Snippets of bad news
Last weekend a buyer showed up for my house. We agreed on a price, then they hemmed and hawed all week. This weekend they finally admitted they weren't really going to buy the place after all. So it's really looking like my house will be empty for awhile and I'll have to pay two mortgages.
I went with North American Van Lines to move my stuff to Canada. Now that the move is only a week away, they're changing the terms: apparently they expect me to sleep on an air mattress for two weeks until their truck finally gets around to showing up! Of course, it's probably too late to hire anyone else, but I'll make a few more calls.
As time marches on, the Loonie is headed toward parity with the Greenback, so whatever price I get for my house in banana-republic American dollars will be worth less and less in hard Canadian currency. Oh, if only I had been allowed to emigrate five years ago when I wanted to, before the CAD/USD ratio increased by 50%! But I might as well wish for the moon. In a runaway-credit situation, the next stage after a real-estate crash is either Depression or Hyperinflation. Depression is probably the more likely outcome for the USA (say most pundits), but neither one is good for trying to sell a house for a decent price in hard currency! Hopefully I can get Company 𝔾 to accept invoices in Loonies. I know it's impossible for Mr. Bear to actually *pay* me in any sort of "foreign" currency (the USA has always been very isolationist about such things) but maybe including an exchange rate in the invoice calculations might give me a bit of an inflation hedge.
Company 𝔾 is hiring! It looks like ethethlay is just never going to sign on, so I'm moving on to the "extra credit winners" of my Cookie Contest. foogle is not available. aethwolf is thinking about it, but the morning after I emailed him about it he woke up with a tummyache. *sigh* I'm just spreading stress around to everyone I know.
To make the down-payment on my new house, I deposited at my US bank a large cheque from the line of credit on my old house. They choked on the sudden change in size of my account and put a "hold" on the deposit for 7 days. On the eighth day I went to the bank to say "WTF? I've been paying interest on this money for a week-where is it?" They released the hold. Then I had to wait a few more days for my international-currency-trader credentials to be finalized; hopefully the money will actually go to Canada tonight. Otherwise it could be embarassing to go to settlement on my new house with no down-payment in paw!
I really liked the home inspector I hired for my new house. His politics are standard "Canadian Liberal", so I thought we had an understanding. But since then I've sent him two emails, a phone message, and an indirect phone message via my broker-no reply. I wanted him to reinspect to see whether the improvements the seller was supposed to make had been done properly. Oh well; guess I'll just have to inspect it myself. Thankfully it's all electrical work.
*Paw waves to avenginglioness!*
I went with North American Van Lines to move my stuff to Canada. Now that the move is only a week away, they're changing the terms: apparently they expect me to sleep on an air mattress for two weeks until their truck finally gets around to showing up! Of course, it's probably too late to hire anyone else, but I'll make a few more calls.
As time marches on, the Loonie is headed toward parity with the Greenback, so whatever price I get for my house in banana-republic American dollars will be worth less and less in hard Canadian currency. Oh, if only I had been allowed to emigrate five years ago when I wanted to, before the CAD/USD ratio increased by 50%! But I might as well wish for the moon. In a runaway-credit situation, the next stage after a real-estate crash is either Depression or Hyperinflation. Depression is probably the more likely outcome for the USA (say most pundits), but neither one is good for trying to sell a house for a decent price in hard currency! Hopefully I can get Company 𝔾 to accept invoices in Loonies. I know it's impossible for Mr. Bear to actually *pay* me in any sort of "foreign" currency (the USA has always been very isolationist about such things) but maybe including an exchange rate in the invoice calculations might give me a bit of an inflation hedge.
Company 𝔾 is hiring! It looks like ethethlay is just never going to sign on, so I'm moving on to the "extra credit winners" of my Cookie Contest. foogle is not available. aethwolf is thinking about it, but the morning after I emailed him about it he woke up with a tummyache. *sigh* I'm just spreading stress around to everyone I know.
To make the down-payment on my new house, I deposited at my US bank a large cheque from the line of credit on my old house. They choked on the sudden change in size of my account and put a "hold" on the deposit for 7 days. On the eighth day I went to the bank to say "WTF? I've been paying interest on this money for a week-where is it?" They released the hold. Then I had to wait a few more days for my international-currency-trader credentials to be finalized; hopefully the money will actually go to Canada tonight. Otherwise it could be embarassing to go to settlement on my new house with no down-payment in paw!
I really liked the home inspector I hired for my new house. His politics are standard "Canadian Liberal", so I thought we had an understanding. But since then I've sent him two emails, a phone message, and an indirect phone message via my broker-no reply. I wanted him to reinspect to see whether the improvements the seller was supposed to make had been done properly. Oh well; guess I'll just have to inspect it myself. Thankfully it's all electrical work.
*Paw waves to avenginglioness!*