Shopping for Houses

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So far we’ve looked at 9 houses in Irving. We immediately rejected 4 of them because they
needed far more work than we want to invest (floors that slope, complete remodels, etc). The other five are still in the running, but each one has one or more significant drawbacks. Fortunately, we’re not in any hurry and can be patient. We want to be able to stay in the new house for many years and raise our kids there, so we want a house with enough space for that, but we also want it to be easily affordable on my income alone. It’s a lot to consider, but we’re having fun looking.

I am intrigued by people’s different approaches to house shopping. When I told my parents and sister we wanted to move, they started driving around looking for FOR SALE signs and pulling flyers. They also assumed that our realtor was finding us houses to see. They still seem surprised when I tell them we’re finding all of our houses ourselves through the Internet instead. We tell our realtor which ones we want to see, and she makes it happen. We might drive around a neighborhood or a specific house we’ve found just to see what it’s like, but not to look for houses. Many, if not most, houses in a neighborhood don’t meet our criteria, which is why we search online. I track the interesting ones in Excel spreadsheets that show prices, size, and amenities so I can compare them more easily. I don’t know whether it’s a generational thing or just the fact that I’m a geek. =)

On the Market

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As of early this week, our house is officially on the market! Alicia just posted our listing today. I also created a house page with more details, pictures, and commentary. Feel free to send the link to anyone you might know who’s looking for a house in our area, and tell your friends as well. Alicia hired a stager named Anna who visited our house, rearranged furniture, cleared out lots of our “personality” from the house, and generally made it look more like a model. It was a bit difficult for Jenny to have another woman come in and tell her what was wrong with her decorating, but the results are great. We even repainted the blue accent wall in the kitchen. It seems like half of our possessions (the half we seldom use) are in storage. Now it feels like we’re living in a hotel – the bed is made unless we’re in it, the kitchen sink is always empty, the countertops are always clean, and our toothbrushes are in the cabinet. Now the waiting begins. I’m really curious to see how many people want to see the house, how long until we get an offer, and what the offer is. I think we’ve priced our house very fairly, less than you’d pay for a comparable new house from the builder, and it has lots of upgrades and nice touches to help it stand out. Tonight we celebrated with a bottle of raspberry wine, which is FABULOUS. Pick up a bottle at World Market.

House News and 2 Cool Sites

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We’ve decided to put our house up for sale! We’re currently decluttering, cleaning, rearranging furniture, and putting some stuff in storage to make the house look its best. We even redid some of the landscaping, replacing several scraggly bushes with some Texas-friendly Navajo sage and petunias for color. We hope to have it on the market within a couple of weeks. I might even put up a special page on here so YOU can see (and buy!) it. I’ve been enjoying a GREAT website called Zillow that shows you a map with estimated values for all the houses in the neighborhood along with satellite photos and home details. Pull up your house and add info if you want for others to see. You can even set a “Make Me Move” price, the amount of money someone would have to offer you to persuade you to move. I’m watching my neighborhood and our target neighborhood in Irving to see what’s out there. The whole house-selling thing will be taking up most of our free time for the next couple of weeks, so please forgive me if AndyBox.com isn’t quite as fresh as it normally is.

In other news, the NHL playoffs start this week! The Stars play the Vancouver Canucks in Round 1 starting tonight. Some friends of ours from church lived in Vancouver and are huge Canucks fans, so we’ll have to harass them if (no, WHEN!) the Stars win.

I also have to mention another very cool site, Freecycle. It has groups all over the world, and each group is a mailing list where you tell people about stuff you want to give away for free or stuff you want to get for free. For example, we just bought a new entertainment center from IKEA, so we told the Keller Freecycle group that we’re giving away our old one for free to the first person who can haul it off.

Want a House?

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For some time Jenny and I have been planning to move closer to work. We LOVE our house, but the 30-mile commute each way is burning lots of gas and putting lots of miles on both our cars. I crunched the numbers and realized we could literally save thousands by moving closer. So we’ve actually started thinking about moving to West Irving. We found a nice neighborhood west of Irving Mall. Alicia Jackson, an old friend from my youth group and Baylor, is now a Realtor (btw, there are only TWO syllables in “realtor”, so don’t add one in the middle and pronounce it “real-a-tor”), and she’s going to take us to a few houses Thursday night. Nothing is set in stone yet, but I think there’s a strong possibility we’ll be living somewhere else by the end of the year if not the end of the summer. So be sure to email me if you’re interested in a nearly new, four-bedroom house in north Fort Worth!

Also, I know it’s a bit late, but I finally added some wedding pictures to the wedding page, so check them out.

Wife’s Bday

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I haven’t heard much in the way of comments (besides a freak-out by Lisa, but she just fears change), so I’m going to stick with this new design for now. Jenny suggested a pic with more bluish tones, so there you go.

Today is my beloved wife’s 31st birthday. We both took the day off to sleep in and play. This afternoon we plan to visit BodyWorlds in Dallas. I saw it in Chicago and loved it, and now Jenny and I can share it. We’re having dinner at Red Lobster and then spending the night at the Renaissance Hotel in Dallas. We might watch the Stars-Wings game on TV since we’ll have CABLE! Tomorrow morning we have massages scheduled at a local massage school (cheap cheap!), and if the weather is nice, we might hit the North Texas Jazz Festival in Addison. Should be a busy weekend! One thing I love about my wife is that birthdays are not traumatic for her, but instead something to celebrate. Let the party begin!

New Look

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In case you haven’t noticed, after MANY years of using the same overall look on andybox.com, I have changed it! This might not be the “permanent” look, but it’s something I’m trying out, and I’d love to know what you think. I made the background white, the text dark blue, the main font Arial, and the top nav bar light blue, trying for a cleaner look that’s easier to read and a bit faster to load.

In other news, the garage sale was a big success! We raised over $1000 for Less is More, helped declutter the lives of several friends and family members, and helped lots of people get great deals on some useful and/or interesting items. A friend hauled off most of the things we couldn’t sell, which made cleanup much easier.