1/23/2007
After a rather long and involved process of searching for and eventually finding a house I finally found something that I didn't hate, that was in a decentish neighborhood and was somewhat less catastrophically un-affordable than other things out there in housing land here in Baltimore. So my amazing Realtor, Agent Wayne and I sat down and I spent something like an eternity signing and initialing all the various pieces of the contract documents that he had had hauled in on a cart by a team of pack mule. At the completion of this ordeal I had officially put in an offer on the house.
Now Wayne just had to drive the mule team back to the office and get everything over to the other agent so that the owner of the house could laugh with disdain at my offer much as Caesar would toward a not so mighty gladiator who was about to become lion food. But this did not happen. In fact over the course of the next week nothing at all happened. Well that isn't true mighty Agent Wayne was busy calling the other realtor and trying to get them to respond to my offer. And guess what, in the end THEY NEVER DID. Not one word back from the realtor or owners about the offer. Not "No I'm sorry we don't like the offer" or "Yes, your largess in this offer is only exceeded by your amazing charm and grace" and nothing in between.
If you'd ever like to see a very calm real estate agent turn three shades of purple frustrated angry then I recommend putting in a reasonable offer on a house and having the other agent not bother to return a week's worth of phone calls and e-mails.
So the house didn't work out and at the end I felt a little like I was back at square one. I had already mentally started planning on projects and moving and everything else. But Agent Wayne was still on the case and had a couple of properties for me to look at.
So I did my usual night time drive by of the two properties. There's nothing more revealing than driving through random neighborhoods in Baltimore at 10 o'clock at night. The perfect little cottage on a cul-de-sac in a quiet neighborhood is revealed as the cut through for the addicts moving from your sketchy neighbor's meth lab to the methadone clinic around the corner. So these nighttime sojourns have proved most useful in weeding out what seem like perfectly nice homes in decent neighborhoods that really aren't.
One of these two properties was Windemere. And if I had known then what I know now I may have opted to just cash out my life savings in small bills and invite my friends over for a massive bonfire of burning cash and just warmed ourselves in the glow of burning dead presidents and statesmen. Then I could just move on with my boring drab apartment living and be happy, Right?
But that's not what happened. Instead I set up an appointment to walk through Windemere. Fully prepared to be devastated by the fact the the interior was either another tacky terrible renovation or a gutted crack den. Much to my astonishment it was neither. The original hardwood floors were still there and not covered with the bargain basement beige carpeting.
The house was actually pretty great, it had passed the night time test, looked pretty good from both the outside and inside and was in a good neighborhood close to work. I kept ducking as I walked outside for fear of lighting strikes. This isn't to say that it was perfect. The house definitely needed some TLC but there were no massive problems evident from the walkthrough.
Once again into the breach. Agent Wayne was on the case and got the mule team hitched up (hopefully for the last time) for another contract signing session. Now the waiting game. This time the other Realtor actually responded to our proposal and we, hold on to your hats, negotiated on the price. So there was some back and forth and a bit of drama (one of parties in the contract had passed away) in the contract process but at least things were moving ahead.
So we now almost have a house. Next week on This Old House we'll be going through the home inspection and closing process. Stay tuned....