Friday, April 19, 2013
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
So the story goes something like this.
 |
| little boxes on a hillside, little boxes made of ticky tacky |
Our house-selling story started when the houses in our subdivision began going up for sale. Within weeks, sometimes days, the sign would disappear from the front of the yard and a SOLD sign would appear. Our moods shined positive and we thought finally! This is our moment to find the house of our dreams.. to get out of the suburban, two-story ticky-tacky house we thought was so perfect for us when we bought it years ago. Finally, we could find an older one-story with charm in a great school district for the kids, off the busy road and with neighbors that aren't so close you can touch their house. (Or hear them arguing in their front yard across the street. "Dottie, what the fuck are you doing out there?" Pause, grumble, grumble. "Oh, shit, you do whatever you want, there, Dottie?" Seriously, my street has turned into redneck heaven.
So we called a realtor, who came by and said, "Everything looks fantastic! We'll be able to sell for what you want and probably more, in less than 30 days." Woohoo! The 'coming soon' sign went up in the yard and we started packing every belonging we didn't use daily into boxes. Until half our garage was full and it was ready for showtime, that is... It all happened so quickly that my husband freaked out and demanded a second opinion.
So we called the realtor who sold us our current house - "I trust her and she won't bullshit us," he said - and fired the first realtor. She is not happy about it. The second realtor comes out to walk around the house with her husband, the appraiser, and says, "You need to do this, this, and this to get the price to where we want to list it, oh, and did you know your roof has a leak?" Fuck. "Oh, and we noticed your AC wasn't working.." In the following two weeks, I bust my ass and we paint the house from top to bottom, trim white and walls touched up, master suite made fresh and new, install new flooring and carpet on the stairs. Start thinking, this house is looking really good! Just a few things to do and we're ready to sell!
The husband starts to get nervous. 'What if we sell our house and can't get a loan and have no where to go?' After rounding up paperwork, I send it over the the mortgage lender, who says, yes, you are approved at X interest rate for X amount of dollars, congratulations! Woohoo! ...'Oh, but you must have at least three months worth of mortgage payments in your bank after the down payment.' Boo. We are not great at saving money, especially after all of our savings just went into fixing our house. We are great at paying our mortgage on time, but.. yeah.
So, expecting to put a For Sale sign in my yard today, instead, I wait. Two more weeks until after the husband returns from this trip (that could bring in commission to make all of this worry go away and have a fat down payment on a house of any purchase price). That is, unless it goes so badly that he decides to say fuck it and move out of Texas. Then, finding a house here won't be a problem at all.
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