Wednesday, May 24, 2006

House Party

After typing in the title to this post, I almost want to ditch writing about my house-hunting mumbo jumbo and write something about Kid N Play. Didn't that dude have the biggest pencil-eraser-flat-top you have ever seen? Come to think if it, they both had flat-tops. Will the flat top come back? And remember when George Clinton said that line about crying two tears into a bucket? What the hell is that guy talking about all the time?

Ok, for now, I shall leave these questions about House Party to the professionals. For as you know, dear readers, my brain has been full of houses, mortgages, number-crunching, blahddy blahddy, hoo-hah. Such grown-up stuff. Not Kid N Play stuff.

So here's the update people. This house stuff has made me sweat more than Brandon Davis. It has made me crazy. This is because I am a girl who counts her pennies. I mean that literally. Every Sunday I gather up all of my change and count it and deposit it in the bank on Monday morning. I can't help it. My parents raised me this way. My dad is the type who goes over his grocery store receipt with a pen and checks to make sure that his oranges scanned in for the correct price. My mom will call me on the phone to ask why in the world I would stick two first-class stamps on a letter that only needs fifty cents worth of postage. So when I see houses with that many zeroes attached to them, it makes me a little queazy in the kneesie, Weezy.

The other thing about house-hunting in my town is that this shit moves fast. Houses will go on the market on a Thursday, be shown over the weekend, the seller will look at bids on Monday morning, and whazzahbah, you've had a house change hands in five days total. Does this seem insanely Pauly Walnuts to anyone else? Nuts. Seriously.

The third thing I have to say about this whole farce of a process is that for each listing, there are 10-20 different bidders that you have to compete with. So nothing, and I mean NOTHING, goes for the asking price. You have to outbid a couple of dozen other people. A couple dozen! Mad malarky, I tell you.

Here's what I don't get. How come we weren't learning this whole sick process in high school? Why come I have a Master's Degree and the stuff that goes on in home-buying-land makes me do scrunched up thinky-faces like that kid in Spellbound? Why can I do a calculus problem in a few minutes but yet it takes me a good hour to understand my good faith estimate? And how come I didn't already know what a good faith estimate is? I feel like I'm crying two tears into a bucket. (I'm just trying to use that phrase, so maybe it'll make sense. What do you think? Did I pull it off?)

Maybe I'm just showing my ignorance here, and all ya'll out there know all about this stuff and I'm the dumbass who doesn't. Wouldn't be the first time. All I know is, this house-buying stuff ain't no party. Perhaps it would be more fun if I got a flat top.

Kiss the rings, I'm out.
Librarian Girl

6 comments:

Katie Kiekhaefer said...

good luck with the house hunting--this is probably the only moment i'm happy i'm just renting. yowza.

oh and i luuuuurved the brandon davis reference. he's such a skeez. poor la lohan.

Anonymous said...

Two tears in a bucket reminds me of a horrible old country song called "There's a Tear In My Beer". See! Things could be worse, you're not crying into your hooch yet.

Melinda said...

I didn't know what a mortgage was until about a year ago. Your house-hunting knowledge is at rocket-scientist levels compared to mine. That's why I am doomed to rent until I rot.

Anonymous said...

Did you go to any open houses where other potential buyers gave you icy stares instead of a friendly hello because you were THE COMPETITION? COLD AS ICE!

Deborah said...

Hmm. I don't know what the market is like where you live. But maybe now is not the greatest time to be bidding above the asking price? I just read yet another article about the housing market bubble and the fact that it's about to burst: http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/may2006/pi20060522_866341.htm

Yes, interest rates are low now and will probably go up a bit this summer, but housing prices will have to go down at some point, maybe drastically. I'm just saying...numbers with lots of zeros freak me out, too.

Librarian Girl said...

I wish you would tell that to all these effers who keep bidding $70,000 over the asking price. I don't think my city knows about that there housing market bubble.