Tuesday, May 02, 2006

A Day That Went Surprisingly Well




After a sleepless night of anxiety over a couple appraisals, work went surprisingly well today.

Yesterday afternoon, my boss called to say that she’d gotten an order for an appraisal from a realtor who asked for me, specifically, and who praised me to the stars. Naturally, the order was for a rush job, so I called the realtor right away to set up the inspection. Apparently I did some work for her a year or so ago, and she said how great I was, and how I “made the value.” That last is actually a back-handed compliment, since “making the value” is never supposed to be the goal of an appraisal, and the comment made me a little apprehensive. Later in the afternoon, the realtor sent over an order for another house, owned by the same people, one block away from the first. Late last night, I was preparing for today’s jobs, and realized that the selling prices for the houses were $30,000 and $40,000 above the listing prices, and both had been on the market for months. Neither would come close to “making” the contract price. My boss expects us to inform the client when an appraisal is going to come in short of the anticipated value, as a “courtesy,” and conveying this information is usually a thankless job. Now the realtor's comment about “making the value” really stung, since it seemed she was implying that I would do the less than honest appraisal required to come to their value. I couldn’t sleep, thinking about how I would be yelled at in the morning and, for variety, how the realtor thought I was a sleazy appraiser.

This morning, first thing, I called the realtor and gave her the bad news. Astonishingly, she was perfectly nice about it. She said she had thought they might not make the contract price. Then, I called the seller, who was supposed to meet me at one of the houses with the check. He was a bit disappointed, but not angry. What really surprised me was that he said to go ahead with the appraisals anyway. He met me for the inspections, paid me, and even helped me measure! He explained that the high purchase prices are an effort to help his buyers, who have crummy credit and no money, to cover the down payments and closing costs. Fortunately, making sense of that end of things isn’t my affair, since none of it is mentioned in the contracts, and I can just do the reports with a clear conscience. I Love it when people surprise me by being nice!

T. lost another tooth yesterday. Ed put it in a plastic baggie on the kitchen counter (and didn’t mention doing this to me), and I threw it in the garbage while cleaning up after dinner. Apparently, the Tooth Fairy managed to find it in the garbage can, which was more than we could manage, because she left him the usual payment

Another bit of good news is that Ed has a bladder infection! His high white cell count is not from leukemia! Yay!

To celebrate Ed’s non-fatal infection, I baked a cherry pie today. It is delicious, and, happily, the kids are not keen on cherry pie.

Finally, T. got stuck in the kitchen garbage can tonight. He was being a smart aleck, pretending to sit on the can after I took the bag out, and lost his balance and got stuck. Ed had to pull him out, because I was busy taking pictures (I would have helped him out eventually, really!).

4 comments:

CeCe said...

Hurray for bladder infections!! (and in my case-hurray for IBS!)

Melora said...

Kind of strange things to be pleased about, aren't they? But when you've been worried about the dire alternatives, they look pretty good!

Dy said...

ROFLOL! What a ham! He's really starting to look big w/ all those teeth coming out.

I am SO thankful Ed just has a bladder infection. And I'm sure he's just as thrilled as Zorak would be if I blogged it, too - but for those of us praying, it's an answer and we are going to switch out our prayers to thanksgivings Right. Now. :-) YAY!

I'm so glad the appraisals went nicely. That's always such a boost to the day.

And I will email you this evening to pester you about that stuff. :-) I've been so bad about email lately. *sigh*

Here's to another wonderful day!

Melora said...

Thanks Dy!
Actually, due to his poor health, Ed has prematurely reached the stage in life when he openly discusses all sorts of personal health issues without any thought for the more delicate sensibilities of his listeners. Bladder infection or headache, it's all open for discussion!