I am still alive.

[TObject]

Fellow Jeepers I need your help processing my ideas about that big house problem that I have now.

My parents and me are buying that house and there is a Home Owners Association there. It appears that I will not be able to transfer the garage into a jeep shop. I am on what to do, get out of the deal because of that or what.

Even if I get out of the deal, where do I find a house in San Diego, which is still in a good neighborhood, with a good high school for my brother, and in a place with a good traffic situation and without HOA?

Now, maybe I should just get a separate house for the Jeep? I checked prices for Yucca Valley, and it looks like I could buy a house there for fewer than 20 thousand dollars.

Do you think it would be a good idea, to keep the jeep and tools there, and drive there on weekends and such?

I know I am crazy, that’s why I need help.

[mrblaine]

Yucca Valley is a bad idea. Theft is high and working in the heat sucks. Working in the cold sucks. Working in the wind sucks. Working by yourself sucks.

Not too hard to see why houses go for that amount of money there.


Your ability to find what you need is governed by how fast you need it and how patient you are.

If you can wait, it will eventually come to pass that you find what you need. If you can't, then you have to take what is available.

It is not who you know, It is who knows you

[TObject]

How about Big Bear? Granted there are no $20k houses there, but there may be some $60k ones...


And what do you think about the idea of having a jeep garage separate from the home?

[This message was edited by TObject on June 07, 2001 at 11:28 AM.]

[Robert J. Yates]

First, if I were you Sergy, I would ascertain whether or not the garage is suitable for working in. Mine for isntance is to small but I also have a carport and can work in my driveway. If you do not have these options and the garage is simply to small, then you will have to figure out what it will take for you to get out of escrow. When were the CC&R's delivered to you? Was it after you made the offer and it was accepted? If so, you may have a case for not having full disclosure prior to entering into escrow. Otherwise, you will have to read your escrow agreement very carefully. I Assume you put a deposit or earnest money down - this is what you will need to consider in making your decision as you don't want those funds to disappear on you.
Good luck - HTH.

98 TJ Sport
D44ARB/D30Detroit/Teralow/Swampers
www.geocities.com/yatezess/

[William]

Sergey,

Why not sound proof the garage to some extent. And as long as you don't use the air tools at 3 am, I think that it won't be a big problem. If you insulate the garage, and get a steel garage door that is insulated. A small exhaust system routed to a wall vent (disquised out side as the exhaust for a dryer) could prevent build up of welding smoke, etc. Get a CO2 sensor for other build up (mount two, one high one mid level to lower to get the proper response). I am looking at a house that has similiar rules in the Spring Valley area. It is right near a high school (monte vista), it is a 3 bedroom w/loft. Nice area and it's near the 94. Close enough to me that we could share working time.

[TObject]

It’s a standard two-car garage. There is definitely not enough space for full-scale operations (Maybe it’s ok for minor stuff). Basically, as far as regulations go, the house cannot be used for anything but eat and sleep. There is a normal size driveway, which would be good enough to work on a jeep or two if not for the rules.
My agent is trying to convince me that these are the standard rules, and it’s not like they are enforced very strictly. But she wants to get the commission on the sale, and I don’t trust her much.

So what do you say about my idea of buying a second house out of the big city with stupid rules, specifically to garage and work on jeeps there? Yea or Nay?

There is no doubt I can get out of the escrow; I got the title with all the rules yesterday afternoon. My offer was accepted more than two weeks ago. I am afraid that if I withdraw, realtors can put me on the black list as a guy who makes offers and gets cold feet. My family and me have to find a new place to move one way or another, and it looks like those homeowner associations are everywhere in San Diego.

The house that we are buying is in the good neighborhood, the price is very good, my bro has to go to high school next year, and there is a very good high school near by. The area is positioned near five freeways (no commute traffic problems in comparison to many other areas have), and yet is quiet. There are no neighbors across the street, the house is relatively new, and there is a pool… This is pretty much the ideal house, except for the goddamn homeowners association. And I don’t know if I can justify saying, “no, no way, I don’t want it” just because the house is not suitable for my hobby, I have to think about my parents (they love the house), and my brother needs too….

Can you say I got a problem on my hands?

[TObject]

William, maybe there is something in your words!

[mrblaine]

Sergey, as long as I have a place to work and tools, you have no problem with a place to work on your stuff. You even have a built in helper.

You are the only one that finds a problem with the house and you are out voted again. Now your family has moderated you.

It is not who you know, It is who knows you

[William]

TO,

I don't know what you have planned, but a two car garage can be plenty of room. Sure it's not all spread out, etc.. but it should be sufficient. I've done a 2" spring lift in a two car garage, changed my tranny mount in my single space at the apartment complex. I know for you, a little extra streching space would be somewhat beneficial, but I think that a 2 car garage could suffice.

We may or may not bid on the place in Springvalley, if you are interested, I can give you the map location and you can peek. I think it's bidding at 245 right now..

[TObject]

> I don't know what you have planned...



Thank you for your support guys!

If I read right between the lines you do not think that separate place for the jeep is a good idea at all, right?

[mrblaine]

You don't need a separate place as long as I am around.

It is not who you know, It is who knows you

[William]

My brother works on tractors like that.

It might explain my rear bumper rather well, wouldn't it?

TO, it looks like we are going to buy that house (bye bye jeep budget )... But if your garage isn't working out too well, mine always will. And heck, if worse comes to worse, we can always Carpool up north!

[TObject]

Mr. Blaine, thank you for your dedication to the sport! You are truly a great jeeper! And your wiliness to help is truly amazing. My hat’s off to you.

William, it is nice to have a friend like you nearby! For comparison, that home my family is buying is in Tierrasanta. It’s an 11 yr old 19 hundred square feet two-story house. The price is $396,500.

You are probably getting more for your money in Spring Valley. Is that a new construction or an old house?

We were thinking about Spring Valley too, but decided against it because of the traffic.

[William]

The one we are currently going to bid on is 1370 SF, 3b, 2ba with loft. It is going for roughly 245. There is a larger house on the other side of dictionary hill that is larger, and it cost.. a little more.

I also know of another house near here that is like 1700 sf that is 239. Nice house, but it needs alot of yard work, and the nieghbors are scary.. but do a lot of car work (old chevy).. My wife just didn't want to live in the junky neighboor hood.

If you want, I can send you a list of houses that we've been searching through, some are too expensive for us, but are really nice. And the area I live is right near Monte Vista Highscool, a hop skip and jump for your bro!

Traffic isn't so bad, Where I live is right on the 94 (less than a mile to the freeway).. However, it maybee worse than Tierra Santa traffic wise. We may get more house for our money, but Tierra Santa is a nice area. We'd live there if we could!

Our loan is approved to 234 k, allowing us a 250 k house. With your combined buying power, you could get some nice property out this way.

Hao may seem bad, but the irony of it is less maintenace, and no really crappy nieghbors.

And as I said, I'm only a little ways away to call and help. Hopefully, pretty soon we can say "your garage or mine"!

We have a little less to spend than you, but in the SV area for

[TObject]

I talked to a guy who lives in a HOA house in Huntington Beach. He works on his car sometimes, and hadn’t been spanked for that yet. He has been in trouble once for his gardener who left a sign (and there is a strict rule, that no signs allowed, except for “for sale” or “for rent”), and once HOA didn’t like the color of his curtains or something…

Do you have the homes list in your computer already? If so, you can e-mail it to me, I will take a look (although we are kinda set on Tierrasanta). If you have to type it in, don’t bother. It looks like for now we are going to go with the house we found. And if the deal falls through, we’ll be going back to the drawing board, and maybe try to find a neighborhood without a HOA.

Anyone can tell me how those places called, that look like self-storage, but a little bit bigger, and you can have an office, a shop or a business there? I want to check prices, on how much would it cost to rent one of those…

I am just looking forward. Maybe one day I will buy a big truck and a trailer for the jeep, and trailers are not allowed by HOA.

[This message was edited by TObject on June 08, 2001 at 11:17 AM.]

[William]

Well,

Since I"m among friends: I"ll post the little rift in the Karstens Family.

Housing prices in the San Diego area are crazy. Despite that, we are attempting very hard to buy a house. With good credit, and a small but semi decent deposit... We have been approved to 235k.

The problem being, that the loan would come to 2000 a month. Then add water, sewer, eletricity, and HOA fees.. and normal cost of living, food, gas for the cars, child care etc.. My income (which is easily figured out by the general public at DFAS.mil) is (after taxes) 1500 dollars every two weeks. My lovely and house hungry wife earns a good paycheck, albiet much less than mine. We currently pay 980 a month for our apartment. (2br, 2ba).. And we have no debt per se', except for a 230 per month Jeep payment.

The payment is a good thing, because it is something I can reap benefits from, actual properity ownership. However, the larger payment will severly cut into many things (and I'm ok to retian my jeep in it's current form with out mods for a few years.. that's not an issue really).. Like traveling to Jeep trips, christmas, school clothes..etc... maintanance on both cars, and things of that nature... It leaves little if any margin for error.

And at this point.. the spouse is saying deal with it.. and I'm saying I don't wish to live in a house that is a prison in that I can't afford to leave it... and go places..

It's gonna be a quiet dinner table tonight...

[mrblaine]

William- I won't butt in here. I just noticed that you said something that you might pay more attention to.

Little or no margin for error. That sounds as if the deck is stacked against you and at some point you might come to resent home ownership and the reasons for it.

On the other hand, I have had some friends that were house poor and managed to work through it. Unfortunately, they worked into a bigger house and that is now their life. Owning a home.

Have you considered moving to Yucca Valley? I have it on good authority that you can get a payment out there for around 250.00 a month and no dues to the HOM. (homeownermoderators)

We could always change them to the (homeownermoderatororganization) or HOMO for short.

It is not who you know, It is who knows you

[mrblaine]

TO- it is not a dedication to the sport. It is the people in the sport.

It is not who you know, It is who knows you

[William]

Blaine,

Feel free to butt in at any point.

It's a catch 22. If I don't, I'm loosing out because houses have gone up 30k in the last year.
If I do, I'm stuck, and possibly burried under the house.

As prices increase, the selection goes from fixer uper in nice neighboor hood (when I got here from Iceland in 99) to needs help in an OK part of town (last year).. To stall in crack house bathroom.. toliet not working.. This place is an OK deal, good deal in this markette.


I do not believe in borrowing, taking or recieving money from relatives - which most of my spouse's friends have done. This is a bone of contention as well, to a certain extent.

Yucca valley is a put and a half from San Diego. I don't think I can ride my bike from there .

[Anders Karlsson]

William, according to my calculations a 235K 30 year loan would be about $1600/month at 7.5% interest, property taxes will add another $200 per month. The good thing though is that you will be able to deduct all the interest plus property taxes from your income. My advise is don't buy a house in a rush thinking prices are going up, a lot of people including my brother did that in the late 80's and lost a lot of money. Buy a house in a good location that you can see yourself living in for at least 10+ years, and since you have a child be sure to buy in a good school district.

[TObject]

Very good advice, Anders!

Houses may go up in price, but also they can go down; who knows. Even if they go up, it’s not like gasoline, milk and jeep prices will stay the same, as well as salaries.

Here is a picture of the house my family is buying:


<A HREF="http://www.peptide-synthesis.com/pronografics/house01.htm" TARGET=_blank> </A>

[TObject]

It looks like I am getting one problem after another. Just got the pest control report, and guess what, there is evidence of termites in the attic. They say that those are dry wood termites, but tell me, how do they know those were dry wood termites if they haven’t actually seen the bugs, just the evidence?

Anyone knows anything about termites in Southern California? Is this a pretty normal occurrence that can be lived with or is this something that should be avoided like a plague?

[William]

Well,

Against all better judgement, and bowing to pressure from the other side, I've bought into the house, or at least bid. Anders, I'll go over the numbers, but we are actually going to finance 234k. I'll send a link to the picture of the place soon. It is a nice neighboor hood, and also, it is a good school area, my daughter wouldn't have to change schools.

I've preached about the high price of houses, and been shot down by spouse, mother, real estate agent (worst person to take advice from) and various others. Of course, they've bought in the last 5 years and with prices going up..

At some point, I've got to bow to it, and bite the bullet. If it fails misserably, well, life goes on. Hopefully, to some extent I hope, that either A) the bid will be rejected or B) we will pull through and have a nice place to live and no financial disaster will occur.

[JeepKat]

TObject,

That is a really nice place you are going to buy. I hope all goes well.

Best wishes,
Kathryn

[Ace!]

I know this is a few days late, but what about Southern Oregon! I need some closer living Jeepers. For $150k you can have the best house in the neighborhood, with two yards to work on cars! (unfortunately I don’t know how close you’d be to a ship, and I had to take a 25% pay cut up here )