the not so anticipated update
No, no one has been bugging me to update this. As of the last update I have one more niece, a new job, way less sleep, my sister moved to Hawaii, and we are officially looking for a house. Since starting my new job I've been listening to audiobooks nonstop. I'm starting to run out of books. I've been through the entire Discworld set again, Jasper Fforde, Stephen Fry, Jim Butcher and am currently listening to the most god awful and speculative biography of Cary Grant every written. I am seriously considering P.G. Wodehouse next. Any other suggestions?
The great house hunt has begun. Earlier this year while the snow was still on the ground we had some pretty serious flooding in our apartment. And so Sten with some nudging from me set up a few appointments with some realtors. We saw a beautiful little house on Hooker Ave. That was it, Sten was bitten by some kind of house shopping bug. The very next day she went to her bank to see how much we could get on a mortgage. While she was there the loan officer called a local realtor and set up some appointments for her to see some houses (without me, I was working). Soon Sten and Kim were off and when I came home the next day after work Sten ambushed me with the news that all of my free time would now be occupied by real estate nonsense.
Kim is a terrible realtor. She is what career real estate agents call "a part timer." She has a husband and two kids and a shitty car that overheats a lot. From the very first I don't like her. She doesn't listen to our requests on property location, appointment scheduling, or house type. Sten hates raised ranches, she grew up in one and hates the floor plan. So we tell Kim "No raised ranches." The very first list of properties she sends us is more than half the hated raised ranches. Her schedule is directly in contrast to ours, "Nights and weekends I have to drive my kids, but during the day when you're both working is fine!" And that exclamation point brings me to my next problem with the woman. She's perky ... chipper even, in a very false way. She fake laughs at our jokes and winces when we swear. Hate that. She fed us this crap line, "I work for you guys." No you fucking don't, I wanted to scream into her trollish overly made-up face. You work for your commission first, your company second, and then maybe us. On top of all this she is bad at her job. She doesn't bother to learn about the properties we're viewing. Kim just prints up the basic specs from her realtor's website. Her only real function was to open the doors for us. That was it, unlock the fucker and she was done. On more than one occasion she couldn't even do that.
This whole process has already led to a milestone in our relationship (Sten and I not Kim). We've had our first really serious fight. After the first few showings, nearly all of which were ramshackle infested or just not fitting our qualifications, I had been very critical of all of them. Very critical. Borderline cruel. Let me qualify this by saying that I have lived/worked in some real shitholes. I spent most of my childhood and adolescence maintaining my father's rental properties. The buildings were erected in 1948, 1900, and 1813 respectively. No bullshit, 1813. There's no picture but here it is http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/33-E-Market-St-Hyde-Park-NY-12538/30107125_zpid/#{scid=hdp-site-map-bubble-address} . I know what it takes to keep these places going. what kind of house does Sten really like? Turn of the last century farmhouses. I don't want to have to do the never ending work. I will not rehash the argument here but it ended well I think.
Last night we dumped Kim. I finally convinced Sten that we had to get away from this awful little woman before we used more of her time. We will be contacting a "full-timer" friend of her family. That's it, if you waded through all that shit to the end here ... there's no big finish. Sorry.
The great house hunt has begun. Earlier this year while the snow was still on the ground we had some pretty serious flooding in our apartment. And so Sten with some nudging from me set up a few appointments with some realtors. We saw a beautiful little house on Hooker Ave. That was it, Sten was bitten by some kind of house shopping bug. The very next day she went to her bank to see how much we could get on a mortgage. While she was there the loan officer called a local realtor and set up some appointments for her to see some houses (without me, I was working). Soon Sten and Kim were off and when I came home the next day after work Sten ambushed me with the news that all of my free time would now be occupied by real estate nonsense.
Kim is a terrible realtor. She is what career real estate agents call "a part timer." She has a husband and two kids and a shitty car that overheats a lot. From the very first I don't like her. She doesn't listen to our requests on property location, appointment scheduling, or house type. Sten hates raised ranches, she grew up in one and hates the floor plan. So we tell Kim "No raised ranches." The very first list of properties she sends us is more than half the hated raised ranches. Her schedule is directly in contrast to ours, "Nights and weekends I have to drive my kids, but during the day when you're both working is fine!" And that exclamation point brings me to my next problem with the woman. She's perky ... chipper even, in a very false way. She fake laughs at our jokes and winces when we swear. Hate that. She fed us this crap line, "I work for you guys." No you fucking don't, I wanted to scream into her trollish overly made-up face. You work for your commission first, your company second, and then maybe us. On top of all this she is bad at her job. She doesn't bother to learn about the properties we're viewing. Kim just prints up the basic specs from her realtor's website. Her only real function was to open the doors for us. That was it, unlock the fucker and she was done. On more than one occasion she couldn't even do that.
This whole process has already led to a milestone in our relationship (Sten and I not Kim). We've had our first really serious fight. After the first few showings, nearly all of which were ramshackle infested or just not fitting our qualifications, I had been very critical of all of them. Very critical. Borderline cruel. Let me qualify this by saying that I have lived/worked in some real shitholes. I spent most of my childhood and adolescence maintaining my father's rental properties. The buildings were erected in 1948, 1900, and 1813 respectively. No bullshit, 1813. There's no picture but here it is http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/33-E-Market-St-Hyde-Park-NY-12538/30107125_zpid/#{scid=hdp-site-map-bubble-address} . I know what it takes to keep these places going. what kind of house does Sten really like? Turn of the last century farmhouses. I don't want to have to do the never ending work. I will not rehash the argument here but it ended well I think.
Last night we dumped Kim. I finally convinced Sten that we had to get away from this awful little woman before we used more of her time. We will be contacting a "full-timer" friend of her family. That's it, if you waded through all that shit to the end here ... there's no big finish. Sorry.