Buying a House

It took me 6 months to find the house I want to buy 2 years ago and made an offer on it. I bought the house February of 2008. It was a good deal despite the painting I have to do for most indoor parts of the house. 

Met my friend at church this Sunday and learned that the house they wanted to buy in Alpharetta didn't work out. The same agent helped them find a second option but the negotiation sounded like a ripper. The seller has to stay for two more months in their house and wanted to sell it now and have asked my friend and his wife to pay for the two months mortgage till they get out. Obviously their agent is not good at all. 

I suggested to my friend that he should start looking to work with other agent(s). What I did when I was looking for a house was to start working with two agents. They both showed many great houses. One of them had over 20 years of experience and she knows well her job. The other he just started 4 years ago. The former tried to dig as much as information from me as she can. She asked about my hobbies, lifestyle, and the criteria I wanted for a house. What I liked about her is she did what I wanted her to do. I wanted her to look for a house within my budget but has to start looking closer to where I work and then search away from the city till she find some houses that I can look at. We looked at about 30 houses with different styles, floor plan, landscape, neighborhood, you name it. The other agent somehow made it clear he's not as experienced as the other, he didn't ask alot of questions. So I chose the lady agent. It helped me alot to know what I want because of her many questions.

She also educated me about the best sidings, best floorings, symptoms of bad and good roofs, lightings and fixtures, paints, kitchen style, garage doors and every aspect of the house may it be inside or outside that would increase the value/resale of the house. It was all good and she prepared me enough in the future in case I will be buying a house again.

There's no restriction as to how many agents you can work with but not until you decide to put an offer on a house and agree to work with an agent exclusively. This gives you a better situation as to choosing who's providing you better service and promoting competition between them. 

From what I remember this is what we did with my agent.

1. Worked with a financial officer to determine how much I can afford. He suggested I can 

    use 80% of my income to buy a house but in my mind it was ridiculous. There's just so much 

    things I need to pay for and I'm not gonna dedicate my savings in paying my mortgage.

2. Identified my budget in a given range. I chose to dedicate 35% of my income for the          

    mortgage. 

3. Choose geographic location

4. Scheduled bi-weekly tours to houses on sale with different floor plans.

5. Visited both houses on sale and on foreclosure. Foreclosed houses seems to have more things 

     to be fixed and not worth it and its sold as is.

6. After checking 30 houses, we chose my top 5 and visited them again until I end up with the 

    one best suited my taste and needs.

I'm really glad I worked with an agent who knows what she's doing and I would definitely recommend working with an agent who's got a lot of years of experience.

Private Mortgage Insurance Inquiry for SunTrust

I called up the SunTrust mortgage customer service this afternoon to inquire about when can I stop paying my PMI. I asked how much I have paid on my loan and I was told that it would take some time to go through my statements and checking for escrow payment changes. He said it would take about 30 minutes to sum all my payments. I said I can wait. But then he immediately followed up saying that he cannot promise me that he would be on the phone the whole time since their will be other calls that he needs to attend and he cannot let them pass. Then he suggested that I can do this myself by going to their website. This is the whole point of my call. I don't want to bother scavenging through my statements and sum my total payments. I told him that and he responded that he can use his 15 minutes break to do it for me and call me after but he can't promise. 

Our conversation brought back my nightmares with Comcast. SunTrust, Comcast sounds the same isn't it? Funny. But he called back after 15 mninutes! For 3 times he mentioned how much interest I've paid. It wasn't I was asking for..... and at the background I hear these pages turned one after another. I feel like Customer Service is part of the White House. 

I gave up on that question and instead asked when can I stop paying my PMI since I didn't have enough to pay 20% of the loan when I bought the house. He gave me an answer where I'm like still buying the house. My loan to value is currently 96% he said which has nothing to do with my question. I heard the pages flipping again at the background as if he was trying to find the answer his trainor gave to him. He kept on explaining the loan to value definition then he asked if I have any more questions and I immediately said no and thank you. 

I feel bad for these companies hiring people for their Customer Service Department and not able to deliver what their customer wants. That was a waste of time for both of us but he still get paid. I wonder how many times does he flip through the pages while he's on the phone with customers. I wonder if that was even their 200 pound manual.  

Teenagers to fight Terrorism?

What in the world the Boy Scouts of America are doing? They have created this platform to train teenagers as early as 13 years old to combat terrorism. These boys have no clue what will be the effect of this program to them in the future. Their brains are gonna be wired with the illusion of adventure but in reality its violence that they are trying to experience. Teens and Violence are a bad combination. This organization is building a bomb right in the heart of these young ones.

It just shocks me that this program existed and has been running for couple of years now and evidently not a single parent have made comments on it. These kids for sure will build up addiction for guns.  If their head is not straight, upon reaching their adulthood, I hope that they won't end up in school, or stores, or church's pulling the trigger as if everybody is a target.

I wish Boys Scouts of America will shape the values and morals of these kids first and let them come in for an anti-terrorism program once they are emotionally and intellectually stable.

Chris Allen Made It To The Finals!

I have not voted for Chris Allennot even once but my fiancee does... and he made it to the American Idol Finale! I think he deserves it. He'd tried hard to be competitive and has immensely improved! I knew Danny would be in trouble since he's just been sounding the same everytime. Adam on the other hand, no doubt, has great talent even when it comes to doing make up and dressing up.

I feel bad though for Danny. But the three of them are all good. If you would ask me who to vote for in the finals, I would go for Chris.

US Immigration Law is only an option?

My blood starts boiling when I see illegal immigrants/aliens marching on the streets protesting for the need of "amnesty". I believe in the laws of the land. If you break it, it will judge you. But while politics is packed with hidden agenda, immigration law becomes a shaded area. I do not agree that illegal aliens brings good business to the nation, which alot thinks become a defense to keep them in place. 

My grandfather who is a native of the Philippines came to USA in the late 70's as a permanent resident and 5 years after he got his citizenship he applied for his children permanent residency, and there were 21 of them. I was 7 years old then and our family was looking forward to it. We've waited for almost 14 years till our priority date came. Everybody was ecstatic....except me because I was over 21 years old and the INS law says that if a previous applicant was under that age and the priority date came but was now over 21 then that application is now voided. My immigration application was scratched. It was a big disappointment. My family tried to talk to the consulate about my situation but they stick to the rule. So they all came here and I stayed in the Philippines while at the same time finishing college. My sisters made it worse when they tell stories about their life here and made me feel really, extremely jealous and drove me insane. 

I finally had the chance to come to USA after 8 years and I took it. But not the chance an immigration can give me but for advancing my schooling to an MS in Computer Science and the school sponsored me as an international student though my mom filed for a re-application of my permanent residency years ago (1998) which is still in process. I am now here on H1B. I'm with my family. I got a decent job. I'm getting married soon. I'm happy.

My situation is not unique. Alot of people are still in their home countries waiting for their immigration application approval and some may end up having their application voided because of age limit which doesn't make any sense at all! Why would they void? I don't understand it. And here come's the illegal aliens asking for amnesty. There are alot of working professionals here on H1B and are living the pain of waiting for their permanent residency approval. Some of them get unlucky and have to go home since their H1B got exhausted (valid for 6 years only). They work hard. They contribute to the national economy. They get paid lower than their citizen counter parts. The only drag on H1B is that you are only tied to one company. If they kick you out and nobody can sponsor you in a month or two then you have to go back to your home country. That sucks. How can the smart politicians at the white house get really illogical and bias with helping illegals get naturalized automatically?? Crazy.

Hear this. Some people wait for decades before they can come here legaly. A friend of mine was sponsored by his dad for his immigration application. His dad died before his priority date and his application was voided. Of course people at the INS just followed the rule and he's just one of the numbers in the paper. Not even mercy can step in and bend the law for the illegals at this point in comparison. 

Venetian Plaster Painting

I have this master's bathroom which I started painting with Venetian Plaster March of 2008. My curiosity kicked in when I saw how wickedly beautiful this paint looked after a finished product. So my adventure and attitue of never say die led me to try it out to my bathroom. I bought several gallons of Behr Venetian Plaster of Bacchus Red color.
Following all the directions from the paint can and from several watched youtube videos I started with the small toilet room. The instructions looked very easy but the real application process was a nightmare for a first timer! It's like building a sand castle while the tide continuously hammers on it and start over again. It was all new to me. I have two steel trowel and a plaster that hardens really fast. The first coat was a mess, I saw alot of bubbles and some areas cracking. I didn't give up so I went ahead and bought a sanding machine. Yea, sanding machine so I can cleanup the surfaces and at least make it smooth and almost even. My problem was I put too much plaster on the wall. The plaster is heavy enough that gravity pulls them while at the same time they are drying. Even though I followed the recommendations, experience always teaches you something people won't tell you. They suggested to do the following:
1. First coat - put enough plaster on the trowel and apply to wall at 20 degree angle.
2. Second coat - put enough plaster on the trowel and apply to wall between 40-60 degree angle.
3. Third coat - put less plaster on the trowel and apply to wall at 90 degree angle.
4. Apply more coats to make elevation effects more obvious.
5. Seal it with wax using the same trowel to prevent the plaster from building molds/mildew.
I followed all of them but what drove me nuts was that the plaster had higher viscosity and quickly dries out that it's so hard to re-spread them on the wall once they are applied. Also, what I found out was that the bigger the trowel the better and faster the application process is.
My small toilet room has a total of 10 coats. I sweat blood on it. I was curious how it looks so I did it but it came out really nice. I actually used an electric buffer that would polish the finished wall after applying the wax. That served as my motivation to tackle the humungous bathroom which after a year I'm still doing it. Some of my friends called me crazy since I never had any experience doing this. But at least I tried and I think its paying off.
Here's what I'm currently painting. A shot I took from my iPhone 1st generation.



And here's the completed painting of the plaster from my small toilet room attached to the master's bathroom.



As of this writing, I had just finished the 4th coat on the bathroom. I have another 3 at least more to do. The bias side of my brain is insisting to just call somebody and have it finished. I'm not listening to it so I'm gonna finish it myself. I will post an update on this blog as soon as I'm done with the rest of the bathroom painting.
No pain. No gain.

Update as of 02/19/2011.

Finally finished the entire master's bathroom, all i have to do is mount the light fixture on the wall. Will post more pictures once all furnitures are up! As per Michae's request below I'm attaching the small toilet's look after 10 coats.