Nothing but a Generalized Insanity Blog™ and repository of random finds AKA Brain Dumps™. This is a CaseyPedia Approved corner of the CaseySphere and the Official Source of 6 Degrees of Casey Serin™. We are Project SCOBY Doo™ and we are purveyors of fine thongs, butt plugs, fishnets, Nietzsche, Fruit Loops™ and duck dongs for the likes of Nicole Richie and Paris Hilton among other well-established celubutards! A Shining example of how NOT to blog.
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Landmark Bourn Mansion (2550 Webster) Listed And Your Peek Inside dungeon? i had to look that up to be sure... it has a very specific definition (a room used to imprison people). i hope he means basement! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon Posted by: hugh at August 31, 2009 4:56 PM Dungeons are called "oubliettes" in French. A very cute name meaning you'd dump people (for instance unruly servants) in there and forget ("oublier") about them. Another more common usage was as a meat storage room. In some cold regions, you'd lay a depth of snow, throw cattle or game carcasses over, one layer of snow, one layer of meat, and so on. The food would stay cold way into the spring. I don't know which of the 2 usages he was talking about, but I'd open the dungeon doors with extreme precaution.
BREAKING NEWS UPDATE! Wouldn't Akubi look adorably pissed off in this Hello Kitty™ costume?
While browsing for Sweet Deals™ I discovered this gem. If you're tempted to snap it up, I'm sorry to say it is in firm escrow. I just love the description of this lovely house:
WARNING, the pool in the rear of yard has collapsed in on itself. The pool deck arond the pool is very dangerous. We are advising that you not enter the rear yard, and if you do enter the rear yard, you are doing so at your own risk. The City of Petaluma may be requiring a soils report.
Speaking of Sweet Deals™, upon closer examination my latest find isn't all that impressive. They did a half-ass job on the foundation and ruined the feng shui of the living room by adding a stairway to the "loft" in the attic and didn't bother to obtain permits. When I crawled under the house I discovered that parts of the foundation looked as bad as this one.
This short sale is currently listed well below Zestimate and it includes a new foundation, roof and other key structural fixes for an Art and Crafts era house. Here's the 5 year Zillow chart: Nicely preserved vintage details:
Here's the 10 year Zillow chart: Due to issues with a "tenant" who is getting free rent I haven't seen the inside yet. However, what I saw from the outside suggests someone put some serious effort into key structural issues within the last 5 years. The newly reinforced foundation couldn't be older than that. Given places like this other sweet deal™ (in a far more expensive location) that can make a huge difference in real cost vs. Zestimate.
While I don’t think anyone else would, I love this place. It is in one of my highly desirable locations in the shade of the redwoods and is super-cheap by any comp standards, but it lacks a few things – like a bathroom. Since my real estate agent no longer responds to my email, I was pleased to note that the lockbox was nothing more than a ruse this evening. A basement door allowed accidental entry – and I found a lot of potential extra space I wouldn’t have imagined in the bottom floor. Of course, a decent foundation might be needed, but it’s a sweet f-ing deal. Once I crawled up from the basement and let my BF in, he wasn’t all that impressed and seemed more concerned with not falling through the floorboards. Tried to remind him of local Zestimates and such to no avail…
It is not just in California anymore! The Casey Virus™ continues to spread...
Hat tip (again) to Wagga for this find:
Some nights Terry and Carrie Madden won’t even step onto their patio in Waldo — the stench and mosquitoes from the abandoned swimming pool next door are overpowering.
The Maddens’ cash-strapped neighbors moved out in August, and the lender on the now-vacant house let it fall into disrepair. The pool is slime-green.
As mentioned in the comments yesterday Congresswoman Laura Richardson denied foreclosure reports stating "the residential property in Sacramento California is not in foreclosure and has NOT been seized by the bank." Hmmm, perhaps she has a different definition of foreclosure given the latest reports. According to the WSJ: The Sacramento home of Rep. Laura Richardson was sold in a public auction two weeks ago for $388,000. The Southern California Democrat bought the house for $535,000 with no money down in January 2007 and owed nearly $575,000 to Washington Mutual when the mortgage was sold earlier this month at a significant loss to Red Rock Mortgage Inc.
Additional details from a recent L.A. Land post from the L.A. Times: They took a beating," James York, the Sacramento real estate broker who said he bought Richardson's house at a foreclosure auction, told the Daily Breeze.
The Daily Breeze report is based on public documents the newspaper published on its website, and an interview with York. It is at odds with Richardson's statement yesterday, in which the Long Beach Democrat said she had worked out a loan modification with her lender, and would "fulfill all financial obligations" on the property.
The Daily Breeze: "Rep. Laura Richardson lost her Sacramento home in a foreclosure auction two weeks ago, and left behind nearly $9,000 in unpaid property taxes. Richardson, D-Long Beach, appears to have made only a few payments on the house, which she bought in January 2007 for $535,000."
The newspaper's report -- that the house was foreclosed and an auction took place -- appears to conflict with Richardson's statement that the house "is not in foreclosure." (see the entire statement at the bottom of this post). Richardson's office has not responded to a request from L.A. Land for additional information about her mortgage and loan modification. The Daily Breeze reports she declined to be interviewed about the controversy.
The newspaper's report also calls into question Richardson's statement that she had worked out a loan modification with her lender and would fulfill all financial obligations related to the property. The Daily Breeze reports that the house sold for only $388,000, far below the $574,000 that Richardson owed on the property. Further, the Daily Breeze reports that the new owner, York, "assumed responsibility for Richardson's unpaid property tax bill of $8,950.79."
"Tell Laura I'd be happy to have her pay my property tax," he told the newspaper.
I just don't get it. Why would she lie about something that could be so easily verified? Will she next say that she didn't realize her home was sold in a public auction two weeks ago? I guess we'll find out...
Video UPDATE! (Disabled due to annoying AARP commercials)
I am not a big fan of sending my $ to the United State of Exxon, Halliburton, et al. so paying taxes has been an extraordinarily annoying process over the past few years. While I’ve worked and re-worked various options, deductions are clearly not keeping up with inflation and paying off one’s mortgage principal due to economic concerns sure bites one in the ass. Why is it that irresponsible POS like Casey Serin or evil mofos like Dick Cheney get by just fine while responsible people in the middle are f-ed up the ass? Overall, I’ve had a pretty shitty day, but I was hoping to get over it and blow off some steam by going on a long uphill walk with Akubi and Tanuki. We discovered some interesting things on the way up, questionable issues at the top and more annoying crap on the way down. Somewhere between nearing the top and the destination we felt OK. This area attracts a ton of birds and there were more ravens than usual on the tree in the photo yet they flew elsewhere before we arrived and I could locate my crappy camera. While the boys caught their breath and we watched the already setting sun, I realized my f-ing sunglasses were gone. I have been wearing those f-ing sunglasses for at least 5 years and spent more on them than any others and they survived longer than any others, but were now gone. Panic set in yet I hoped they may be found in some other pocket of my overstuffed backpack when we got home. On the way downhill there was this shaved-head guy walking uphill with 2 very large dogs in attack mode that he clearly could not manage. Despite the fact that they freaked out my exhausted little dogs, he didn’t bother to apologize for his dogs’ behavior. Having grown up with big dogs like German Shepherds, Alaskan Malamutes, etc I have found it is rather important to learn to control them if they are much bigger than you. I’ll probably never have a yard big enough for the sort of dog I grew up with, so I have Pomeranians and find them far more puzzling. Despite their size they seem to believe they are very big dogs. And guess what? If my boys weren’t exhausted they could have kicked the shaved-head guy’s big hostile dogs’ ass! Nonetheless that guy was a jerk.
Hydro-Net, by San Francisco architects IwamotoScott, who spoke last year at BLDGBLOG's San Francisco event, has been making the rounds lately, popping up on all sorts of architecture and design blogs – but rightly so: it won first prize in the History Channel's recent "City of the Future" competition, and it offers up some fascinating urban re-design ideas...
...Leading me to ask: Does architecturally reimagining the surface of the earth mean that one is inherently Heideggerian? The landscape is extended, no longer serving as mere ground, or foundation, but structure.
29 things to be happy about Yes, it's all doom and gloom and war and global warming and Bush. Except when it's not 28) A whopping 84 percent of Americans claim to be somewhere between "pretty happy" and "very happy." No, no one knows what sort of crack they're smoking. I mean, haven't they all seen the global warming? The imminent apocalypse? The staph infections and the drug-resistant bacteria and the Islamo-fascists and Dick Cheney's black and vile stare? Why all the happiness? It is because of all the Prozac? Or is it because of No. 29? 29) 1.20.09.
Hey Kidz, Due to popular demand and KC nostalgia the 6 Degrees of Casey Serin game is back (for now). The current challenge is KC to HC! Woohoo! Win-win! Itsallgood
While we were out for a walk today Tanuki attacked the lower leg of a guy who just happened to be passing by. He has never done anything like this before. By the time I realized what was going on I pulled him back. Luckily he didn't break through any skin, but he tore a big hole in the guy's jeans. I felt really bad and offered to reimburse him, but he kept saying "No it's OK". If I had sufficient cash on hand I would have just handed it to him, but I didn't. Perhaps being pent up inside during the storm has caused this, but I'm very concerned about this aggressive behavior and could use the Dog Whisperer’s help right now.
In other news, I guess erotic radio host Monika Thomas could be considered loosely freegan. "There are so many empty houses in this city, all the time, which is amazing given all the people who can't afford to live here," Thomas said. "I like to think this is a way of recycling living space, of not having housing go to waste."
UPDATE!Zillow Book has been flagged as "objectionable". WTF is objectionable about it?
They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different. F. Scott Fitzgerald
This historic 12,000-square-foot Marin mansion sold for 65 million dollars. It just boggles the mind. The property tax on that house alone should resolve the county’s budget issues.
UPDATE: Scratch that. The new owners won't have to worry about a tax bill. Property taxes are waived because of the historic designation. Here's the listing.
I’m not much of a condo person and have been watching the market for the past couple of years in hopes of an upgrade to a real house (or multiplex) that isn’t subject to the whims of an HOA. Other than tracking a few properties online, I haven’t been actively looking and instead waiting for prices to drop. One of them is a short sale that has dropped nearly 300K below the Zillow Zestimate and looks like a pretty sweet deal, so I viewed it today and am considering making an offer. Supposedly two other offers were already submitted. Ideally, I would prefer to make an offer subject to sale of my condo, yet I do have a line of credit that would allow me to put 20% down without contingencies and enough equity to list my place at a below market value. While it’s an old house (with the structural issues one finds in Victorians), whoever owned the place before the “facing foreclosure guy”, put some money into upgrading plumbing, electrical, central heating and air conditioning, automatic watering, etc., so it’s not in bad shape in comparison to many similar ones I’ve looked into and has the added bonus of commercial zoning in a downtown location, so if all else fails could be raised and replaced with a commercial building. In essence, I like the location, the house has potential and the price is quite nice, but I’m risk adverse and unsure whether to risk an offer without a contingency of sale – even if I could wing it for a few months. Onto the bizarre viewing experience today…The place was supposedly vacant, but this guy was there apparently cleaning and said we couldn’t view one of the bedrooms because someone was asleep in there. He didn’t have a strong command of the English language (to say the least), so we assumed he was hired by the selling agent in preparation for an open house she was holding an hour later. Well we later realized the “cleaning guy” was in fact the “owner” of the house and bought it over a year ago for over 100% financing. He currently owes one lender 600K and the 2nd 150K and it’s currently listed for significantly less. He seemed so nonchalant about the whole thing one would never know he owned the house. When we asked him specific questions about the roof, electrical, zoning, etc. he really didn’t seem to have a clue. Apparently when it was first listed there were appliances that are now missing. He said they were broken, but one wonders if he pawned them to pay mortgage payments he couldn’t afford. Overall, it was a perfect example of why there’s a mortgage meltdown. If the guy barely knew anything about the electrical upgrades, roof, plumbing, retrofitting, etc. of the house he bought for over 3 quarters of a million dollars how could he possibly understand what he was getting himself into? Given his poor English, I wonder if his original brokers spoke Spanish. Most likely, they didn’t or if they did, clearly didn’t explain what he was financially responsible for. WTF?
But according to some Bay Area real estate agents, the shifting market is bringing out more wacko buyers. Even as the softer market is compelling more real estate agents to hold high-end properties open to the public, many are also stepping up their security measures: asking visitors to sign in at a computer, or requiring that touring agents provide a card at a broker's tour.
"In my experience of 28 years, it doesn't happen often," says Hill & Co.'s Stephanie Ahlberg. "But real estate goes in cycles. And when the market is uncertain, it seems like all the fruits and the nuts come out." She says that in the past few months she's encountered an abundance of bizarre buyers — including those who pretend to be able to afford what they cannot and those who make "ridiculously low offers" on listings. Impostor buyers: When looky-loos go psycho
For those of you Zillow Booker's who may have missed what Szandora was doing with her right finger due to distraction, I've cropped that element away to make it SFW. She looks like she has a good sense of humor, doesn't she? Maybe she's a funsultant... I discovered Szandora via a random SpookyBlog find...
This Halloween week, we are just all very excited about the professional contortionist level hotness of the beautiful girls of GothicSluts. Szandora’s spooky socks feature ghosts and the word boo and the classic black and orange Halloween colors. Somehow I’m having trouble focusing on just her cute little feet and their cute little foot coverings. I think it is the ankles all the way behind her ears which is distracting me.
I like spooky things and wish BlueBlood's Spooky cash didn't require an SS# for sweet spooky deals (Follow the $$$).
While structurally unsound, this duplex looks like the sweet haunted deal I want, but it is in firm escrow...
I wish I could buy this mansion and have my own school for Nervous and Backward Adult Children.
