The House-Hunting Saga - Part 3
Created | Updated Jun 22, 2003
So, our dear friend Nancy was bitten by the Earthling Dream. Her apartment complex was sold and the new owners chose not to renew any leases. Needless to say, she wanted out and she wanted out quickly.
So, she spoke to one of the people that she works with. He had recently bought a house and she wanted to get the name and phone number of his realtor. She set up a meeting with this realtor and asked us to come along. (Basically just to keep her from buying the first place she saw.)
That's how we met Ren.
Ren took Nancy to see six condos that day. Many were nice, some were odd, but the thing that impressed us most was that he seemed pretty in-tune to her wants and desires. If she said a place was too small, it was immediately taken off the list. When she found things she liked, he jotted down a note, but didn't pressure her into buying a place because she liked the carpet, or the windows, or any other insignificant part. This was something new and different for us: a no-pressure realtor. And we liked this a lot.
So, after the day of looking at places with Ren and Nancy, we informed him that if he was able to help her and make her happy, we'd like to work with him. Naturally, this was something that he was happy to do.
At the time of this writing, Nancy is a week away from signing on her condo. (An apartment that is owned rather than rented.) And we are now working with Ren.
Our boss came into work one day, almost a month ago now, and told me that the house next to him was up for sale. He wanted to take a look at it because its basement had been converted into an apartment and he was thinking of doing the same thing to his. Of course, he didn't feel comfortable enough with either the neighbour or the neighbour's realtor to just say that and walk in. He needed a cover story.
I was to be his cover story. He set up an appointment and the two of us drove over one day on our lunch. To tell the absolute truth, I wasn't expecting anything much. We'd walk in, he'd look at how the basement was set up, and we'd leave. Fate never quite works the way we expect it to.
The house turned out to be beautiful. It was brick and about 50 years old, but in absolutely wonderful condition, other than a cracked window or two. In short, I fell in love as soon as we walked in the front door. So, after getting back from lunch and telling Erik all about it, we decided to set up our own showing with Ren.
Erik fell in love too. It was everything that we were looking for. There was enough work in terms of painting and remodeling to keep us busy, but it was finished enough that only some of the work had to be done before we moved in. We decided to put in a bid on it.
We were the first people to put in an offer and the sellers seemed genuinely interested in selling it to us - at least at first. We wanted to take possession at the end of July. That way, we would not have to break our lease at our current apartment, but we would have plenty of time to move in. They asked to bump the date up to the beginning of July. this would mean that we would have to break our lease a full month early and incur a break-lease fee. Not good news to us.
The house continued to beckon, however, so we set ourselves an impossible task: close in two weeks, a week before the end of June. This meant that everything - inspections, approvals, appraisals, etc - had less than two weeks to be done. But we were willing to try. After all, this was the house we wanted to be The House.
That's when the trouble started. Not with us, but with them. Rather than allowing us to take possession on the 24th - which gave us nearly a week to do all the work necessary and move our volumes of stuff in - they wanted us to take possession on the 30th. At 4pm. Naturally, this isn't enough time for us to move in. We kept trying to get them to either push the deadline back, or help us pay our rent so that we could take all of July to move. They just wouldn't budge.
Finally, we had to just walk away. they, of course, tried to get us to come back. (After all, they wanted to be out by the end of June so that they didn't have two mortgages to pay.) But they just weren't willing to help us out.
So, the house that I thought was The House wasn't The House after all. And we're back to looking. There are several new candidates for The House, however, and I feel confident that we shall find it soon. The Earthling Dream is alive and well.
The House Hunting Saga Part One.
The House Hunting Saga Part Two.
