What the REO?
I had never heard the term REO before I started house hunting this time. In fact, I still don't really know what the initials stand for. I do know it means a house that has been foreclosed on and now is owned by a bank. The house that we're currently under contract on is an REO, owned by Fannie Mae. Adding to my show of ignorance, I didn't know that Fannie Mae outright owned houses either. But they do, and here we are, in a legally binding business deal with them.
The house is being sold as-is. This is both good and bad. The good is that it is in our meager price range, but located in Olympus Cove. 'The Cove' as I call it, was always, to me, a place for those people that took vacations to Disneyland that included a personal tour guide for $200 an hour and got plastic surgery for sport and out of boredom. I went to a party once up in the Cove as a freshman in college. It was at the dean's house and I figured this was a place reserved only for people older, richer, and snobbier than me. The other association with 'The Cove' was the fact that it rests on THE fault line. Now, whether or not this is actually scientifically true has yet to be been confirmed for me, but that has always been the assumption. I'd always imagined its residents, having recently returned from their glutton-ridden CA or FL vacation, sitting at their high-end granite counter top kitchen island, planning out their next unnecessary surgical procedure. All of a sudden their pure-bred prize winning Yorkshire or Pekingese starts running in circles whining incessantly. Suddenly the floor starts vibrating, and the house begins to rock. Before they know it, they find themselves next to Crown Pawn Shop on State Street. Their house has slid all the way down the mountain-side and although their house is in shambles they find their address has change to - heaven forbid - something on the West-side! If the earthquake didn't kill them, they'll die of shame for certain!
Now - given the realization that we may potentially and very realistically find ourselves living in 'The Cove', my attitude has change for all that. Are these people really so shallow, I mean really, wouldn't I get some nip and a little tuck here and there if I had cash at my disposal? Who wouldn't love to receive a history of the teacups found in Alice's Wonderland, while others watched me jump in line in front of them as I ooze with importance?
But, there is a bad part of our change of address in this particular case of home-ownership (uh, minus the potential for being swallowed up into the earth at some point, or running out of body parts to have stretched, augmented, or 're-done'). Logically, to get in the neighborhood, in our price range, the house would have to be in pretty shabby conditions. When normally the inspectors report is clean, with small notations of 'could use a better shade of blue in the bathroom' or 'the grass is too green and the garden could use some weeding', our inspection received yesterday for The Cove house was slightly more daunting. To summarize from the handy-man husband, "Well, all the plumbing and electrical needs to be redone." My reply was, "So he didn't find major issues with the water seeping into the foundation to the basement? That's good I suppose."
But, there I lay in bed all last night, fantasizing about which color blue I will in fact put on the walls of the newly plumbed bathroom, how I can get that grass a good green, and just how gorgeous my counter tops will look shimmering in the sun as my house slides west.
The house is being sold as-is. This is both good and bad. The good is that it is in our meager price range, but located in Olympus Cove. 'The Cove' as I call it, was always, to me, a place for those people that took vacations to Disneyland that included a personal tour guide for $200 an hour and got plastic surgery for sport and out of boredom. I went to a party once up in the Cove as a freshman in college. It was at the dean's house and I figured this was a place reserved only for people older, richer, and snobbier than me. The other association with 'The Cove' was the fact that it rests on THE fault line. Now, whether or not this is actually scientifically true has yet to be been confirmed for me, but that has always been the assumption. I'd always imagined its residents, having recently returned from their glutton-ridden CA or FL vacation, sitting at their high-end granite counter top kitchen island, planning out their next unnecessary surgical procedure. All of a sudden their pure-bred prize winning Yorkshire or Pekingese starts running in circles whining incessantly. Suddenly the floor starts vibrating, and the house begins to rock. Before they know it, they find themselves next to Crown Pawn Shop on State Street. Their house has slid all the way down the mountain-side and although their house is in shambles they find their address has change to - heaven forbid - something on the West-side! If the earthquake didn't kill them, they'll die of shame for certain!
Now - given the realization that we may potentially and very realistically find ourselves living in 'The Cove', my attitude has change for all that. Are these people really so shallow, I mean really, wouldn't I get some nip and a little tuck here and there if I had cash at my disposal? Who wouldn't love to receive a history of the teacups found in Alice's Wonderland, while others watched me jump in line in front of them as I ooze with importance?
But, there is a bad part of our change of address in this particular case of home-ownership (uh, minus the potential for being swallowed up into the earth at some point, or running out of body parts to have stretched, augmented, or 're-done'). Logically, to get in the neighborhood, in our price range, the house would have to be in pretty shabby conditions. When normally the inspectors report is clean, with small notations of 'could use a better shade of blue in the bathroom' or 'the grass is too green and the garden could use some weeding', our inspection received yesterday for The Cove house was slightly more daunting. To summarize from the handy-man husband, "Well, all the plumbing and electrical needs to be redone." My reply was, "So he didn't find major issues with the water seeping into the foundation to the basement? That's good I suppose."
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