Curtains - Desi style

Ever since we bought the house, we have been planning to shop for curtains in India. The reason being, its cheaper and there is a wider variety.

Before we left on our vacation, we measured every window in our house and Jag meticulously recorded it in a spreadsheet.

Useful measurements:

• height and width of the window
• clearance from the floor and ceiling
• distance you have on either side of the window till the end of the wall

Places to shop in Madras:

• Curtains by Rastogis - North Boag road, very near Kasi Arcade - as its a one-way, you would need to drive down the road adjacent to GRT grand and take the first left, park near the intersection and you'll find the shop on the first block on your right.
• Raghurams - opposite the post office, pondy bazaar

A few points to keep in mind:

• The sales people are sometimes very convincing - but try not to be taken in - if you have a particular style in mind then take pictures and show them.
• While measuring for a valance, allow about 6-8 inches of overlap from the edge of the window. Otherwise, when you hang them, it looks too abrupt - doesn't drape the window well.
• Drapes look very different in different lights. We bought a chutney green material for our bedroom. It looks more brown in the yellow lights.

We also had an option to shop in Coimbatore but after a visit to Innovations and an independent consultant we decided to go with our choices in Madras - main reason - extremely expensive!! Materials that cost us Rs.220 by the meter in Madras was quoted as Rs.350.

Bargain is the name of the game!

What's the best floorplan?

As if being a property virgin is not difficult enough, choices and questions further complicate the situation.

So when I first started house hunting, one of the most time consuming decisions was choosing a floorplan. Its a very simple question" What kind of floorplan would you like? " arriving at the answer, however, is a learning process. The first thing I did, was ofcourse to ask Google -- ideal floorplan? It gave me toooooo many hits but nothing really stood out. So I decided to chalk out what was important to me. This is what the list looked like:

• open kitchen
• 2 story home
• big master suite (bedroom and attached bath)
• 2 bedrooms on the main floor (master and another or parents when they visit)
• formal living and dining
• 4:3.5 was the bed to bath ratio

The more I thought about it, the more the list grew (the typical buyer - champagne taste for beer money!). In all the houses we toured, there was one thing or the other that was missing. But finally, though we didn't have the second bed on the main floor, we decided on one house - tipping factor? awesome kitchen, wood floors, recent renovations, ready to move in.

What about being a Buyer's agent?

I am now a regular on activerain.com If you haven't already been there, its the cyberspace for and of Realtors , mortgage brokers and pretty much any and every one related to the real estate industry. Most registered members primarily use it as a space for "networking"(to be read as " just another place to put ur business cards out") but they share invaluable information on their blogs. It has helped me get a better picture of the housing market and ofcourse it helped me find my Realtor!

Anyways that's not the point of my blog. So I came across a thread of thoughts on activeRain that spoke about how a Realtor should not be weighed by how many successful listings (s)he has had but rather by what innovative ideas of marketing your house (s)he brings to the table. Well yeah I agree... but I find something missing here... there was no mention about the "buyer's agent" role! How come that is not considered as a yard stick?

So is finding homes for potential buyers considered an easy chore? If yes, are seller agents compensated more for their labor intense task or do the agents on both sides do a 50-50?

Or maybe, doing the 50-50 has become an unspoken rule and so the agents recover the sweat equity billing lost in a sale through a buyer representation deal? Interesting...

Hmmm.. I've never sold a home before so naturally I may not know the intricacies involved in that process but I definitely understand a lot about home buying. And from what I've seen, I think being a buyer's agent is a challenge. So, it just bothers me a little that its not part of the yardstick in a Realtor measurement.

Reasons to reject

In the past few months of my house hunting, there have been homes I have rejected off the bat, after a tour, after a tour & 2 days of thought and because my husband talked me out of it (yeah Jag, I still hold the grudge!).  So why the rejections?

Off the bat rejects

• Homes facing south /west – good energy flows from the north and east or so my mom told me!
• Homes facing a T junction – considered an obstruction to energy flow J (yeah we superstitious nuts!)
  
• Homes backing to a major road – now I’ve got a logical explanation for this: Noise levels! (Ha ! so happy I could redeem myself)

After Tour rejections

• Layout – master bed up; a narrow and closed in stairway in the middle of the house; no flow
• Kitchen - cramped kitchen; kitchen does not have an exterior wall (totally rules out the possibility of installing a “vent out” mechanism – essential for Asian cooking)
  
• Cosmetic - wall paper nightmares
  
• Other - no gas for heating/cooking, high cost and more must-needed renovations

After tour & thought

• Pricing – most expensive home on the block
  
• Unusual upgrades – 50K pool but laminate countertop kitchens (priorities come into play here)
  
• Location – near a landfill / car junk yard / opposite a school / cemetery
  

Ask for the moon!

Well, ppl call it a buyer's market but being a "buyer" in this market, I really don't think everything is out there and I just need to ask for it. Well, I'm not talking about the sellers... the issues are with the lenders.  Second loans are almost non existent these days. So if you are planning for a 80/10/10 - forget about it. Also no watercooler wisdom is valid anymore. This economy is a one off. So if you see a rate you like and you are planning to close soon, then please lock it. Don't wait for the perfect Monday! :) 

Watching these rates over the past 6 weeks is liking watching a roller coaster. It dropped like crazy in Sept, was back up for a few weeks and dropped again in the beginning of Oct and has spiked back up again! It makes me ride the roller coaster too... emotionally!  

So... it looks like the only place you can ask for something and have great chances of getting it, is on the offer and ensuing amendments. Here are some things worth asking for:

• 24 hrs offer expiry time - helps keep the seller "shop around" time to a minimum.
  
• closing date - for you apartment dwellers this clause will give you your "move out notice" time.
• contigent upon inspection  -if something big comes up on inspection like foundation problems, you'll have the option to walk off from the deal. This clause can also be covered by putting in an option period by which you should plan to get the inspection done. This will also help warm up your cold feet from buyer's remorse! :)
• contigent upon mortgage rate agreeable to the buyer - you can put in a more specific rate and state that the deal holds only if you get a rate within that number.
• closing costs - ask for closing costs and do mention that any leftover monies should be used for a price adjustment.

 

POPCORN!

No, I’m not talking about the yellowish white fluffy stuff we gorge on while watching movies. Look up… I’m talking about your ceiling. Popcorn ceilings are the worst. I hate it and it’s almost the first thing I notice while walking through a house!

If the ceilings are not high enough, you tend to notice it more. Especially the dirt that sticks to it! It’s so hard to clean, expensive to remove and if it’s been painted over… then definitely forget about DIY!

Thanks to the construction workers who lived in the 70’s and their need to cover up the imperfections in their work, we ended up with this horrible technique.

What's on my priority list?

May 08

• new construction
• good school district
• 2800 sq ft or >
  
• 230K or <
• big kitchen with island
• gas cooktop
• 3+ bedrooms
• 2.5+ baths
• master bedroom down 

September 08

• atleast within 10 years old
• Plano / Allen
• 250K or <
• North or East facing, no T junction locations, not backing to major roads
• 2800 sq ft or >
• master bedroom down
• 3+ beds
• 2.5 + baths
• gas cooktop vented out
• solid surface countertop
• study or extra bedroom down
• pool
• hardwood floors