We Get Older But No Wiser

We accomplished nothing again today.  Tom-the-realtor called in the morning to say that, as we suspected, the sellers of that house that looked like a good prospect would not be interested in our puny offer, and that he was off to a funeral and would call us in the afternoon.  He gave Ed the phone number for the branch of his office in Mount Airy, and told him to call them (giving him the referral, of course) to see if they knew of any newish homes in our price range.  Ed called them, and was very disappointed to find that the homes in that neighborhood he liked so well, the one with fairly new homes on modest lots, were smaller than they had appeared, and none were vacant anyway.  The Mount Airy realtor said she would look for something to suit us and call us back right but she never did.  We gave up on her around lunch time and went out to forage for food and houses.  

We were more successful with the food part than the house part.  After lots of driving and lots of looking, we made our way back out to the old farm house I liked yesterday.  There was an old fellow mowing the lawn with an expensive looking lawn tractor, and he stopped mowing to chat with us.  He had grown up nearby, and had watched the house being built (in 1949), and he said it was very solid.  He also said that he was paid $60 a time for mowing the lawn (it is an acre and a half), and if we bought the house would we be needing him to mow the lawn?  We said that, although he does a beautiful job, we couldn’t afford him, but, on a cheering note, we admitted that we couldn’t afford the house, either, so maybe he will have better luck with the people who do buy the house.  Truthfully, though, I decided against the house when I saw how fast the cars passing the house were going – so much for laid back country folk!  Bo really did look quite beautiful posed on that manicured expanse of lawn, but that isn’t quite enough reason for me to buy a house.

In an interesting twist in our house buying saga, we still don’t have the money from the house we sold.  When we were arranging for the method of payment, I suggested that a bank or a certified check at closing would be nice, but the BuyOwner title company people said, “Oh don’t do that!  We will wire the money directly into your account and you will have it on the day you close, but a bank check that you deposit yourself will take a couple days to clear!”  Being the criminally gullible fools that we are, we fell for this.  Ignoring the fact that they lied to us consistently throughout our dealings with them, we said “Okay, fine.  We will go off to North Carolina and trust you to put the money in our account.”  I think the saying is “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.”  At the closing, in the middle of our crazy move, Ed asked the title company girl when the money would be in our account.  “Consider it done,” she said.  Ha ha!  We keep calling, and they keep making excuses, promising that the money will be in our account in a few hours, and collecting interest.  I think the money really will show up soon, but, gosh, is that annoying or what?