Well, some good news today – my beloved reds seem to have removed their collective fingers from up their arses, and learned to play football again.

After the embarrassing display in Turkey, they’ve gone on a nice run and have managed to figure out how to score again. After missing more wide open chances against Newcastle than I’ve got fingers this past weekend, Fernando Torres reminded us all why they dropped £21 million on him by knocking in a pair against Porto at Anfield earlier on. Stevie added a penalty, and the giraffe on ice himself, Señor Crouch, capped it off with a fourth.

‘Twas a less than impressive performance tho, and I’m nervous that they once more only played 45 minutes of good football, but spent the rest of the match running around like headless chickens. Personally, I think they were waiting for me to finish my install of Parallels Desktop and Windows XP so I could watch ‘em on Sopcast – finally started watching at 68 minutes, just before the three goal spree started.

Sign of a good team, I suppose – being able to get a result, even when not playing well. One more of those against Marseille please, in a fortnight, and we’ll be in the knockout stages…

Okay, this posting might be riddled with typos and mistakes. I’m still shaking from laughing so much.

We finally – FINALLY! – got a response from the seller. Hooray! The response came in the form of an email, which his selling agent forwarded to us. Here it is… (drumroll!)

I am not interested in putting it in writing unless you believe their clients will accept it. I would like to see an offer at $819k.

BWAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! The only response I could formulate back to John was:

You can quote me on this: “Go fuck yourself. I hope your contract collapses and it rots on the market. Greedy bastard.”

And so goeth the Marin real estate market. We’ve also discounted the other house we’d looked at officially, so we’re back to square one. At least the downpayment is still sitting in the bank earning interest…

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Now playing: Iron Maiden – Infinite Dreams
via FoxyTunes

Well, another day, another dollar. Or to be exact, another 25 thousand of them. That’s how much we raised the offer on the house in Belle Avenue after learning it went into escrow over the holiday weekend. In escrow, but with an escape clause, since the potential buyers need to sell their house first in order to buy it. So there’s a small chance an increased offer will at least get the sellers’ attention. Although to be honest, I’m loth to go any higher (it took a serious effort of will and the desire to see my wife happy to go as high as we already are – I’m almost getting a nosebleed here!) but the other half of the equation is ready to plop the asking price on the table. Cause, y’know, if you’re gonna drop all that money, why do it half assed??

Of course, what do you want to see 12 hours after you write an offer for $775,000 on a house? A report on the front page of the Chronicle heralding the worsening of the mortgage crisis. With prices falling nationwide, one has to wonder if the gamble on dropping so much money will work in our favour, or will we wake up one morning in 2010 to realize our house is only worth half of what we paid, with prices having returned to what they should be, as opposed to what lenders and realtors wanted them to be. I suppose only time will tell.

Until then, all I can do is sit, twiddle my thumbs, and continue to wonder why the offer of a gigantic wad of cash isn’t enough to even get a response in the current market. Ahh, bugger it, I’m off to play footy!

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Now playing: U2 – Bullet the Blue Sky (Live from Pairc Ui Caoimh in Cork)
via FoxyTunes

Still no word of the offer we put in. Met up with John yesterday to look at two more houses (well, one more, the other was basically the house we’re thinking is in second place at the moment) and he’s as frustrated as we are with the selling agent, and of the opinion that “My gut tells me something a little unethical is going on.” I try not to read between the lines on this, but there really is a case of something not sitting right, the way the selling agent is handling us. Oh well, what can we do… other than table another offer, which Tracee is very eager to do. Especially since, after walking through our second place house and added up all the things we’d like to do to it/want to do to it, it’d end up costing more than we offered on Belle. Christ, what a moneypit, it’s making my head spin.

Thanksgiving came and went without too much incident. We legged it down to Palo Alto to have dinner with the Martins, which was always… interesting. Was great to see Jenny again (you may remember her as the actress who was supposed to be in Grey’s Anatomy) and Tom and Debby are always fun. Amy, Jenny’s younger sister, is a completely different person – all the time I’ve known her, she’s had medical issues with her jaw, which meant she’s in constant pain, and can’t really eat solid foods. Now that’s over, she seems to be a heck of a lot happier, and is a lot more fun to be around. (Other than her annoying squeaky voice, haha)

In other news, I’m headed back to DC next month for work, to attend the boss’ retirement party. It’ll be good to hopefully see the old gang again.

Interesting goings on at my beloved Liverpool FC. The boys (finally) seem to have found their feet on the pitch, but now Rafa’s been mouthing off at the new owners. Which could see them sans manager in the coming days… eep!

Other than that, it’s been an amazingly uneventful week in the Edmunds household… when we’re not working, we’re obsessing about houses and mortgages. Christ, this blog was more interesting when it was just about a mountain biker who never rode!

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Now playing: Pearl Jam – Faithful
via FoxyTunes

Well, we got an email from John this morning. The afforementioned warm and fuzzy house got an offer, so if it’s something we’re interested in, we gotta follow suit. Now. NOW!! Move, move, MOVE! Before I knew what was happening, we were sitting with him in the dining room signing an offer sheet for $750,000, telling ‘em we were ready to roll. He had a piece of paper in hand from the bank saying we were preapproved for said amount. It all moved so fast, my head spun. But the papers were submitted, so we wait and see.

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Now playing: The Frames – perfect opening line
via FoxyTunes

Update::: John called. Spoke to the seller’s agent, and the other offer is real, and apparantly more than ours is. So chances are the counter offer will be for more than we’re willing to spend. That’s if we get a counter offer at all. Stay tuned.

Three quarters of a million dollars.

That’s what we’re hoping – hoping – that the house we looked at today will drop to. To put this in perspective, we weren’t looking at a mansion. Or heck, even a reasonably large place. Nope. We’re looking at a 3 bedroom, 1.5 bathroom, 1300 square foot bungalow. Now granted it’s a nice bungalow, but still.

Anyways. We did get the warm and fuzzies when we went through it, although that might have been the rampant nausea the price tag caused. Our realtor is going to have a chat with the sellers (they currently want $799,000 for it) and let us know the scoop. Have a shufties at it here. If that doesn’t happen, the only other place we found that seemed decent was this one. Damn sight cheaper, but would need some work.

Ah well, I suppose we knew what we were getting into when we moved out here….

It’s amazing what you hear and dismiss as a child. My brothers, parents… you name it. Anytime their birthdays rolled around, they’d look at me and say “When you get older, it’s not going to matter as much.” And they were right! Although this year, it’s tempered a lot by not being around my friends. I’ve become so used to having blowout parties with dozens of folks in attendance, that just a quiet dinner with the Missus seems so… anticlimactic? I mean, I just don’t really care this year. Heck, I didn’t really care last year either.

But the upside? PRESENTS! Tracee scored me a beautiful Tissot watch I’d been eyeing, and her parents snagged me an Ireland rugby jersey (although after their performance in the World Cup, I might want to rethink it.). But the best gift of all was the financial dude calling, to let us know our credit is stellar, and we have zero mortgage worries. Hooray!

And the cherry on the cake is that we booked tickets to Hawaii for our first anniversary in April. So hey, maybe birthdays are pretty good after all.

Okay, three posts today. But this is it, promise. Saw this on dahamsta’s blog, and wanted to share. Cause, y’know, it’s the buzniss!

Two posts in a day! The shock!

But this one is purely to announce my love for a site JB introduced me to – pandora.com. My music playlists are getting a little tired, so this was a godsend. Just sign up (it’s free) and proceed to create your very own radio stations. Just tell it the sort of music you want – be it a band, an album, or even just a song, and Pandora will cobble together a station based on what you tell it. Add more info to the station’s profile as you go, give a thumbs up or down to songs it suggests, and after a while you end up with a really tasty feed o’ tunes that’ll turn you on to some great stuff you otherwise wouldn’t be exposed to. Golden Smog? Never heard of ‘em, but the couple o’ tunes I’ve listened to so far, I enjoy!

Get on over there and check it OUT!

I’m having a really hard time with Bay Area real estate.

Tracee and I do pretty well. We’re not high earners – neither of us are rockin’ the six figure salary or anything like that – but we’re in a very good spot financially. And yet despite having plenty of cash each month, when we pick up that paper on Sunday, or talk to our realtor, the homes that are in our price range are, well, shite. Dumps. Things that in any other part of the country would sell for $300k at most, are selling here for twice that and then some.

Case in point. We found a house that we kinda like. Note I said “kinda like” – this is because we’ve only looked at it online. But it’s in a good location for us, looks like it won’t need a lot of work, if any, and looks to be the right size for us (1400 sf, 3br). But it’s… $800,000.

Am I the only person that thinks this is completely asinine?!?! Apparantly so. When we talk to our realtor, or our finance people, they seem to think it’s a steal, it’s deal, it’s the sale of the fucking century. (Brownie points if you get the quote. I know JB will!) When we talk to Tracee’s parents about it, they just shrug and say we need to max ourselves out as much as possible, because otherwise we’ll regret it.

Problems with this theory – an $800k house will leave us with a mortgage payment of about $5,000 EVERY MONTH. Now yeah, fat tax benefits come with this, and our finance folk point out that this mortgage payment will be the equivalent of only $3,450 when we adjust our monthly tax withholdings.

Only $3,450. Only $3,450.

Again, people tell us that this is the price you pay for living in such a great place like the Bay Area. And I agree to a certain extent. But as kickass as it is here, does it really – REALLY – justify having housing prices that are four times higher than areas like Fort Collins, or Austin, et al? Both cool towns (although I wouldn’t wanna live there) but the same house we’re looking at here would be considerably less than $200k in those markets. And yes, salaries are more here, but not four times more.

All of this is scary enough for folks like us; young professionals who earn a very good living. But it makes me wonder how others can afford to live here. Okay, sure – in Marin, we’re looking at a REALLY high rent area – but you go outside Marin, to other counties. Go north to Sonoma. Go east to Alameda or Contra Costa. You’re still looking at over $500,000 for a starter home. How the hell can the average family of four manage this? How can the folks working in the service industry afford to live here? In short, how can the housing market exploit people THAT much? Because people are willing to pay.

Which is what we’re gonna do. And I’m sure once we’re out of this apartment and into an actual home, my opinion will change somewhat, thinking that it’s worth it. But right now, I just can’t help but think of the first of the month, writing checks for half of our monthly income, and feeling the pinch.