[Toshi]

HELOC trickery now to underwriting:

Your loan transition[ed] to Underwriting yesterday. Underwriting is currently taking 21 business days to make a decision. Once a decision has been made, I will be back in contact with you.

Picking up box truck tomorrow morning, loading it up, and heading up (sans kids, with babysitter here) to do a full day of unpacking/installing work. Window coverings upstairs, bedding, assembling two bed frames, new mattress + shunting one over, CO/smoke detector installation x 9, and a million boxes of kitchen type stuffs to deal with.

 

[Toshi]

Box truck as promised:

All fit nicely in truck, now locked up securely, snug against my garage door to discourage thieves:

Meanwhile I found that my local electric co-op will cover 50% up to $500 each for EVSE + wiring. So that's nice. Picked a nicer EVSE with the required WiFi as a result, a Juicebox, and emailed them to switch to time of use pricing as necessary for these rebates.

Happening soon:

- Sunday: wife and I drive truck up, work on dispersing/assembling/installing its contents all day. I need to figure out the situation with the broken-internal-connector keypad lock among other things.

- Monday: arrange with Vacasa when their initial clean + photos + 3-D walkthrough generation will happen. Do they want to wait until after I repaint the interior or just do it now and possibly again later? Might also just have them install their own lock depending on timeline, too.

- Tuesday: local long range WiFi ISP installs their gear. It's their router and they administer it remotely, kind of weird but I get why.

- Friday: MIL flies in

- next Sunday through Thursday: all of us, MIL included, up at the house for its first real stay!

-- Electrician will have done the 50A line for the EVSE by this point, ideally, and I'll install the EVSE on the wall during this week

-- Also coordinating with plumber/HVAC dude (vent line extension, installing cheap-version-Nest x 8 as that seemed the best ultimately) and general handyman guy (accordion water line to real PVC connections, two leaky/busted vent tubes in attic, one leaky faucet, one leaky shower, and interior repaint in uniform neutral color at some point as well). Edit: also coordinating with interior painting dude.

 

[Toshi]

The box truck has the 7.3!

 

[Toshi]

- Monday: arrange with Vacasa when their initial clean + photos + 3-D walkthrough generation will happen. Do they want to wait until after I repaint the interior or just do it now and possibly again later? Might also just have them install their own lock depending on timeline, too.

I lied. Did this just now. Email to Vacasa keeping them apprised, as they are antsy to get it listed and get some 30% cut sweet action flowing their way:

Some updates relevant to Vacasa:

Closed on May 7 as planned. Headed up tomorrow with a box truck filled with what I hope are all of the Vacasa required items.

Internet access will be established this Tuesday, May 17.

I did install a keypad lock, but there was a broken connector inside for the web-interface smart module. I'll follow up with Yale Locks technical support but unless they resolve this quickly by sending me a replacement lock it may well end up that I go with your provided lock (with the hardware charged to me) since with this current broken setup I can't administer codes remotely.

Working on the garage keypad code details. Since this isn't easily changed, is this code usually given out to renters or not?

One thing to note regarding timing: As we bought it the interior is a bunch of wacky colors: pink, green, blue walls here and there. We are planning on having the interior repainted to a uniform neutral off-white color. Dependent on when we can get this arranged, might it make sense to push off the final clean/photo/3-D model creation visit until after the painting process? I realize that if it's scheduled far off it might not make sense but I wanted to bring this up.

 

[Toshi]

Got all of this shit unloaded, but not much of it unpacked or set up. Kept on finding more and more junk the prior owners left behind, like a full (at least clean) dishwasher full of plates.

Took a lot of trash home, needless to say, including the garage fridge as it turned out to smell very strongly of spices and was pretty filthy inside. Ain't nobody got time for that.

The garage door openers are this weird-ass design integrated into the torsion spring. They work pretty fast. Ordered new remotes and new keypads as the former worked with new coin batteries but their cases just wouldn't stay snapped shut, and the latter's programming instructions found on the internet didn't work or was above my comprehension level. (I got the keypads to work a few times but not reliably. So frustrating!)

The saga with the keypad lock's broken connector should hopefully be over soon, as Yale Locks will send a replacement inner piece… but after I supply the serial #, which of course isn't on the photos I had already taken. Gah.

Also found out that getting it repainted inside will be a chore as our referred handyman/painter dude doesn't do jobs of this size. This may well get punted until next year, with just minor touchups until then.

Overall today was exhausting—humping a king bed frame in a box upstairs is super tough, as is getting a new memory foam king sized mattress up there. We didn't get nearly as much done as we had hoped to, so will have lots of unpacking/assembling/arranging to do when we head up there a week from now for the better part of a week (whole family + MIL).




Side note: The box truck was super, super loud. Weird pressure effects going on with the slightly pliable sides and not quite perfect seal between the cab and the box while at speed, alleviated by cracking windows open at the expense of even more high frequency noise. The 7.3 with 6 speed was competent but not mind blowing. Had to downshift to 4th (with more noise yet!) to maintain 65 mph up 6% grades, with probably 3k lbs in cargo in the box. But no accidents despite the limited visibility, no mishaps with turning radius or the 11' 0" tall box so I'll call it a win overall.

 

[SkaredShtles]

Got all of this shit unloaded, but not much of it unpacked or set up. Kept on finding more and more junk the prior owners left behind, like a full (at least clean) dishwasher full of plates.

Kinda makes you wonder what the previous owners were running from, dunnit?

 

[Toshi]

Kinda makes you wonder what the previous owners were running from, dunnit?

I think they were just jerks. They left potted plants with disgusting water, for instance.

On the upside, the wine glass set they left is nice, and the waffle maker looks positively unused.

 

[SkaredShtles]

I think they were just jerks. They left potted plants with disgusting water, for instance.

On the upside, the wine glass set they left is nice, and the waffle maker looks positively unused.

Now I'm hungry for waffles.

 

[Toshi]

Financial report for the Mountain House thus far:

I've spent $17,640.31 on various services and items for the house thus far. (It'd be far worse if the furniture weren't included!) Including the 0.102 of a point, fees, and various services involved with the mortgage that was $3,477.78, not counting prepaids.

Against this I've made $1,000 in income (Vacasa sign up bonus) and have $999.38 in deductible costs (mileage, babysitters to allow us to go and work on the house, etc.). Plus there's appreciation, of course, but that in turn would be more than offset by transaction costs at this point so we'll ignore that for now.

It'll be interesting to see if/what it rents for when it finally goes live on the various short term rental platforms in a few weeks, since we will 100% block off all the weekends and weeks we want to use it on the Vacasa owner's portal.

 

[Westy]

A week after I moved into my house I got a message from the previous owner asking if I wanted the table they left in the basement, and if not when could they pick it up.

I said no, and they could swing by anytime, the table was splintered and in the compost bin rolled out to the street.

 

[Toshi]

I went and blocked off a bunch of days in Vacasa, stay type to be manipulated later such that we don't pay for housekeeping when it's not necessary (i.e. back to back visits by us).

Anyway, between now and April 2022 I blocked off 47 overnight stays, so we'll at the minimum extract that much value from it (+ the benefit of no winter Saturday super early morning drives!) even if it doesn't rent at all.

We left a few extended blocks available where we'll be gone or the kids won't be in their ski program (like Christmas and New Years).

 

[Toshi]

Search appears to be borked, but I posted earlier about how a person down the street tows a Taxa Mantis. He first had a VW Atlas, then that disappeared and a Land Rover LR4 took its place.

As of this week the LR4 appears to have been given the boot, a Suburban High Country with temp tags in the same spot. (Meanwhile they also have a New Beetle that has stayed constant through all this.)

So that means the 6.2 liter gas V8 standard, 3.0 liter turbodiesel optional, 28 gallon tank and 14/19 mpg on the gasser. Low range on the 4x4 assuming he picked it. 10 speed auto. Magnetic ride control standard and air suspension optional.

7,700 GVWR with 1,612 lb payload/6,016 lb curb weight (math, GM?), 14,500 GCWR with Max Trailering package (500 less sans it). 14,500 - 7,700 == 6,800.

It should tow better than the Land Rover despite a similar nominal towing capacity since it's so long and heavy. Still largely a lateral move on paper. Maybe the Land Rover was unreliable?!

 

[Pesqueeb]

Maybe the Land Rover was unreliable?!

 

[Toshi]

HELOC trickery now to underwriting:

The HELOC is progressing. They did an external-only assessment today and came back with a value of $882k for my Denver house.

That'd put my $495k mortgage balance as 56% LTV. $140k in HELOC on top of that would take it to 72%, which shouldn't rustle any underwriters' feathers.

As a 30 year term @ 2.24% (noting that it is indeed variable but that's what it is now) the payment on the fully drawn $140k would be $534 so I can't imagine DTI will be a problem for them either, besides the fact that some of that would offset other Tabernash-house debt.

 

[SkaredShtles]

 

[Nick]

That variable rate is doing me a concern...

 

[Toshi]

That variable rate is doing me a concern...

At prime rate - 1.01% it should remain manageable even if these historical lows don't stick around forever.

Historical Prime Rate | JPMorganChase

www.jpmorganchase.com

recall the shell game:

if I’m approved to draw out $140k equity @ prime - 1.01% from the Denver house as I applied for (which is very reasonable given what it’s worth on paper) then I could, say, pay down the 6.499% second note on the Tabernash house by $100k and put the rest towards the house itself (deck/wall, painting, various).

Take $100k off the Tabernash balances and then I’m in non-conforming but << 80% LTV territory and thus could immediately refinance to one note ideally still at less than 3.000%, getting rid of the rest of the bad-rate debt in one fell swoop.

A shell game, I tell ya! But I think this could well work. Lack of deductibility of interest on the 2.24% Denver HELOC given what its funds would go to is true but also doesn’t bother me at all in the face of the alternative.

 

[Toshi]

Electric F-150

https://twitter.com/RiegerReport/status/1394736866935648264

skip to about 1:30 to see ol' Joe take off in it quickly.

 

[rideit]

Hey Tosh, you know anything about Turo?
we are considering renting out our ‘extra’ car, 2014 Escort.
long paid off, and we are planning to give it to kiddo in two years.
I have read a decent bit about their protections, just curious if you have any insight.

 

[6thElement]

Hey Tosh, you know anything about Turo?
we are considering renting out our ‘extra’ car, 2014 Escort.
long paid off, and we are planning to give it to kiddo in two years.
I have read a decent bit about their protections, just curious if you have any insight.

Paging @stoney as I think he considered this for one of his cars at one point.

 

[stoney]

Paging @stoney as I think he considered this for one of his cars at one point.

The risk-reward isn't worth it for higher dollar/power cars, which is what I was looking at. Given there is a drought of rental cars currently, you might be able to make some cash, but the rental income vs. cost of maintenance from the adtl wear is pretty tight.

 

[rideit]

Well, $1000 a week after their commission would buy plenty of pads, rotors, oil, etc.
Hell if we did it for two months, we could sell it, and buy another ‘14 Escort with fewer miles, I guess.

 

[Toshi]

I thought about it but my Land Cruiser is too old for them. That’s too bad since it’s unused so often.

 

[Toshi]

My 8 year old apparently spells at a 15th grade level

Got some moar evidence that my elder baby is a smaht elder baby. She tested on the SCAT (hehe) through CTY, which is the program run by JHU that has followed me since I was a wee lad to see when/if I burn out and decide to drive a trolley instead of doing any mentally taxing work.

Anyway results and context:

 

[SkaredShtles]

I'm about ready to go and drive a trolley.

 

[Toshi]

Toshi in years of yore

 

[Toshi]

Ford F-150 Lightning Starts Under $40K With 563 HP And One Big Ass Frunk

Until now, the all-electric Ford F-150 Lightning has been a bit camera shy. It was hiding under a sheet Tuesday, and then we got a good look at its platform; hell, then we got to see the President driving one. We can now call this game of Where’s Waldo officially over, because Ford’s just...

jalopnik.com

$40k for an XL trim base model, and Ford is still tax credit eligible. (So in CO that'd be $30k, albeit with TTL on $40k.)

XLT reportedly $53k. I can't figure out why this spread would be so much, as on a SuperCrew F-150 it's less than $4k between XL and XLT.

Anyway, 230 mile range standard pack, 300 mile extended range pack. All seem to be AWD: one motor per axle, 563 horsepower and 775 lb-ft of torque. 0-60 around 4.5 seconds. Pack capacity seems to be about 180 kWh going backwards from charging 15% to 100% SOC in about 8 hours on a 240V 80A EVSE, presumably the big pack.

2,000 lb payload. 10,000 lb towing capacity with the big pack—unclear whether this pack and the payload are mutually exclusive, though. On-board scale for tongue weight and payload weight in general like the gas F-150 got this year.

 

[Toshi]

2,000 lb payload. 10,000 lb towing capacity with the big pack—unclear whether this pack and the payload are mutually exclusive, though.

Moar details

https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/f150-lightning/2022/

That's IRS. On a Ford half-ton. This is huge, assuming it percolates back to the gassers.

Re towing and payload the Ford site has some more details, proving my suspicion correct:

Maximum available towing of 10k: XLT or Lariat with big pack and Max Trailer Tow Package. Meanwhile, max payload of 2k on XLT or Lariat with small pack.

The headline 0-60 figure is for the big pack. Unclear from wording on site whether the small pack can also put out 563 hp—presumably not given the acceleration.

The frunk has a name: Mega Power Frunk. 14.1 cu ft, 400 lb payload capacity within it. 4 120V outlets within the frunk, thus its name, with on-board power as per the below.

On-board power as introduced on the F-150 hybrid, er, PowerBoost. Pro Power Onboard puts out 9.6 kW in the higher end option including a 240V outlet for a welder or the like.

Lowest trim isn't described as XL but rather "the commercial oriented truck". I'm imagining grey plastic and vinyl on the seats and floor here. Lowest trim possibly small battery only.

XLT has cloth seats, surround view camera, and has options for the big pack, Pro Power Onboard, and the driver assist suite that includes BlueCruise (think SuperCruise—hands free with driver attention monitoring).

Lariat adds the big center stack display as in the press photos, leather heated/vented seats, power liftgate (didn't know that's a thing), 20" wheels, Pro Power Onboard standard. Still optional are the driver assist package, big battery, and a fancy moonroof.

Platinum will be $90k pre-credits, apparently. Big pack standard, fancy stereo, fancy leather, 22" wheels, fancy moonroof standard. Seems like this will be a very high margin trim!

 

[Westy]

Ford F-150 Lightning Starts Under $40K With 563 HP And One Big Ass Frunk

Until now, the all-electric Ford F-150 Lightning has been a bit camera shy. It was hiding under a sheet Tuesday, and then we got a good look at its platform; hell, then we got to see the President driving one. We can now call this game of Where’s Waldo officially over, because Ford’s just...

jalopnik.com

$40k for an XL trim base model, and Ford is still tax credit eligible. (So in CO that'd be $30k, albeit with TTL on $40k.)

XLT reportedly $53k. I can't figure out why this spread would be so much, as on a SuperCrew F-150 it's less than $4k between XL and XLT.

Anyway, 230 mile range standard pack, 300 mile extended range pack. All seem to be AWD: one motor per axle, 563 horsepower and 775 lb-ft of torque. 0-60 around 4.5 seconds. Pack capacity seems to be about 180 kWh going backwards from charging 15% to 100% SOC in about 8 hours on a 240V 80A EVSE, presumably the big pack.

2,000 lb payload. 10,000 lb towing capacity with the big pack—unclear whether this pack and the payload are mutually exclusive, though. On-board scale for tongue weight and payload weight in general like the gas F-150 got this year.

That giant touchscreen can suck it

 

[Toshi]

That giant touchscreen can suck it

It has a knob. It also has fixed looking positions for seat heat. So it doesn't seem that bad.

I'm curious as to what the commercial model + XLT 12" poverty-grade screen will look like. This is the 15.5" on a Lariat or Platinum, I believe.

 

[Westy]

It has a knob. It also has fixed looking positions for seat heat. So it doesn't seem that bad.

I'm curious as to what the commercial model + XLT 12" poverty-grade screen will look like. This is the 15.5" on a Lariat or Platinum, I believe.

That dial and heater knobs are within the glass bezel of the touchscreen so I assume they too are touchscreen controls. Either way no vehicle shouldn't have a large thing to look at that isn't the road.

 

[SkaredShtles]

<snip>
Either way no vehicle shouldn't have a large thing to look at that isn't the road.

How the hell you gonna watch movies while you're driving? On your phone?!? Come on, man...

 

[Toshi]

That dial and heater knobs are within the glass bezel of the touchscreen so I assume they too are touchscreen controls. Either way no vehicle shouldn't have a large thing to look at that isn't the road.

I see your point, but touchscreen buttons near the edge of a screen that you can feel for are actually pretty easy to use.

See the wife's minivan's Uconnect setup with "hard" buttons along the bottom versus the horrid Sensus setup on the Volvo, where not only did one have to swipe often to get to the screen to pick the right button, but said buttons might require two or three taps not at the edge of the screen to activate, say, the heated steering wheel.

 

[Toshi]

Moar detailz, via a TFLtruck video. They gleaned the info from here, I gather: https://cloud.3dissue.com/89166/89559/132405/P702/index.html?r=96

Liquid cooling on the packs.

11.3 kW charger for the small pack. 19.2 kW charger(s—read elsewhere this is a dual charger setup a la early Teslas) on the big pack.

These charging powers are relevant for level 2 EVSE use, of course: on a 48A EVSE the small pack's charger will be maxed out, going from 15-100% in 10 hours (implying naively 135 kWh). The big pack is reported as 13 hours, which naively translates to 176 kWh +/- rounding/reporting error.

On the 80A EVSE with vehicle to grid capability the big pack is 8 hours as previously reported. The small pack is still 10 hours because the EVSE isn't limiting here but rather the on-board charger, recalling that level 2 EVSE aren't chargers, per se, but rather fancy AC cords that negotiate rate with the on-board charger.

Small pack hp/tq 426/775. Big pack 563/775. This implies software limiting of current at high rpms for the small pack.

Small pack payload/towing 2,000/7,700. Big pack payload/towing 1,800/10,000, so payload will be tight with a big trailer and people.

BlueCruise, which is like Super Cruise (hands free, driver attention monitoring system) is going to be optional on Lariat, standard on Platinum, and not available on the XLT (and thus surely the commercial trim as well). That's lame.

 

[Toshi]

The more I look into it the more it seems that Ford has played a great PR game.

$40k! but let's not tell you about what that commercial base model has outside of bare details (230 mile battery, AWD).

$53k! but cloth seats, no BlueCruise, 15.5" screen as in the press photos, or even the rear LED taillight bar treatment.

The builds reflective of all the fancy features will be $70-90k. Yet the articles will all gush about $40k.

I would like to see a spec and options sheet on the $40k commercial trim, but even in the mid-term future 232.7" length, 5 seats, and needing the Lariat for BlueCruise even as an option are buzzkills.

 

[Westy]

I hate it when pick up trucks don't come with luxury appointments. I need to be comfortable when I want to look rugged while commuting solo in an unloaded vehicle.

 

[Pesqueeb]

4 door only and independent rear suspension? That's not a truck, it's a minivan.


Kill list.

 

[Toshi]

4 door only and independent rear suspension? That's not a truck, it's a minivan.


Kill list.

at least it's not a < 5' bed

2,000 lb payload is totally par for the course for a half ton, though.

 

[Toshi]

I hate it when pick up trucks don't come with luxury appointments. I need to be comfortable when I want to look rugged while commuting solo in an unloaded vehicle

If I were speccing out a theoretical Lightning for my uses I would want BlueCruise. Leather, dual moonroofs, LED taillight treatment, big(ger) center stack screen, even LED headlights are all frills.

Left middle right here are XLT, Lariat, Platinum. Not even an option on XLT, which is already getting up there in price. Commercial trim isn't specified yet but I doubt BlueCruise will be an option there, either.

 

[Toshi]

Commercial trim isn't specified yet

looks like my curiosity will be sated come Monday!