Update on Condo

Well, most of my friends have come to terms with the fact that I’ve sort of fallen off the face of the earth for a while due to all the craziness involved in this condo hunt, etc. But I did promise some of you that I’d keep you updated, which I have not been doing a very good job of. I tend to be more than a little long winded, even in emails, so if I try to email everyone who needs emailing and tell them the status, it’ll take me forever. In lieu of that, I’m just going to write a long-winded post here and hope that everyone can forgive me for being bad about my personal keeping in touch at the moment.

First, I switched realtors. The lovely Christian realtor guy was wonderful, but it just wasn’t working out. Besides, I had originally talked to my friend Hussain ages ago, and should have used him anyway. The only reason I didn’t was because he was out of the country for a while, and then after he got back he had a lot going on, so I wasn’t sure if he had the time to take me on. Turns out he did, so the logical solution was for me to switch over and use him as my realtor since Marc wasn’t working out for me anyway.

Next, we went to Leesburg on Tuesday and looked at several properties. It was quite an adventure, involving lots of rain, lots of laughs, and surprisingly, lots of fun (see why it’s a good thing to have your friend be your realtor?) and ultimately we found three places that I both loved and he also thought would be good decisions (again, see why it’s a good thing to have your friend be your realtor?).

The three places are as follows:

• a very nice, completely renovated 3 BR 1.5 BA condo where everything is brand new inside.
• a very nice, less recently renovated 3BR 1.5 BA condo where things weren’t as new, including several features to make up for the less newness (a fireplace, a private brick patio, tile throughout, etc.)
• an ok, somewhat updated 2BR 1.5 BA condo that I would be satisfied with but would not love as much as either of the other two unless we got it for a much lower price than they were currently asking.

The current status is that Hussain is talking with the owners of my favorite of the three properties (obviously one of the 3BR places, but I’m not telling which one….gotta have some surprises for blog updates) and is trying to negotiate a better price plus closing costs. Since all three properties have been on the market for well over 90 days, and there are tons of other properties in the same complex for sale, I’m optimistic that it will be successful. But please everyone be sending lots of positive, condo-friendly, thoughts my way, cause I’m too excited now to be happy if this falls through.

Oh, P.S. I’ve decided to switch back to having a roommate. Otherwise my life would be not very pleasant for at least the next couple of years.  More on that to come later.

Extortion on Ebay

Anyone else noticed that sellers on Ebay are now making your feedback contingent on whether or not you leave them positive feedback first? I’m sorry, but as buyers, we’re already the ones taking the biggest risk first by sending some stranger money for an item that we have not received, and the only proof we have that we’ll actually get what we’re supposed to get is that they haven’t yet cheated too many other people. Our reward for taking that risk first should be that once we’ve completed our end of the bargain (i.e. paid for our purchase within the seller’s guidelines) we should receive positive feedback. It should not matter whether we ultimately leave positive feedback, negative feedback, or neutral feedback for the seller. We did our part, and therefore we deserve our feedback.

Some cutting edge sellers have finally realized that if they provide bad service, they get poor feedback for it. (duh!) So instead of leaving their buyers feedback upon receipt of payment (like they should) they wait until after they receive positive feedback from the buyer. This is in effect rendering the Ebay feedback system completely useless because now the buyers are afraid that they’ll get bad feedback in retaliation for justified bad feedback to the seller, even if they paid immediately upon winning the auction and within the payment guidelines of that seller.

Well I don’t know about you, but I personally am sick of this. I have a feedback rating of at least 75 (I know this because I got a star from Ebay upon receiving my 75th transaction rating) and I am happy with that. In my entire time as a Ebayer (primarily as a buyer but occasionally as a seller) I have received only 1 negative, and that was due to some miscommunication and a misunderstanding between me and the seller. She later regretted giving me negative feedback, but alas there is nothing that can be done about it now.  So, being secure in my lovely 75+ transactions, 99.99% positive rating, I have decided to stop leaving feedback for sellers who try to, in effect, blackmail me into leaving them positive feedback. So, every time I get an email or paypal slip from a seller indicating that they will leave me positive feedback only once they have received the same from me, I am not only not going to leave them feedback of any variety, but also going to send them the message below:

“Hi. I received all of the items, and am very happy with them and with your service. However, I am opposed in principle to sellers who refuse to leave me feedback until I have left them feedback. This is unfair since I will have already completed my part of the transaction long before the items are ever shipped. As such my feedback should be based entirely on that fact, not on whether I rate you for also completing your obligations correctly. As such, I never leave feedback for people who require me to first leave their feedback because they are in effect trying to extort a positive feedback listing from me. I am secure enough in my 76 positive feedback listing to not need to give in to this extortion, and therefore do not participate in this practice. I just wanted to let you know why I will not be leaving feedback of any variety for you, which is a shame since I was thrilled with your products and would have been happy to leave you a glowing recommendation. Thank you and have a nice day.”

I also plan to do some research in the Ebay community to see if they have plans to do something about this. (for instance, not allowing the seller to use the paypal shipping system for items that they have not yet left feedback for, etc.) and if not, then I’m going to raise a serious stink about it. I do not take lightly to extortion!

Ok. Stepping down from my soapbox now…

Buying a Condo in Northern Virginia

After nearly two years in Northern Virginia (for those of you outside the D.C. Metro area, that’s Northern Virginia, or NOVA, as opposed to the Rest of Virginia, or ROVA. Really they should be two separate states seeing as everything about the two areas is completely different. Many Northern Virginians have been saying this for years, but since many of them have never lived in ROVA, I never really considered that they knew what they were talking about. Now having lived in both ROVA and NOVA, I can agree that yes, they should indeed be two different states, and it’s quite a shame that it will likely never happen) I have decided to attempt to buy a condo. Now, everyone probably knows that it’s a better idea in the long run to buy than to rent (therefore, you’re not throwing your money directly into someone else’s pockets, but are indirectly sliding it into a pocket you may or may not possess in the future assuming that you keep the property long enough to both build up some equity and take advantage of said equity). But two years doesn’t sound like an unduly long time to live somewhere before deciding to buy, right? However, I lived in Blacksburg for 10 years, and the entire time kept saying that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to stay so I should keep renting. Well, I am not even going to do the calculations to find out how much rent money I threw directly into someone else’s pockets during those 10 years because it’s way too depressing, but suffice it to say that it was a lot. As such, I decided that since I do like NOVA enough to stay for at least a few more years, that it was high time for me to get myself in gear and take the home-ownership plunge.

Several things in my life reached a favorable conjunction in order to cause me to actually consider this. First, my current lease is over at the end of October. Second, my roommate is only paying me through the end of September ’cause she’s moving out then. Third, I got to thinking about my future pockets and how I’d like to be sliding a bit of money into them rather than throwing it unabashedly into some stranger’s current pockets. So I started looking into it.

I’ve already done a few steps prior to this writing (sorry, but I didn’t want to jinx it by announcing to the whole world before things started moving) so this is a belated attempt to catch my readers up and keep on top of things. So as of now, I have a realtor (a really nice Christian guy who I’d be happy to give props to if I had a website for him. As it is, all I have is an email and phone number and I don’t hold too kindly with passing out that kind of information, especially without permission. But if he tells me he wants props on my blog, I’ll come back here and update this post for all of you who are looking for your own really nice Christian realtor guy in NOVA) and have been pre-approved for a nice chunk of change (not a great one; I can’t for instance afford to live in the area I currently rent as a home-owner, but I can afford to go out a little ways and get a quite cute little place). Unfortunately, the bank guy I was first working with could only pre-approve me if I could put a significant chunk of change down, and I hadn’t been planning this long enough to have a down payment saved up. So, I talked to a friend of a friend who thinks they can get me 100% financing at a pretty good rate. If so, I’ll be a happy girl. If not, very sad, cause I’ve already got my heart set on having my own place.

But in any case, I have now shifted my plans anyway. My original plan was to buy at least a 2BR/2BA place and rent out one or more of the bedrooms. However, now that I’ve decided it would be quite nice to live alone (I am getting to the age where a girl likes to have some independence after all) my price ranges have dropped. Not sure yet whether they have dropped enough to where I can actually afford to live alone, even if I can qualify to live alone (a difference that many people do not understand, which is why we’re currently seeing such a huge influx of foreclosed homes recently) but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. In fact, there are a couple of places that are priced low enough that I should be able to even put the 5% down if I use my 401K as my down payment (or maybe as collateral toward it somehow if that’s possible. Anyone know if I can do that?). Granted I’d have to go from driving 20 minutes with no traffic to 45 minutes with no traffic (easily 1.5 hours when traffic gets bad) but I think it will be worth it to be able to both have my own place (as in I own it) and have my own place (as in live alone).

So, for those of you who wonder why I suddenly have been a busy little bee with everything except my art, now you know. Buying a home (even a condo, which I equate more with an apartment search) is not something you can do quickly or easily. It’s quite exhausting in fact. But exhausting in a good way. So for those of you that pray, please be praying that I’ll be able to recognize God’s will and know if this is the right time for me to be doing this. And check back often for updates on the process.