine. But Craigslist – you can say anything you want on Craigslist. ANYTHING. And if enough people complain for enough days, they might eventually take it down.