Things are looking up

Just a brief update -- as of last Thursday, got the deposit and lease signed with the oncologist! Matt and I are ecstatic about this tenant and hopeful that he will stay with the unit for awhile. We met his two sons who are the nicest, well-mannered kids---which helped with our fear of rowdy boys bouncing around the place. What's even better: our new tenant was trying to break the lease on his current apartment (he's moving because it's much too small for him) and lucky him: 2 days after giving notice, his landlord already found a replacement tenant! So because of this, our tenant moves in literally 1 week after we move out --- no double mortgage payments!! We were prepared to possibly be paying 2 mortgage for 1-3 months, so to not have it be an issue at all is a huge bonus.

All that remains is closing on the new house. The loan documents were approved by underwriting late Friday so hopefully this goes to escrow first thing tomorrow morning and we can sign all the documents during the day......which we need to do because we leave first thing Tuesday morning for another Vegas Thanksgiving!

This is a good problem to have....

Well, we've only gotten 2 inquiries so far from the condo in the last 3 days....but lucky us, they were GREAT inquiries! The first was an oncologist with a great job, steady income, etc and loved our place. He dropped off his rental application the next day. The second was a married couple -- also steady jobs, incomes, good credit history and they loved it so much they filled out an application on the spot. We feel so lucky that both sets of applicants are rock stars. Such a tough decision!!! Who do we choose?! (and yes, this is a good problem to have....) We decided to go with our gut instinct and chose the doctor. He's swinging by tomorrow evening with his sons to check out the place--assuming his sons like (which he feels confident they will), he'll move in. He's confident enough that I know he's already given notice at his current apartment. I won't say we have him for sure until I've got a signed lease agreement and a deposit check, but I feel really good about him...and even if he didn't work out for whatever reason, we have this awesome couple as a great alternative. So exciting!

Speaking of this topic, I got a call tonight from a friend who's moving out of the country pretty soon (keeping mum until they make this news public....) and also looking into renting their place. I sent a long e-mail tonight with what I've learned in the last few weeks---in addition to sending some sample lease documents, I wrote:

As for tenant background screening, I ended up really liking SmartMove the most. It's a service of TransUnion and provides a pretty awesome secure environment for potential renters to enter their personal information without having to leave it with you (like their social security #). The resulting report is great -- you get both a credit and criminal report that's pretty thorough. What you don't get is any rental history. You can choose either for you to pay the fee or for them to pay the fee which I also found convenient. Now, even though the renters had to fill something out online, I still liked having them fill out an application form as it allowed me to ask questions I wouldn't otherwise get answers to from a basic credit and criminal check, such as "when do you plan to move in? how long would you live here? what's your residential history? give me personal references, etc.." The combination of having the application and using SmartMove was very helpful. Had I researched which website I was going to use ahead of time, I probably would've not asked for a SS# on the application form.

Other recommended websites I was given:

* http://www.e-renter.com This looked pretty thorough but they have this lame feature where if you want a credit check, the potential renter has to log in and then pay $1.99. Because of that, I didn't like this site. I know others that have used this site and liked it.
* http://on-site.com This also came recommended but after I signed up, they wanted me to fax something in to prove that I owned the property that I wanted to rent. Wha-a-a-? Super lame. Just a hurdle that was enough for me to not continue anymore.
* http://www.tenantverification.com I didn't check them out, so no comments...but supposedly you can get rental history from here.


As for advertising, all I did was put something up on Craigslist and I was really fortunate to get 2 (successful) inquiries within an hour after posting. Sadly, no one else has contacted us about the condo ever since...so I'm really happy that of the only 2 inquiries we got, they were all super awesome candidates that loved the place AND decided to apply. If I didn't hear from anyone or got dissatisfied with who I heard from, I was going to:
- lower the price on Craigslist
- start advertising at Microsoft
- ask someone to advertise at Amazon

I sought out advice from many friends that are landlords and most of them said that craigslist alone ended up being sufficient for finding great renters. The number one advice I got was to go with your instinct and rent to someone that you feel good about.

Anyhow, that's about the extent of research I've done so far. I didn't look into Property Management companies (though we did think about it) because I also got a lot of advice from folks that it was pretty easy to do on your own...but a consideration to do if you were moving out of the city (like you!). I can absolutely see the convenience and I would probably use one if we were leaving Seattle. I only spent one evening poking around at a few companies out of curiosity and found, typically:
- if you use their services for tenant screening and advertising of your property, they will charge either a flat fee or something like 50% of your 1st month's rent
- for management services, it's typically 10% of the rent
- the greatest convenient service I found was one place that would not only collect rent but also pay your mortgage for you to ensure everything gets paid in time (and just bill you separately). I thought that was pretty sweet

Again, you can always try to do this on your own at first...and then decide at a later time to use a property management company. Up to you. That's the way we are thinking---we'll try to do this on our own and if it's a total pain in the butt, we'll start looking into this. Thinking back now, knowing that it would've cost me more than $1000 to use one for the purpose of advertising, background screening, etc., I'm VERY GLAD I decided to do this on my own. Advertising was free and easy (craigslist), background screening was super easy with all these websites (like SmartMove) and I liked being in control of putting together the leasing documents. It would not have been worth $1000 at all.

Things are wrapping up soon....

It's been a busy few weeks wrapping up the home purchase, mainly in getting loan documentation all together. Man, I don't know if it's this lender I'm working with or just strict new Fannie Mae rules (probably the latter) but the amount of documentation I have to show compared to when I bought the condo in 2003 is insane. Anything that is even slightly off I have to sign a letter with a statement describing the issue. It's all worked out and nothing is going to stop this loan from going through (whew!) but man, it's been really interesting comparing the current experience to 6 years ago.

Yesterday, we had a walk through of the house with the builder, just to point out minor little cosmetic things that need fixing (fortunately, most of the issues are extremely minor---little paint chips or a sticky closet door). It was really exciting to go through and learn more about the house -- like that all of the main floor doors and windows are already pre-wired for security and that the family room has already been prewired for a home theater system so that we don't have to drill any more holes.

In the last couple of weeks, we also started shopping for some of the key things we will need immediately, like a refrigerator, washer/dryer, a new king bed and family room furniture. It's been exciting and we feel great about what we've picked out. There's certainly more we will need to buy over time (i.e. sitting room furniture, dining room, etc..) but those are lower priority and we'll just get those over time... I think I'm most excited about the washer/dryer as I've never had a front-loading washer ever. The current one in the condo is just a basic unit and does the job fine...so it was exciting just seeing what options exist out there in current, newer units.

Also, finally put up an ad for renting the condo today---and got the first inquiry about it only 30 minutes after posting! I ended up showing the unit this evening to one potential renter and have an appointment tomorrow with another. Hopefully all works out so that we have a renter soon! We were hoping to have a renter by Christmas...but man, if we have a renter by Thanksgiving, that will be awesome.

Is it almost November already?

I have really neglected this blog. So terrible of me. So I'm just going to ramble on random updates and thoughts.




First, probably the biggest news in our life right now: we're moving! Yes, we bought a house in the Bryant neighborhood and we are really excited. The house is absolutely huge with lots of room to grow in---definitely a home for the next 10+ years. As always, there was much drama around our home buying. We actually first put an offer on another house in Greenlake and was in the process of countering when another offer swooped in that completely trumped ours. We were sad but that was perhaps a sign. So we turned around the next day and put an offer on another home that we had been eyeing also for awhile. To our luck, it all worked out! We reached mutual agreement and completed inspection just today which went really really well. If all goes well, we'll close by the end of the month and start moving in at the start of December.

So what happened to the condo? Well, sadly, despite many showings, not a single offer. Nada. Just a terrible market to sell, especially for condos. It's okay, we were almost prepared for that and just feel fortunate to even purchase a home despite not selling the condo. Likely, we will take it off the market next week and then seriously start looking into preparing it to rent out. I'm hoping we can just hold onto it, renting it for awhile until the market picks up again. Ideally, we can get renters in by January---so let me know if you or someone you know would love to live in a hip 2 bedroom loft near the bars and restaurants of Capitol Hill!

Oh, one thing I'm excited about and hope our timing works out well ---- you know how the homebuyer tax credit ends Nov. 30th? Well, apparently the Senate is not only tossing around the idea of extending it but also EXPANDING the program to existing homeowners! Basically, as long as you've lived in your home for 5 consecutive years in the last 8 years and you're upgrading your home (your principle is higher than your current), you qualify for a $6,500 tax credit! Woo Hoo! The senate will be voting on this next week at the earliest so I'm keeping my eye out....

Halloween's around the corner and we are hitting Bonza Bash again, courtesy of Miss Katie who won the costume contest last year, winning free tickets. I still have no idea what I'll dress up as though there are some ideas...just depends on how creative I feel last minute.

Speaking of Halloween, well sorta .... seen a few "frightful" movies lately:
- Zombieland was AWESOME. I think I still prefer Shaun of the Dead but Zombieland is a great movie.
- Paranormal Activity wasn't bad for a $11,000 movie--and I was surprisingly not as scared as I thought it would be. Creative story, kudos to the filmmakers.

The house we're getting has been pre-wired with Cat 5 wiring. Cool! But I feel dumb -- how does one set up a network with all the Cat 5 wiring? Do I just hook the cable modem to one outlet and then boom, it works?

Lots of researching needing to be done in the next few weeks: refrigerator models, washer/dryer models, security systems, Cat 5 wiring, furniture, etc... FUN FUN!

Thoughts on the HTC Hero

I wrote this over a month ago and never published it...for sake of getting it out, here it is...
-------------------------
I recently had to get a new phone because of work---or moreso, I could no longer use my work number as my primary number. Fortunately, I still kept the same number that I've had for 10 years; however, with it now being my primary number, it got me interested in checking out a non Windows Mobile device for the sake of just being familiar with what else is out there. I'm in a contract with T-Mobile so that limited my choice of phones. I at first decided to go with the MyTouch 3G, which is all the rage at TMo right now. This is actually the HTC Magic, a version of the Android that comes without a slide out keyboard, is smaller and pretty slick. Software wise, it's not much different than anyone else running Cupcake (latest version of Android). I personally really liked the hardware and thought it was slick...but I found it annoying to not have a native Exchange calendar app (only supported Email) and I'd been staring for weeks at the HTC Hero, the new, slicker, fancier cousin of the HTC Magic. I knew I could get the Hero through Expansys but at the expense of it being 2G (being a world phone, it's not on the same frequency as any US-carrier 3G network) and it costing a bit more....but I finally bit the bullet, purchased it and returned my MyTouch today. I thought I'd share my initial impressions of the phone to you. Now, being that I'm a Contacts PM, I'll probably make note of a lot of the features in Contacts which I find interesting. There are tons and tons of reviews out there from your favorite gadget blogs which talk at length about hardware, the homescreen, navigation, etc.... I could talk about it, but I won't just because you can read up about that everywhere. Instead, I'll focus on the software that I find interesting.

Before beginning, I just want to say I find it fascinating how much HTC has changed on top of the Android platform -- just shows the amount of extensibility and skinning that can be done. So much has changed that this is not even a Google branded phone -- simply an HTC one, and I believe that's one of the reasons it's possible that it natively supports Exchange Mail, Contacts and Calendar (woo hoo for me).

What I have set up: Exchange Mail, Contacts, and Calendar; Google Mail and Calendar; Social networking integration for Facebook, Flickr and Twitter; a number of apps.

The features of this particular phone that made me pick it over other standard, Android devices:

• social networking integration



• Sense UI



• 5mp camera



• standard 3.5mm headphone jack



• browser supports flash



• multi-touch in a number of apps, including email and browser (not in the maps app, boo)



• support of Exchange calendar, contacts and e-mail natively
  

The social networking integration within the contacts app is interesting -- the app itself has been overhauled such that it doesn't look at all like the standard Android Contacts app. Upon opening the app, some standout features:

Facebook and Flickr integration in the contact card
Whenever I look at a contact card, I can see the Facebook picture and birthday for that person (I can choose not to). I can also see the most recent status message and all of their Facebook and Flickr photo albums. In addition to that, it will show any text messages, e-mails (but only through my Exchange account--weak) and phone calls I've shared with the person. Too bad there isn't Twitter integration--seems like an opportunity miss, especially since I'd signed into the phone with my Twitter account. (fyi, the only use of that is to sign into the native Twitter app "Peep" that HTC includes in the phone)

I'm at the top of the list
Because I've signed into Facebook, it immediately detected my profile and put myself at the top of my contacts list. There's not much there except for my photo and birthday but I can add some add'l information for myself--- I actually already have a contact card for myself but I can't connect it with "my" Facebook card because the dialog they use to connect your device contacts to your Facebook contacts is limited to only your Facebook friends.....and...well, I'm not my own friend on Facebook. Get it? Again, a slight miss...but the thought is there.

Contacts list

The main contacts list has the following views:

• Alphabetical list of contacts



• All of your "favorites"--which will be synced from Google contacts. There is also a Favorites widget that can be added to the homescreen.



• Contact groups --- from Google, these are the groups you create. From exchange, it's just the categories of contacts.



• Updates and Events. This is probably the most interesting screen. At the very top, it detects if there are any contacts that match your Facebook contacts -- if so, there will be a notification to say that there are "links detected"---if you give it a blessing, it'll connect the matching contacts. By doing this, it doesn't sync down all of your Facebook contacts--it will only connect Facebook information to those contacts you already have on your phone. In the middle are events -- any noted birthdays or anniversaries of your friends. Finally, at the bottom are various "updates" which seem to consist mainly of status messges and photo updates.

There were initial complaints about this phone when it was first released, mainly being that the UI was too slick for the hardware, negatively affecting performance; however, last month HTC released a patch that really improved the performance. I have to say that it's like night and day and the device is really usable now.

There ARE some notable bugs that I haven't had time to really check out. Not a major huge deal but annoying when I do care, namely:

• MMS seems broken. I have yet to receive or send a MMS despite it looking like an option.


• Downloading ANY attachments in Exchange e-mail flat out doesn't work. My workaround, sadly, is to forward to my Gmail account where I can easily do so.


• The native Peeps (Twitter) app sometimes just stops refreshing and won't retrieve any more tweets. I have to log out and then log back in to get it to work. It fortunately hasn't happened too much...but I've found it frustrating when it has.

Other than that, the device works just spiffy. I've been pretty happy with it so far!

Decisions Decisions....

Matt and I have been talking for a long awhile about the desire to eventually move out of the hip urban loft condo and into a house. Yes, a house. It's with mixed feelings, of course, as we totally LOVE our condo in the city right now -- walk everywhere, in the heart of Capitol Hill, easy access to the highway, etc... but we recently decided that now is the time to finally move forward. For the last few weeks, we met with a real estate agent and lender and started prepping our condo to put on the market. By prepping, that means renting a storage unit and packing up a TON of random stuff that we don't necessarily need for everyday and removing any clutter from our unit. After meeting with a staging consultant and getting some advice, we rearranged our furniture and have set up the place to be ready to sell! We've also started checking out open houses so we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's an interesting market as it's not a great time to sell but it's an awesome time to buy....so while we may not get what we'd like for the condo now, we'll be able to get a whole lotta house for a lot less than that house was worth just 2 years ago. Well, the photographer came last weekend and our listing will go on the market in the next day or two...and I'm naturally having last minute anxieties about making sure the price is set right....hence, the decisions to be made. We'd love to sell and buy a house in the next few months...but are also mentally okay with that not working out and trying again next year. As a result, we want to price it in a way that gives us that room but is also an attractive offer. So many factors! Anyway, we just got back the photos that will be used in the listing and are IMPRESSED (yay HDR!). We can't help but think "dang! we live here!" Here they are!

Caribbean Cruise

Sorry it's been awhile and I never posted about our trip to the Caribbean. It was a fabulous vacation and we really enjoyed taking our first cruise together. The weather was great the whole time and we enjoyed the water, the beach, the sun and all the food. I think I've converted Matt to a cruise lover! Anyhow, the pictures will speak for themselves:

Day in San Juan	2nd Day in San Juan + Boarding the Ship	Days at Sea	Aruba – snorkeling!
Scuba Diving in Curacao	Tour in Dominica	St. Thomas/St. John	Last Day in San Juan