House hunting again

I have spent the last few days in a rather rainy Napa valley with the vinocrew,just sitting around eating,drinking and chatting nonsense. Much of the conversation has centered around my continuing quest for a new house somewhere in the valley. At the end of last summer I agreed on a deal for a house on the west side of the valley up among the redwoods, a deal that fell through when we discovered the pregnancy of Mrs OTW. As it turns out the rather good deal I had struck was not so good, as the house has now sold for 100k less than I agreed on...whoops! So now I have to look for a house that fits my no doubt impossible criteria plus I have to figure out if the market has bottomed out. It does seem that many people despairing of the present situation are holding onto their houses in the hope that sale prices will improve, as I have noticed a distinct lack of quality properties coming onto the market. So yet again I am scouring all available information and driving around the valley like a madman...after all ,the coming baby will not wait.

Juicy.

Princess OTW examines the grapes brix during a break in our house hunting. The hunt for a new house in Napa has proved interesting and educational. I am well versed in all the quirks of English housing but I am a confessed novice at the mysteries of American housing. It is initially difficult to see past the relative feeling of flimsiness that houses here seem to engender so I have to remind myself that weather conditions mean that here in California it is not necessary to live in a triple insulated bunker...luckily. I have found a property that seems to fill most of my criteria...house, guest house, land and room for radical rebuilding.....now I just need owners to realise that prices have dropped rather rapidly lately! I will probably put a formal offer in later this week after I get some advice on well etc....a well!...what the hell is that all about?

Crash,bang,wallop!

I have been involved in the property market for twenty years now and have experienced most aspects of it including a couple of market crashes.I have and still do buy,rent,restore and build houses although my main interest is in restoring period properties,mainly victorian and georgian but I'm hoping to work on even older houses in near future.As I have written before however,the current economic turmoil in the U.K. is causing me major problems as I cannot decide which way the market is going .....or if its going at all.I have several properties on sale at present a couple of which have languished unsold for a year now. The last two weeks have however produced offers on 4 houses...two good and two low offers...what to do? Nulabours nationalising of Northern wreck has even further clouded the waters as I am firmly convinced that nulabour have lost whatever tenuous grip they ever did have on our economy...listen gordo...when the world was booming over the last decade even a trained monkey could make money...I'm proof...it wasn't you and prudence! I'm tempted to take all the offers and move on with new projects whilst keeping the rest of the companies properties tucked away till the market recovers...if it ever does. I started buiding in America last year for the first time...great timing as the crash in property sales has if anything been even worse (balanced in my mind by a much better working enviroment)......only good thing is that this crash will get rid of the speculators that have driven the market to unreasonable heights with sometimes shoddy goods...quality will out...I hope!

Rotten luck

Finally finished off stripping turret roof on a late Victorian house today whilst taking advantage of rather good weather. Unfortunately the dreaded rot had taken hold and nasty surprises lurked in every piece of the structure....so it all has to be rebuilt.Just for once I'd like a simple repair..mind you not bad I suppose after being exposed to Liverpools maritime winters for over 120 years.I,ve only been through 40 odd of these winters and I'm ready to fly south at a moments notice! The housing market seems to be throwing up some surprises too...I have had offers on four houses this week..in contrast to offers on two houses in previous year.Do these people know something I don't?....if so...tell me.I don't think that interest rate drop has been big enough yet to account for this and I doubt Liverpools capital of culture status has contributed much.ha!....oh well time to take the money and run.

House hunting

I'm off up to Napa valley this morning to do some house hunting.The whole process of looking for a house here is very different from home..mainly in that estate agents here work much more on a one to one basis....unlike the faceless service at home.In the end though its all pretty much the same...give us your money! I,m planning to start after breakfast (gillwoods diner) in St.Helena and work down the valley for awhile.The idea is to find a "fixer upper"...or what ever it is called over here....a rip out by any name anyway. Everything over in Ca is so different from U.K. that I,ve taken a couple of years looking at how every aspect of building works here that I can..its been an education...from houses I usually work on that are 200 years old to houses that seem made of nothing more substantial than balsa wood...they seem to work though! I learnt from the great house my family in Utah have just finished that American building practise is much better than the slipshod methods usually employed in U.K....not by me and my diddymen I must add! The Valley is such a mix of architectural styles that as of yet I,ve no idea what I,m looking for, which is unusual because in U.K. I have very fixed ideas....the freedom of choice is rather liberating and I,m hoping to be working on a new project here by the end of this year.....we will see!