Fighting Fate’s Entropic Grasp
Ohhh, no. I am not letting you go that easily.
Those were my thoughts on Thursday afternoon when our realtor called me at the office and dropped a bombshell in my lap. I knew something was up when I asked, by way of a greeting, how he was doing, to which he responded: “Uhhh…it depends.” It turned out that the appraisal on the home that Apple and I had contracted to buy had just come in, and it was for $10,000 less than the selling price.
At first you might not understand the ramifications of this. You might think, “Okay, so?” (Like I did, to be honest.) The problem is that a mortgage lender will not give you a loan for a home at an amount larger than its appraised value. It’s a problem that’s easily rectified if the seller decides that they will reduce their price to match the appraisal. In our case, however, the sellers denied this request, saying that they were already at the “break even” point on the home and that they could not bring any of their own money to the table on the deal. If we still wanted to buy the house, the only available course of action was for us to come up with the $10,000 ourselves and pay it directly to the sellers at closing time.
Naturally, with our resources stretched to the bounds of the safety limits we had established for ourselves, this was a bitter pill to swallow. Ten thousand extra dollars? Where was that going to come from? We had already worked a deal with the sellers whereby they would give us $4,000 toward our closing costs, if for no other reason than the combined closing costs and down payment were going to be a little tough to scrape together. There simply didn’t exist another $10,000 that we could safely spend. Shell-shocked, I had our agent take the only other path available: draw up a contract termination form. I was to sign it and send it back to him, and he’d pass it along to the sellers to sign. Thanks to the contract clause that specifically protects us from failure to appraise, we’d be released from the contract, get all of our earnest money back, and that would be that. Back to square one.
Except that this wasn’t acceptable, somehow. In the back of my mind, I clawed at possible alternatives as I sat at my computer and made a futile attempt to get back to work. It was the perfect home, with almost every feature we’d ever dreamed of having, and an inspection that had revealed no significant flaws. And thanks to the perfect storm of circumstances combined with bad luck, an appraisal abnormality looked like it was going to keep it from us. In today’s economic climate, there are a million and one reasons why I might have expected to be denied a mortgage loan — but “the house you want to buy is too cheap” was assuredly not one of them.
And Here We Go
You’ll have noticed that we arrived in our new hometown of Frisco, TX on the fifth day of January and promptly disappeared.
It was like that episode of Doctor Who where everyone yearns to be sent to the 500th floor because its walls are rumored to be paved with gold, and then everyone who gets sent up there is never heard from again. Because the 500th floor was actually where they sent you when you learned too much and had to be liquidated. Fortunately, we haven’t been liquidated. We’ve just been busy. Really, really busy.
I knew this would happen, because our friends at whose house we’ve been staying are very active people. They also live fairly spur-of-the-moment, sometimes deciding with only a few hours’ notice that it would be fun to go out and do something after dinner, or planning a whole weekend excursion with only days [!!] to spare. My [!!] shock at such activity is largely tongue-in-cheek, since this is probably fairly normal for most people and it’s really my family that’s been unusual, what with our need for routine, predictability and precision baked thoroughly into every step we take through life. Especially me.
Most of what we’ve been busy with for the last few days is a process that kicked off in early December, when we officially started looking for a house to purchase here in Frisco. The Dallas metroplex is one of the best real estate values in the entire U.S., sporting some fiercely low prices per square foot on houses that are really well-appointed. Coming from south Florida, founding member (along with California) of “Overvalued Land”, we can’t believe how much house your money buys you up here in Texas. We’ve seen nearly 50 examples of prime property here and we still cannot believe our eyes when we look at the price tags.
That’s just it, though…we’ve seen all those houses, and none of them have jumped out at us. Almost all of them were nice, each one offered more than we had in our little 2-bed / 2-bath townhome in Naples, but we just didn’t feel that magic connection to any of them. We found four or five homes that we thought were nice enough to settle for, but every last one came with significant sacrifices to make. This one’s perfect, except the fence is in poor condition, the driveway’s got a steep grade and the master bedroom is upstairs. That one’s great but there’s no study, no gameroom and the kitchen counters are an ugly color. I didn’t want to be a greedy snob or anything, but we are about to purchase the largest investment of our lives to date and it’s not something you want to just “settle for” if you can avoid it. (But then there I go, trying to achieve perfection…again.)
Last Friday our realtor took us to see 16 houses in a row. We spent the whole day on it. Of the two that we liked enough to consider buying, one turned out to be a builder buyback for foundation issues (instant disqualifier for me, regardless of how well they repaired it) and the other had neither the study nor the covered patio that we wanted. By then we’d walked into literally every home on the market in Frisco that met our criteria, so it really was starting to look like we were going to have to settle for something less than our ideal notion of what a home should be. But was that so bad? Does anyone ever get lucky enough to find a house that truly has it all?
As of tonight, I think I can answer that seemingly rhetorical question: Yes.
Westbound and Down: Day 3 (Take-Out Bag Edition)
We’ve arrived — and to prove it we’re here. Yes, we finally made it to Frisco, and were warmly greeted by our friends with whom we’ll be staying until we find our own more permanent accommodations. As expected, it’s been a whirlwind of activity and discussion since we arrived, so I forgot to write up a lengthy blog post. This will have to serve.
Tomorrow we once again head out to look at houses, and hopefully we’ll have our loan pre-approval in hand by week’s end or shortly thereafter. Tomorrow afternoon I’ll be setting up my new computer at work and so forth, so I expect it to be a busy day from start to finish.
It’s a bit daunting, all of this change that’s upon us, but there are rewards aplenty to be reaped and we’re already beginning to enjoy some of them. No doubt more are on the way!
Westbound and Down: Day 2
Another day of driving is behind us. We’re now two-thirds of the way through our trip, and today we came pretty far: a total of just over 500 miles all told, spanning four states (Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana). We encountered no more of those mystery traffic jams like yesterday’s parting shot from I-75 (which is famous for such incidents, I might add) but there was a heckuva lot of tailgating along I-10 today.
We were about 50 miles out from Lafayette when a large semi truck ahead of us merged into the left lane, apparently in order to pass another semi truck that was ahead of him. Only he didn’t pass it; instead both trucks effectively blocked both lanes of the highway while doing about 5 MPH under the speed limit. We were right behind them at the time, and quickly found ourselves sandwiched in between the trucks and a whoooole lot of impatient, pissed-off drivers behind us.
After eventually having enough of this — the last straw was a Chevy Silverado that was so close to my ass it seemed like he wanted to hitch a ride on it — I faded to the right and dropped back, whereupon we watched the ensuing show with great wonder and amusement. That Silverado flew up on the semi in the left lane until I swear he was kissing the back of the rig’s trailer, and stuck there. If the semi driver had just tapped his brakes, the guy would have been salad dressing. Even KITT gave his semi more room when trying to drive aboard.
The truckers got their revenge, though. Eventually the two aforementioned semis positioned themselves so that one was ahead of the Silverado and the other behind, and they squeezed him into an absolute box. Must’ve freaked him out.
Finally we made it to our destination unscathed. My impression of Lafayette is that it’s a fairly old town; its poorly-maintained roads are small and Midwest-like and they meander through both residential and commercial areas without forming many straight lines. There are some quaint, classical businesses here, including an actual community pharmacy and medical supply store, which was cool — I thought had all been driven asunder by corporate chains by now.
We ate at a Thai restaurant for dinner — sorry to disappoint, but none of the local Cajun/Creole fare caught our eye based on the prices and reviews on Yelp. Breakfast tomorrow might be another story; the hotel’s breakfast options look far inferior to (and more expensive than) this morning’s excellent and affordable buffet extravaganza. Overall I’m far less impressed with tonight’s accommodations, but they’re certainly not bad and well worth the low price we paid courtesy of Priceline.com.
Wow. It sounds like the space shuttle is landing on our roof. I forgot that we’re right down the street from the Lafayette airport. Hopefully they don’t run any overnight flights that might wake me up later. Apple seems to have slept through this one, so she’s probably OK either way.
Our destination of Frisco, TX is about 400-odd miles from here and should account for just shy of 7 more hours of driving tomorrow. We’re already getting excited just being this close to the end of our journey. With luck, tomorrow I’ll be able to snap a quick photo when we cross the Texas state line for the first time.
One final word: the iPad continues to be a pleasure to type on. It’s not quite the speed and accuracy of a real, physical keyboard, but it beats an iPhone hands down.
Until tomorrow, goodnight y’all — as everyone here in Louisiana would say. (Seriously — I’ve heard “y’all” more times this evening than ever before. The front desk lady somehow managed to use it three times in one sentence!)
Westbound and Down: Day 1
There may be beer in Texarkana, but that’s not where we’re headed on this little westward excursion. (And we don’t have a Trans Am — yet — so I’ll leave that job to some other bandit). Regardless, we’ve completed day one of our three-day journey, and are currently about to turn in early here in Tallahassee.
Speaking of which, the hotel here is phenomenal, making the steal of a price we paid even more amazing. It’s right off the highway but nicely isolated and surrounded by picturesque trees, features complimentary wi-fi and a microwave and refrigerator in every room. There were even new pillows, clearly marked as offering your choice of “firm” or “soft”. Coming from this particular major name-brand chain, this is a pleasant surprise.
As we rolled into Tally this evening, we were seeing state troopers everywhere. To our mild concern, we found that they were all going to our hotel. As it turns out, Florida’s new governor-elect — Rick Scott — is being sworn in on Tuesday complete with an extravagant inaugural ball, so there’s a huge police presence already gearing up. (Tallahassee is the capital of Florida, after all.) Most of them seem to be staying at this hotel too, if the slate of FHP cruisers and even an FHP trailer (filled with motorcycles, I’d guess) in the parking lot are any indication.
The trip here today was mostly uneventful, save for a nearly hour-long pocket of stop-and-go traffic on I-75 north of Tampa. It was one of those famous unexplained Florida highway delays; there was no sign of any root cause, and eventually everything got back up to speed for no apparent reason.
The tailgaters I groused about recently were also out in full force, making for some unreal hijinks on the highway. I-75 around Gainesville was the worst I’ve ever encountered. Once we got onto I-10, the situation improved markedly (though not completely). Overall, though, I’d say we had a pretty good day. Splitting the trip into three easy-to-swallow days of equal length was the right thing to do.
After dinner at Red Lobster, where we used a gift card that we’d received for Christmas, it was back to the hotel for some Plants vs. Zombies and a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow we’ll probably try the hotel’s breakfast buffet; it’s not badly priced at $7.95.
Check back tomorrow for an update from Lafayette, the heart of Cajun country. (To this day, when I think of Cajun food, the first thing that comes to mind is the “Cajun & Sushi” diner from Howard the Duck. I guess some things really never do change.)
Prepare to Embark
It’s our last night here in Naples. I can’t say that it’s our last night in Florida just yet, since tomorrow we’ll be in Tallahassee. But we’ve certainly enjoyed our time here, not just during our stay at my parents’ place, but during the whole last decade and then some. Hopefully our next decade and beyond will be every bit as enjoyable, profitable and educational — if not more so.
It felt like being on vacation today. Nothing wrong with that, as it was New Year’s Day, after all. As a final gift for us before our departure, Naples delivered picture-perfect weather, enabling us to enjoy every meal on the lanai. It’s uncanny how quiet this house is — even when you’re sitting outside watching the cars drive by, they’re always just far enough away that you don’t really hear them much. My mom jokingly described being in this house as similar to being inside a hermetically-sealed bag. The only time I heard anything was last night, when distant fireworks and choruses of music filtered their way into our bedroom.
Thanks to the Yelp iPad app, we’ve already found the restaurants we intend to patronize for dinner during our road trip. We also activated 30 days’ worth of 3G coverage on the device, so it will be just as useful to us on the go as it’s been here at home. With our trip being split evenly into three easy-to-travel days of about seven hours each, it should afford us plenty of time to sightsee, stop and stretch our legs, or (God forbid) encounter any unforeseen holiday traffic. After a month full of crazy, though, taking things easy for a little while sounds like exactly my speed.
We’re getting a semi-early start tomorrow, so I’ll wrap this up. More posts undoubtedly to come.
Oddball Review: The Beatles in Mono
Readers of this site may remember a while back when I lambasted the Beatles and Apple Corps over the (what I saw as) ridiculous price points of the remastered Beatles catalogue. Looking back, perhaps I should have titled that post “I’ll Give You My Money…But Not Right Now” or “Wait a While, and You’ll Eventually Have My Money.”
Why is that?
Because I am now own The Beatles in Mono box set.
All 11 Albums in the Box Set
Now, to be fair, I never said I didn’t want to buy the Beatles remasters. Far from it. My sticking point was the $300 price tag for the mono box set, and the near-$20 price point for the individual albums. However, recently — with the help of some coupons and the like — I was able to get 60% off the list price of The Beatles in Mono, so that the final price came out to just over $140 (with tax included). On top of that, retailers like Great Buy Best Buy have the individual Beatles albums for $14, so I also picked up copies of Abbey Road, Let It Be and Past Masters for around $50 (as those albums have songs on them that were never mixed into mono, so they aren’t part of the mono box set). All told, I spent just under $200 for all of the remastered Beatles album (bar Yellow Submarine, which I’ll get to in a sec), which is still $60 or so less than buying the box set containing all the albums in stereo.
Sgt. Pepper replica sleeve, CD and inner paper sleeve
Pricing aside, I really like the box set. A lot. Each of the mono albums comes in a replica LP sleeve, including a replica paper inner sleeve (including the groovy swirly pink inner sleeve that came packaged in Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band; the Sgt. Pepper Cut-Outs are even included!). The CDs themselves come in a plastic CD sleeve (yes, in addition to the inner paper sleeves) and the replica album covers are exact in their reproduction, right down to the ads for EMITEX Record Cleaner on the back covers. On top of that, each album comes packaged in a resealable plastic bag to protect it from wear and tear, and are collectively housed in a single box for further protection.
Additionally, each CD label replicates the original LP label of each album — thus, most of the CDs have a Parlophone or Apple Records label…except for the (originally U.S.-only) Magical Mystery Tour album, which dutifully gets a Capitol Records logo (I love when the little details like that are reproduced).
