Did you know there is a show called Tuna Wranglers on the Discovery channel? Feel free to “insert” your own joke here.
Funny Hubby October 17, 2007
A couple of weeks ago, the hubby and I are slowly waking up. I tell him that I’d seen a headline stating that men sleep better when they have a woman next to them. His reply?
“When they’re yapping?”
I waited the requisite amount of time to sigh deeply for maximum comedic effect. He laughs, I laugh. It’s funny, I admit. When I mention this exhange later in the day, he has NO RECOLLECTION OF IT WHATSOEVER. Is he just naturally funny, even while half asleep? Yes. Is he just not paying attention to a lot of what I say? Probably. There’s a lot to filter out in a day, trust me.
Addendum to House 23 October 17, 2007
Did I forget to mention that house 23 is apparently inhabited by a ninja and a wiccan? There were swords everywhere and ninja sayings, along with a framed Creed of the Wicca hanging in the entryway. Since the house is going into foreclosure and it seems there’s a divorce in the works, I guess being a ninja or a witch just don’t pay.
Where’s the Septic Tank? October 17, 2007
Who would have thought that this seemingly innocuous question would actually uncover a shitload of dealbreaking information? Certainly not me.
We looked at house 22 again on Saturday, this you know. We decide we want to move forward and make an offer. I contact our agent on Monday via e-mail to tell her this and ask several questions, one of which is, where is the septic tank? A reasonable request, especially since the current owner claims it’s never been pumped. We would like a freshly flushed out space in which to deposit our waste, thank you.
The agent calls, we discuss the questions and a fair offer because there’s a discrepancy with the square footage total, but that’s really a smaller issue…we find out later. Because the current owner is so obviously a freakishly lonely and somewhat odd guy, our agent decides to call him after she speaks with the original listing agent to get the skinny on the septic tank. Thank god she did. The former listing agent (the house is now a For Sale By Owner) tells our agent that in his entire real estate career, he has NEVER dealt with such difficult sellers. He goes on to say that the real estate company is about to go into litigation with the home owners. Whoa, sally, what does THAT mean? He’s pretty squirrelly on the phone because of the legal issues, but he keeps saying that the sellers were a nightmare. Then he clams up.
The agent and I talk, I call the hubby, and he wonders if this puts us in an even better negotiating position. We all question whether the home will even be available for sale if there’s pending litigation and probably a freeze on the owner’s assets. So, per my request, our agent calls the former listing agent again to ask if the house will be available. Apparently, he’s much more forthcoming during this call. For legal reasons, he didn’t want to share any gory details about the sellers, but now he unloads on our agent. You see, the seller told us that they’d had one offer on the house for $5k over asking price, but the deal fell through when the seller’s wife was involved in a bad car accident, slipped into a coma, and was unable to sign the paperwork. Tragic, no doubt. Heartbreaking, even. Well, that may or may not be the case. The former listing agent says that there wasn’t one contract on the house. There were FOUR. Why so many? The sellers, who are both a bit too friendly with the bottle, it seems, would agree to an offer, then try to back out of it when a better offer came along. I asked our agent why the home was still on the market if an offer had been accepted. She said you do that in the event something falls through with the contract. In this day and age, I can see how that behooves everyone involved. Anyhoo, the sellers accept contract #1 the first day the house is shown. A day or two later, offer #2 comes along for more moolah, so they try to get out of contract #1. Meanwhile, other houses on the same street are listed for a lot more money, so the seller thinks he is leaving cash on the table, so now he’s really getting greedy. He seems to forget that every other home around him is larger, but WHATEVER. Within another couple of weeks, two more offers are presented. Before it’s all said and done, the seller employs not one, but two different attorneys to help him get out of previously signed contracts. The listing agent tells our agent that the sellers are both irrational drunks. Nice. Almost every day, they tried to renege on some aspect of the currently signed contract. He said he’d never seen anything like it.
Our agent makes a point of not mentioning the wife’s (she and the husband are mid-divorce, by the way) car accident and subsequent coma to the listing agent. Strangely, he makes not a single reference to it, either. Our agent and I think it was all a complete lie to cover why the house is now unlisted and still for sale, or a disgusting embellishment based on some shred of fact. The seller told our agent that the wife had pending DUI charges and several other possible charges associated with her accident. Great, eh?
So, do we risk dealing with crazy drunk seller and his drunk driving soon-to-be ex-wife to get a house we really like, but don’t love? Or do we walk away?
We walked, bitches. Swiftly.
