What’s for Dinner
Spring is really here in San Francisco: I can tell not only from the beautiful balmy day we had today, but from the fact that this week’s veggie box contained no chard and no kale! Instead we got a big bunch of spearmint, pea shoots, a little radicchio head, a small bulb of fennel, a bag of spinach, two bundles of leeks, and two huge bunches of carrots. I cooked one whole bunch of carrots last night in a mushroom-barley soup; I used the cooking broth left over from boiling our corned beef on St. Paddy’s Day, and it turned out really nicely. I was proud of myself since I’m generally such a rigid cook, hewing tightly to recipes; that soup was entirely improvised and it came out tasty.
Tonight we’re eating spinach salad with bacon and hard-boiled eggs; tomorrow night I think we’ll have the pea shoots and radicchio in another salad, with roasted fennel and carrots alongside. For Saturday and Sunday I just don’t know; we might be going to see more houses on those days, or we might not. We’ve made a formal offer on the bungalow I mentioned in my last post. There’s another offer already in for the property, so we don’t know if we’ll actually get it, and our realtor thinks it’s wise to have a second-choice property picked out. But, you know, we really like that one. We’ve gone back a couple of times just to wander around the neighborhood and we keep finding more to like: a park! a library! a coffee shop that makes beignets! It’s on High Street so in my head it’s “High House,” or sometimes “High Garden House” because the backyard slopes up steeply and I have dreams of a terraced garden. I also think “The House on High Street” sounds like a good title for a novel, although the goings-on in said novel would probably be sordid!
I truly believe that house is an excellent value. When it was last sold, two years ago, a bunch of inspections were done, which we’ve been able to see. The property is basically in solid shape. It has some issues that would be true of any house that age; the most serious is that earthquake retrofitting was never done, and some work would be needed to bring it up to modern standards. We’ve structured our offer so that some money would be set aside to complete that work. I’m a little worried that the bank might balk at that, and we might have to reconfigure the offer in order to get the loan finalized. Anyway, there’s some stress and uncertainty involved, but I guess there always is in these kinds of situations.
I’m still sort of amazed that a house valued at $500,000 two years ago is now selling for $150,000. It’s a short sale, which I don’t fully understand, but I think that’s better karma than a foreclosure: nobody is getting kicked out of the house. The bank has instead agreed to let the current owners sell for less (probably much less) than they currently owe on the mortgage; as far as I understand, it’s a way for them to walk away from an overpriced loan without damage to their credit, and a way for the bank to recoup some money on a mortgage that would otherwise likely default. Short sales are pretty complicated, but because there is this more-or-less amicable agreement between the sellers and the buyers, these houses generally don’t get trashed the way foreclosures often do.
I’m rambling. I’m nervous. I don’t know what I’m going to do with my spearmint. Mom, can you tell me exactly how you used to make mint sun tea? What kind of tea, and how much of it, and how long do you let it steep in the sun? And how much of the spearmint should I put in?
March 20th, 2009 at 12:12 am
When we had an offer in for our house it was really stressful because I liked the house so much. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you.
a coffee shop that makes beignets
What are beignets?
March 20th, 2009 at 8:41 am
Chunks of sweet, deep-fried dough sprinkled with powdered sugar–like a doughnut but somehow much, much better. Wikipedia has pictures:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beignet
March 20th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Spring is here in Dallas also, with trees blooming and wild flowers showing off their colors… We can finally take the kids out to the park and enjoy these few good days.
The house sounds nice. It will be a financial obiligation – but if it’s affadable, then it shall be okay – actually it is a good timing to buy since the house price is much more rational now.
Best wishes!
March 21st, 2009 at 9:31 am
The mint would also be good for making mojitos! Just saying…
March 21st, 2009 at 11:48 pm
Thank you Pei — I hope so! Glad the weather is nice in Dallas 🙂
Wendy: mojitos are a good idea!
March 26th, 2009 at 6:27 am
Best of luck on the house purchase. We just sold & bought in December so I fully understand the stress. My understanding about short sales is that they are usually more problematic than foreclosures. It seems counterintitive – you would think all parties would be motivated the sell – but the reality is the banks often reject the offers or take forever to respond due to understaffing that the short sale often turns into a foreclosure. The good news for you, I think! is that you have time. The transaction can take months.
Is the property above or below MacArthur? We just moved from that area after living there for 8 years so I’m very familiar with it.
March 26th, 2009 at 8:08 am
Below–which for us is good (walkable to BART).
March 26th, 2009 at 9:20 am
And a lot of markets, restaurants, & taco trucks, if you’re so inclined, you can walk to as well! Again, best of luck. The process is so unbelievably stressful but it’s worth it.
March 26th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Thank you! You’re not wrong about short sales taking a long time. our agent has warned us it could be as long as six weeks before we get a response to our offer.