Scott Chester

Well, I just can’t believe that there were 17 offers on the house and that it sold for $40k over asking price. Of course, I don’t know what the distribution was, I could be #2 in line or I could be the lowest offer on the house! There are some others that are similar, but I don’t think they carry the upgrades, or probably the views. Angela found a house right near the office that she wants to see, but it isn’t even in the MLS yet and there was no lockbox, so we couldn’t get in to see it. It might be nice to only be a few minutes from work since I do go there so often. I could walk to work from there or at least ride my bike and still go home for lunch!

Other than the house thing, I finished up the quotes I had been working on and got them out the door.

I went for a bicycle ride tonight, and didn’t take enough breaks because the flies were crazy. Every time I began to stop they would start to swarm, so I pretty much just did the standard route without stopping which really tired me out. … I keep thinking about getting better at calling people when driving, but all to often it seems that is my time to ponder or I am waiting for something else to happen.

And it went for $40k over asking price, wow! I guess I’ll just be waiting for the next one. That really is about the price that the house should have gone for, it was way too good to be true at the lower price. On the bright side, I’m sure the one on either side will be for sale soon!

I had a pretty busy day at the office today. It was kind of quiet, but I was swamped trying to get through some quotes that needed to get out. Alison and I went to lunch at Olive Garden and then I went to check out the new parking garage at the mall. Actually, i was trying to go to Hallmark, but I think I got distracted by the new garage and therefore thought Hallmark was in the mall. When I walked in and couldn’t find it on the directory, I realized it wasn’t in the mall! Oh well, I got back in the car, found the Hallmark and a card and then finally got back to work.

No news on the house. We probably won’t hear anything till Friday, which I guess isn’t all that far away now. There are some similar houses on the market (same layout), but they are all much more expensive and don’t seem to have the same upgrades. They probably also aren’t in as good of condition, so I’m not sure what I’ll do if I don’t get this one other than going and making low ball offers on the others. At least I’ll have a good comp to compare it to!

I was going to try and go for a ride tonight, but figured once I got home that i was just going to be lazy instead since I didn’t get an early start. I’m hoping to make it home early enough tomorrow to get one in.

I really want to know about the house. I don’t think I can wait till Friday! I hope the bank gets their act in gear and lets me know either way soon. Of course I would like for it to be an affirmative we’ve accepted your offer so we can get this show going, yet even if I’m not going to get it I’d like to know so that we can move on to the next one.

Things went pretty well today. Zach and I decided not to meet up this morning and work on home teaching, so I had some extra time at home to get things organized which was nice. PEC and the block went well, really nothing to report.

I left the Dowden’s after dinner to go hang out with Kim and then we went to branch prayer. We missed the thought and prayer, but got to hang out with people, including the new branch shepherds from the Los Alamos ward, the Diffley’s.

I’m not sure what to do with myself tomorrow. We’ve got the activity at the Mattson’s in the afternoon. I was thinking about going to the temple in the morning. We are going Friday, so I’m not sure if I need to go Monday or just make sure that I am there on Friday and that way save on some gas. I’m trying to figure out what to do for Tara’s birthday on Wednesday. I’m thinking maybe about baking cookies and FedExing them to her. I guess that could keep me out of trouble in the morning and give me something to take to the Mattson’s.

If anyone reading this would like to join in the festivities tomorrow, please let me know. We’ll be playing in the pond with the zip line and slide and will have volleyball and ping pong as well as other misc activities. It is always a great time up there.

P.S. Happy Birthday Christa!

Well I went and saw the Longbranch house today. The place is great. I’m glad things didn’t work out with Eucalyptus, or at least don’t look like they are going to as I don’t have to compromise on anything major in this house. It has my laundry room upstairs, separate dining and living rooms and two bedrooms in addition to the master with their own bath which could be great for renting to make some extra cash. The location is a bit better to with it being easier to find and at a higher elevation. The lot isn’t quite as big, and it doesn’t have a pool, but those are small sacrifices for this great of a house. I kind of wish it had double ovens, but that can be fixed when the oven dies like we did here in Acacia.

The weddings went well and we were able to do both of them outside. We had a bit of drizzle, but nothing to ruin the day. That pretty much took most of my day, so I don’t have anything else to report. This house hunting has been consuming me this week and all I do is think about things that I will need to do, what needs to be purchased and what is or is not worth moving. I keep thinking that maybe I could sell such and such instead of moving it. That probably would have been a good plan years ago when I replaced my TV, but no one wants to buy a 27″ CRT TV anymore…

I watched I know pronounce you Chuck and Larry tonight. It was mildly funny. I liked the message of friend sticking together and going above and beyond the line of duty, I probably could have done without some of the stuff in there too.

Well they came back today and said that we had the best price by $400, but wouldn’t give us anything on paper to prove that they had an offer of $335,500. Things just seemed too fishy for me to go through with it, so I decided that I wouldn’t sign anything more and I think maybe tomorrow we will walk away. Our offer expires on the 3rd day, tomorrow, so it is probably a mute point anyway. I think in the future we will only give the buyer 48 hours to respond so they can’t continue to wait for a better offer. And I don’t think we will be doing this incremental offer thing and will go back to the traditional offer a single price scenario.

I am really excited about this other house. I’m almost expecting it to be a dump, but the comps show that the price is right, so maybe we can get in on it. We started to figure out tonight exactly how to get the funds for the down with the best financial result.

The wedding tonight was inside due to rain which was OK with me. It allowed me to spend a lot of time sitting in front of the computer looking at houses. I hope tomorrow’s AT weddings aren’t rained out as I don’t want to deal with doing them in the tent. I guess I really shouldn’t complain and should just count my blessings and get to sleep!

I totally love this house, at least from what I can see so far. I almost think something has to be wrong with it, but at the same time the comps actually support the price. It even makes it sounds like the laundry room is upstairs!

36634 Longbranch Ave, Murrieta, CA 92563

Let’s hope! I’m going to try and go see it between weddings tomorrow.

And no, you can’t go make offers on it now!

Well, no news on the house. For the record, we offered $335, $10k over the asking price. At this point I’m now kind of hoping that we don’t get it and we can move onto something else. Of course, we are already working on trying to find something else and see what comes up. There are enough downers to the house that I won’t be sad if I don’t get it and I’m not opposed to waiting until the right thing comes on the market at some point.

We had some amazing thunderstorms today. They were a good reminder of the great ones we had constantly in Idaho. We were sitting in the office this morning and heard some rumblings. Eventually we went outside to check it out and decided it was thunder. A few minutes later it started raining, then pouring. The streets were flooded within minutes and I got a good car wash. It was raining so hard that the water coming down from the roof in a 3″ pipe was shooting about two feet out at the bottom, only inches off the ground. Water was also coming in the vents on the side of the skylight, either from so much water being up on the roof or it raining at a weird angle.

I got a letter from Tara tonight that said she had an investigator add me as a friend on facebook. The only problem is I don’t know who it was and I’m afraid that I may have ignored the friend request without knowing who it was. I can’t seem to find any way to get back to them and don’t even have a record of who it would have been to go back and ask them. I’ll just have to ask Tara and wait and see I guess.

it’s getting late and there is no rest for the weary this weekend, so I had better get to sleep with a long day ahead tomorrow.

Well, I made an offer on a house tonight! It’s kind of scary and fun at the same time. Scary in that I don’t know what I’m getting myself into and fun in that I’m ready to get going! I went and looked at houses this morning and found two that were great. One of them I totally would have bought on the spot if it wasn’t on the freeway. If I took out a piece of the back wall I could drive straight onto the 215. It was fairly quiet in the house, but quite noisy in the backyard, to the point where one couldn’t do a BBQ or even probably open the windows at night. It has an amazing kitchen and is a steal of a deal at $280.

The other one has a good kitchen and a good layout. Has nice tile throughout and only needs carpet done in a few bedrooms and some appliances. It has a pool and a fully landscaped back yard, which is a huge plus. It is a little more than I wanted to spend at $325, but it seems so worth it. I will have to rent a room to pay for it or come up with some other creative way of making the payments, so I guess I need to start looking for some renters. The bathrooms are a little smaller than they could be, and you have to walk through the laundry room in from the garage which is a big negative. Fortunately, it has some extra room so I think I could live with it. Well, i hope I could since I made an offer on it! The other home had a beautiful laundry room upstairs with tons of cabinets and counter space along with a sink.

That was pretty much my day today. I spent some time at the office to make sure I was on top of things and stopped by the activity at church tonight to see what was going on there.

27939 Eucalyptus St, Murrieta, CA 92563 | $325,000 | Murrieta (East) Real Estate

I may very well make an offer on this one…

I’ve gotten behind again. There were some late nights when I didn’t think I had the time to write, and then there was just the laziness and getting wrapped up in having to watch TV constantly instead of actually being productive with the time which I have been given.

Disneyland on Thursday was fun with Ashley and Lauren. I couldn’t figure out where I knew her friend Lauren from and then it finally hit me as I was driving home. I met her the night Maegan dragged me to the night at the Oscar’s event in Vista. Lauren and Maegan were hanging out together, and I even believe I spent a good portion of the evening holding her purse. In any event, we had fun. Lauren hadn’t been there in six years and had never been on Tower of Terror. Ashley didn’t want to go, but we forced her into it. We actually were able to walk right onto Tower of Terror which I have never done before - like literally right into the library and then from there to an elevator! Lauren loved it, so we went again while Ashley recovered.

We met up with Tara and some of her friends, then the girls (Ashley and Lauren) left and Batch joined us. Batch and I went to Cheesecake where I had the best orange chicken I have ever had in my life! Tara and David got lost in the two blocks from Disneyland to The Cheesecake Factory, so it ended up just being Batch and I. It was after 10 when we got out of there. I had to talk my way out of the parking garage because I was over the free time by one minute. I tried to explain to the parking lot attendant that if there wasn’t a huge line of cars to get out, I would have been fine. He didn’t like that idea so I demanded to speak with a manager. After it was made clear that I wasn’t going anywhere but forward, he decided to let me through.

Things got crazy in the office on Friday. I don’t remember what exactly now, but I remember being busy which is abnormal for a Friday. I had a real estate agent call and check up on me and we decided to go out and look at houses this week. I got pre-approved for the loan today so when I find the right house I’m that much closer! We looked at a few out in French Valley today. I explained to Angela that I’m not really interested in living out there, I just like the Veranda Model 4. There are a couple great looking (from the web) homes out there, some of which just seem too good to be true and therefore probably are.

The ham radio class went about as expected on Saturday. Nobody was there when it was supposed to start. As Jeff and I were talking and packing things up, a father and son showed up. We spoke for probably a half hour about some of the basics before we sent him on his way and scheduled a new date for a class and exam.

Since I had some time on my hands Saturday morning, I decided to try and nail down exactly what it is that I like so much about Veranda model four. I think it really comes down to the kitchen and the laundry room. It might really just be the laundry room! I love that place! I guess I like the way it feels from the street as well and how much room there seems to be in the kitchen and the layout there. I also looked at the big development at the NE corner of Clinton Keith and I-15. I didn’t really like much there. I did find the KB Home development, Monticello II to be nice and liked the model four they have, but am thinking there are some better deals out there on resales.

I’ll have to get caught up on Sunday and such tomorrow. Good night!

OK, so I haven’t been writing much this week. In part, there hasn’t been much to write. I also know that is just an excuse and there is always something to write about. That’s what forcing yourself to write every night will teach you: to make something up if nothing really happened. No, that’s not true. Something always happens, even on the most routine of days. The problem is typically that I’m not willing to take the time some nights to actually figure out what interesting things happened during a day that I’m calling boring.

It was an interesting week with it being a short week in the office for me since I took off Monday. I was fairly busy all of the week, but it still hasn’t been the busy like I’m used to. Looking at the financials, our sales are definitely down and we need to come up with a plan to turn that around. We’ve been working on quoting a bunch of things, but quotes don’t pay the bills.

I’ve been looking at houses on redfin and have found a few that might have some potential. Actually, there was a fire in Murrieta behind one of them today! I was looking at satellite imagery of where a brush fire was and thought I recognized one of the houses/lots. Sure enough, it was one I had looked at. (The house wasn’t on fire, just some brush in a nearby greenbelt.) I’m thinking in the next few weeks I will work on getting prequalified for a loan and then maybe go look at some houses. I’m ready to get moving on this project. Of course, I’m a little cautioned by the drop at work, but I have faith that  it will work out - we just need to retool and push forward.

I didn’t make it to Disneyland on Friday with Lauren and her gang as was planned Thursday night. When I got into the office (to take care of the funds transfer for payroll), I ended up having to deal with WaMu for more than a half hour as they wouldn’t let me do a transfer between my accounts. I also found that Paychex had tried to debit our account when there were no funds in there, the idea behind the account, for something they shouldn’t have been charging us for. To their surprise, the transaction was returned and we were charged for a NSF transaction. After getting the ball rolling with that and getting payroll squared away, it wasn’t going to be worth the drive to Disneyland since I had to be back for a wedding that afternoon. Tara was trying to get me to go out and do something instead of staying at work. We couldn’t come up with anything and I actually was able to be somewhat productive in the office. Tata had suggested taking Mandi (as she was the only one she knew of who had the day off) to the beach, the zoo, the mall, etc, yet none of them sounded all that appealing.

Thursday, Tata was trying to convince me that I needed to get my act in gear and get married. She said that if I didn’t have a date on Friday night, I should be at the single’s dance. I tried to explain that the whole dance thing just wasn’t going to happen, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer. I finally got off the hook by telling her that if she got me out of the wedding, I would come up with a date for date (Friday) night. Fortunately, she didn’t come up with someone to work a wedding, so I didn’t have to come up with a date and was able to enjoy a nice quiet evening at home. I really do enjoy quiet evenings at home by myself probably a bit too much.

Today I watched too much TV. So much in fact that my DVR started at 99% full and when I finished I think it was close to 30%! It helped that I was able to delete a bunch of programming with only watching a few minutes of it to figure out that I had already seen the episodes. This evening I watched 1408, a movie about a haunted hotel room. It was fairly interesting, I’d give it 3/5 stars and while not really scary, it kept my interest, which can be hard after a day of watching TV already. I keep thinking that I need to watch less TV and spend more time reading, but I haven’t put that plan into action yet. Heck, I haven’t even seen, heard or read the Sunday sessions of conference from a month ago now!

These last few weeks have just been crazy and today was no exception. Fortunately, it was good work most of the day, but it just didn’t give up until late in the afternoon when I started to have a chance to catch up.

Alison and I went looking at houses tonight. I went back to my favorite, Veranda at Morningstar Ranch. I still like it, but I don’t think I really want to live out there in Wichester and instead want to be closer to Murrieta. I also realized that the family room seemed smaller than I remembered it and while there are many things I love about it, there seemed to be a few things I didn’t really like. Maybe after all this searching it will come down to the three most important things in real estate: location, location and location. I think the next step is to contact a realtor to see what is out there in the locations that I really want to be in and find out how the market is looking.

I was talking with my dad last night and we’re going to make a chart of the price per square foot of houses sold and see if it looks like it is still on a steady decline or if it is starting to level out. It we are curving to level out then it looks like it would be a good time to buy. If things are still looking crazy then I guess I’ll just ride it out a bit longer.

In my rush to leave the house this morning I forgot to take lunch with me, so I decided to stop talking about doing it and put a plan into action on my way to work. I stopped at Vons and picked up some various items for lunch which will probably get me through the next two weeks. I’m honestly not sure it was really any cheaper, but it will probably be healthier for me and should be cheaper in the long run.

I hope it starts to cool down a bit in the office here now, but I’m certainly not one to turn down business. Heck, actually I’d like it if we were this busy all the time because we could afford to hire more people in and keep moving forward. I think we got our quota of shows this month!