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To live and enjoy every day to its fullest, use my gifts to help others, I travel to wherever passion finds me.

What Will She Paint?

So many friends I met here...!

Sunday, August 30, 2009

RAMBLE -Roller Coaster

For some of you buying and selling a house maybe "old hat", but since we traveled many years this was only the second house (condo) we bought, and the first house we sold.
We always had heard that buying a house is a roller coaster, but for us it was kind of exciting, because we were putting an offer at 2 condo's at the same time, and a bidding war going on. So, we upped the price a bit, and we choose the one we wanted, and bought it.

To have and to hold...

Sounds like a "done" deal, right? NOT. Things that were so innocuous at first, bother us now enough that I feel we have no choice but to correct them.
Sometimes feeling guilty and sad for the previous owners when we bought this foreclosure (a house owned by the bank, because the owner was not able to pay the mortgage), but other times mad. Because they didn't shorten the bank, but the next owners (mostly!).

Aren't there supposed to be knobs on doors? They were taken off, as well as shower head, towel- and toilet paper bars, paint scraped off the toilet seat.
Every cabinet in the bathroom (looking at all the wholes in the wall) had been taken out. The sinks in two bathrooms are loose (every time I closed the faucet, the sink would visibly move, LOL) and mirrors are on the floor! From that we gather that the bank put them in.
The only light fixtures, and the deck (that no one else has) is a tell-tale of a person with an upscale taste.
The pillar sinks are nice but super unpractical, hardly even room for tooth brushes. So, we are still camping at our new house, but hubby promised me a cabinet where I can put ""my stuff" on!

Selling a house is an interesting roller coaster too, and I wonder if some of our experiences are common or not? It is not about the people who came by to look at the house, but their real estate agents. Our realtor gave us the rule to only let people in who have called them beforehand, and who give you a card.
Pretty clear and simple, you would say.
What do you think of 3 real estate agents who SAID they had called, but are coming in with their client, in the middle of carpet laying? (with a BIG note on the front door, saying "No showing until further notice")
Or, real estate agent(s) who take other agents' cards(6 of them!) away, while you're not at the house?

Honey, where are those other 6 cards?

Or, when hubby said to an agent showing our house to her client that we had an offer in, the agent retorts with "No, you're not"!
If she thought that hubby was lying (which he was not), she could have said it in a different way! I admit that I smiled when hubby who is mostly kind and more patient with people's idiosyncrasies than I, told me about "a little bully."

Really relieved that after been visited by at at least 50 agents with clients, we now come to the place that we have some official offers in from people who want to buy. The good news is that there are also truthful and nice realtors, like the one we have and one who sent us a personal letter for her clients.
It starts off with "...thank you for taking the time to consider my clients...", continues to tell a little about their personal background, and ends with" ...they love your home, especially the large great room and would like it to make their home and raise their family there."

Ending on a pleasant note is that I bought 2 small baskets of strawberries this week at the farmers market, because they were on sale. Tonight I baked pound cake (the recipe has cream cheese in it) to go with the strawberries and whipped cream. That is my favorite way to eat strawberries. What is yours?

12 comments:

NCmountainwoman said...

We also had nightmare stories when selling our house. Since I had to take our two Golden Retrievers out during showings, I was really unhappy when people came late. One agent brought a client two hours late so the dogs and I packed up once again.

I'm not sure if your were surprised with the hardware, etc., having been removed from your new place or had renewed disappointment. Was that done after you made an offer, and was it mentioned in the closing?

Jeannette StG said...

Ugh, that's hard to be away everytime with dogs or kids (which my daughter had to do).

People came when we were packing! But on the showings we were not there. Before we signed we only noticed the doors without door knobs. For some reason we didn't notice all the other things till I really started unpacking (guess my mind was still too much on selling my old house LOL)

Thanks for the visit!

Dick said...

Wij zijn ook al een keer of zes verhuisd en er is altijd wel weer wat, hahaha,
Ik denk dat het me is ontgaan dat je bent verhuisd of begrijp ik het verkeerd?
Ben niet zoveel meer op de blogs tegenwoordig maar misschien komt dat wel weer.
In ieder geval heel veel geluk in je nieuwe huis, groeten uit NL, Dick

Jeannette StG said...

Hallo Dick,
Dank je wel voor je goed wensen!
In Nederland is het gewoon dat mensen alles meenemen wanneer ze verhuizen, maar hier niet! Meestal laten ze de lampen en gordijnen achter.
Ja, we zijn een maand geleden verhuisd - kleiner, omdat de kinderen uit huis zijn, onze vrienden allemaal een uur van ons vandaan wonen en Jacob 65 wordt dit jaar, maar we zijn nog in het process om ons vorig huis te verkopen.
Hoop dat alles goed is met je? Hopelijk heb je je baan nog? Fotografeer je niet meer zoveel - is dat waarom je niet meer zoveel op je blog bent?

Floss said...

Hi! Thanks for your comment about my Brittany blues. I found that some of my photos of the strongest blues (which are used up there) came out as black, so I was unfortunately not able to include them, even after I'd attempted to edit the photos. However, you're right, I do like the paler blues most of all.

I am glad that, amongst the difficulties you have had selling your house, you have also discovered some good people. I hope you really enjoy life in your new home.

SAPhotographs (Joan) said...

All I can say is rather you than me. I would have kicked or killed someone out of frustration LONG ago. :)

Strawberries and cream?? So where is mine? LOL!!

Jeannette StG said...

Floss
Yes, fortunately it's mostly the good and the bad with people or anything else, or visa versa LOL.

I know it's an expense, but with photoshop you probably could have made an adjustment in the very dark blues. I do the opposite, because of my (too strong) green background.

Jeannette StG said...

Maybe you understand my general grumbling lately a little more - leakage spilling over into other areas (read subjects). But still there are many things I am thankful for!

Sorry Joan, too late - all the strawberries are gone by now LOL!

Diane AZ said...

Surprising that the door knobs and cabinets were taken out. That must have been disappointing! When we bought our house, the sellers left curtains, towels and little accessories that matched the wallpaper. They were so nice. Pound cake with strawberries and whipped cream sounds really good right now!

Jeannette StG said...

Diana AZ,
With foreclosures (in this time) I had heard that people are so mad that they lose their home that they "destroy" it -so I was forewarned, but I didn't think it would have such an effect on me!
Yeah, strawberries with cream, especially when it's so hot (in Arizona it must be pretty hot too right now?)
Thanks for visitng!

VioletSky said...

I've never owned a house, but the apartment I am in now was in a mess when I moved in. It too, had all lightbulbs taken out and even all the switch plates were removed. There was no clothes rod in the bedroom closet and the door knobs from the bathroom and linen cupboard were missing. Yeah, the toilet roll thingy was gone too! All of these are cheap to buy, so it made no sense.

I can certainly understand any grumbling from your corner....

Hope the strawberries and cream made you feel like royalty for a while.

Jeannette StG said...

Violet Sky,
Wow, I didn't think they would do that to an apartment! You are right, that does not make sense!
Yeah, the strawberries and cream made me feel on top of the world!