Friday, March 27, 2009

Sold?

We've accepted an offer that's just a gnat's ass above rediculous and now are in the 10 day inspection window. The LW got a little bent this morning when I told our realtor that if the buyer wants anything more than what he's getting that I've got two words for him and one of them is 'off'. The LW is a kinder more polite being, so there was some teeth gnashing over that at lunch.

We just had the first roof inspector up on the roof for about 4 minutes tell us what we already knew and say that it's $500 worth of repairs. Ya see, I was talking with the buyer on his 3rd trip to the house and mentioned that if we were going to be here another five years, we'd invest in a metal roof since the "built-up reflective" seems like crap to me. Well, he took that to mean that the roof was crap and is going to try to ding us on it at inspection time....at which time, he will be advised just where he can go and what he can do there.

It wouldn't be such a big deal if we didn't need the proceeds to move into something in KC without having to waste $$ on rent....but we do. The moron that sold the house to us didn't do us any favors and I don't want to lose any more of my shirt on the way out. If it comes down to staying here or losing another $50, I'm going to probably come down on the side of staying. I mean, the guy's already taking the two refridgerators we have and the butcherblock in the kitchen....wth else will he want? My pillow and socks?

We'll know soon enough, but if there's not something else posted here in a week or so, you'll know that the LW has tied me to the clothesline post with duct tape.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Priced Right...

...for the neighborhood? It's beginning to look like another hot and dry summer in Tucson is in store for us since this is on the market just down the way for $20k less than our asking price. It is on a busy street without a carport though, but damn, it's still $20k less.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Seven Days

...since the person that we thought might make an offer visited the house. We still haven't heard anything back. We're running on the assumption now that this person won't be making an offer, but instead will wait on us to either drop the price or wait on a foreclosure nearby somewhere. We're not dropping the price any more, so we'll either find someone else who is interested or wait until our listing expires and take it off of the listing. This puts us in T-town for a while, but that's ok. We'd rather not lose our butts on this house.

Monday, March 16, 2009

When in Utah....

...you're getting hammered if you use your camera to make money.

http://www.aphotoeditor.com/?p=2423

I wonder how long it'll take ol' Jan to figure that this'll work down south too..... It's pretty funny to watch a republican raise taxes. I think that she'll get better at it soon. (be sure to go to the comments section of that article and see #18. It's hilarious!)

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Easy

Today's been easy for the most part. The LW and I had a bit of a rocky start, but all is well now that I'm keeping my mouth shut. The LW took CP to the Festival of Books down at the U today and they had a good time. CP got to see Clifford, Stellaluna, and Curious George.

We haven't had anyone look at the house today, but yesterday a young chap came by with his realtor, then came back to meet us and tell us how much he liked what we have done with the house. He said that what we've done is exactly what he'd do. It was encouraging and he said that he'd drive back by with his brother later. Well, we were out in the yard around sundown and saw someone at the foreclosure next door and checked it out - he had come back with his brother. We talked for a minute and he mentioned that his grandmother lives in the neighborhood. I recognized the name immediately as friends from the gardens and said, "Really?!, you're Joe's grandson?". His brother just stood there for a second with a stunned look on his face and then we all had a good laugh about serendipity. They all got to walk through the house and look around before heading over to grandma's for dinner. At any rate, we hope that he'll put an offer in on the house. We'd really like for it to go to someone nice as opposed to a flipper or slumlord.

We've changed tack a bit for the future in KC. Not about moving there, but about what we'll move into. We've had our eyes on a couple of foreclosures in an older part of Mission that are roughly the same size, above ground, as our house here, but on larger lots. I know that I'll catch crap from my folks about not having a 3000sf house with 3 bathrooms or some other silliness, but that's just them. The house that we're looking at on the web is a 2/1 on 1/3rd acre that is listed at $89k. The big thing is that it has a full basement. The LW and I can't really imagine having basically another open house space that's the same size as what we have here. I'll get a darkroom for sure! We're hoping that I'll be able to finance it so that we can get the 1st time buyer credit from 'teh gubment'. Our plan is to live in it and fix it for the required three years, then buy something else in the same area and rent the other house. I figure with a $600 house payment, we'll be ahead of the game if we play our cards right.

Thursday, March 05, 2009

Busy

Worked around the house today - caulked nail holes, dug a fence post hole, tried not to be an arsehole to CP, did the dishes and laundry. I watched most of my time go down the hole though. It's just tough to get anything requiring more than 20 seconds finished and that's not good when you've got an open house coming up fast. There's a ton of stuff still to do if I'm to head off the Saturday morning scream fest that has become our weekly pre-realtor no-show event. Sometimes I just feel like giving the house away and just running as far as my feet and out of shape body will take me.

Read some of Sweet Juniper tonight and it was a glimpse of where Kansas City could be if it weren't for the surrounding metro areas propping up the tax base. Unaccredited schools and saggy pants shitheads have blown most of the old neighborhoods with large well-built houses into the crapper. Amazing houses like this one are going for $35k because the schools are shit and the school board has been comprised of morons for too long.

On a happier note, the nutbar down the street had his old truck towed out of his front yard today. Just in time for the open house! - Yayyyy! He walked by in front of the house yesterday and was giving me the evil eye when I waved to him and yelled, "howdy neighbor!". Now, if I could just get the drunks next door to quiet down for Sunday, we might just have a shot at getting a buyer.....