January, Part I

In an effort to further procrastinate writing about the cruise, the update on House Hunters: Chattanooga. I found the house I want. It's gorgeous, or at least it would be once I fixed everything. It has a garage and a back yard big enough for a LittleCrazy to run around in and lots of parking. Only snag was the six inches the front of the house had settled. Like, there was a noticeable dip in the floor and cracks in the walls and everything. But that sort of stuff is fixable. It's just $15,000 fixable. And then another $20,000 to fix the walls and door frames and ceiling back. So obviously, this needs to be considered when making an offer, right? So we made the offer with all the appraisals and stuff and my agent's broker says, "Oh, don't get your hopes up."

Why? You think we're too low?

"No, the guy at the bank who fields the offers looks for houses like this. He takes the assessments you've done and makes a slightly higher offer himself, flips it, and keeps the profit."

Sure enough, house went under contract shortly after our offer was rejected. Ass. Hole. On the fun side, though, it went back up shortly after that, because I bet the weaseldick went and looked at the house and saw how much work it needed. Because our quotes were from friends of Frank and Dad and, you know, connections. Six inches may not seem like a lot in terms of sandwiches or appendages but in terms of a sinking foundation...it's pretty significant. So house is not out of the question yet. But you know, whatever.

Part One of the cruise tomorrow. Or, you know, whenever I get around to posting it. I'm a busy kid these days.