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Wow. Nice.
Though that must be a strange state of mind for you right now.
Like stepping through a door into the arena at the Roman Coliseum, and the door closes behind you, and you're looking around, wanting another door to open.
And meanwhile there's a bobcat rubbing up against your pantleg, wanting to be petted.
I'm nobody's pony.
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Fantod.
One of the big conundrums was buying the new house while selling the old house. Well, we managed to sell the old and still don't have the money to buy the new. I was supposed to have a chunk of cash from my union pension to use as a down payment, but that hasn't happened yet. Originally, after two months out of the union I was supposed to get the check. Then it was after two months out of the union we'll send you a letter and then in a couple of weeks we'll send you the money. The letter should have been here Monday and it didn't come. Every day it gets delayed, the narrower our window for buying the new house with a 30 day escrow that fits inside the 45 day escrow of selling the old house.
Fantod
The 45 day escrow on our house closes May 17. We need to be out of the the house on May 20th. So, for us to buy a house with a 30 day escrow, the latest we can start that is April 20th. If we start escrow on April 20th, it will be bad. Not enough slack in the system.
But it occurred to the Queen yesterday she can pull cash out of her 401K to use for the down payment. We planned to go up and look at houses this weekend so that when my money from the pension came in around mid-April, we could move in with an offer quickly.
That has now all changed. We could be buying a house this weekend instead. We have a list of about 15 homes to look at. One we have seen already and really like. It sits on 10 acres, but most of those acres are hillside and not really usable.
Fantod.
We will still return on April 17th to Oakhurst for a couple of days to do inspections and sign whatever paperwork we need to do. We'll also look at getting our utilities and other services straightened out.
Onward Christian Soldiers.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm
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For a change of pace from selling a house, we are heading back to Oakhurst this weekend. We will be seeing 12 homes in the next 2 days. We are even bringing the check book.
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Best of luck!
Shadow boxing the apocalypse
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Gracias.
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The back roads of Mariposa and Madeara county are exciting.
All told, we saw 11 homes over the course of two days. One we saw again because we were very interested in buying it and wanted to see what it looked like when it wasn't covered in show. The other we saw again because we had forgotten we had already seen it the first time. So, many homes.
To be fair, the first home we saw, is the one we want to buy. It sits on the edge of the mountains and has great views across the central valley. It's a bit far from Yosemite but still a lot closer than Los Angeles. The second home we saw on Friday was the one we revisited on purpose. It's a beautiful house but we found out it has no useable land. What I thought was big fat pad of open land in front of the house turns out to be the leach field for the septic system and you can't build there. Behind the house were steep trails leading to some beautiful creek side spots but not really practical.
Saturday was the big look at houses day. We started at 9am, south of Coarsegold and ended up at 6pm, North of Mariposa on 4x4 only driveway. We must have cleared 100 miles easy. The first house we saw on Saturday was the accidental revisit. The whole way to the house I kept seeing landmarks I remembered and I tried to figure out what home we had seen in this area before. When we pulled in the driveway, I immediately remembered this was the house we had seen before and felt really dumb. We left off a few homes on our list of homes to see. One of those homes could have filled that slot.
The rest of the day with few exceptions could have been headlined the bad remodels of Ahwahnee tour. We saw two houses on Lily Mountain that just had us scratching our heads. They obviously photographed really well, but up close they were nightmares. One had an opening into the foundation that had me remarking that that was where the bodies went. We did see a house on 35 acres that could have been choice number 2. If it wasn't so much work and money to make the house habitable, it would have been choice 1. The house sat on a beautiful piece of property. I admit it, I have land lust.
Which is why I chose, as a lark, one of the afternoon properties. It was a small house but it sat on 200 acres. I put it on the list we gave to Leslie Bugg, our Oakhurst realtor as a hail Mary, only to visit if we had plenty of time. Turns out we had time and went to see it. It was on the end of the Usona road. It felt like we drove for days to get there. Halfway through the journey, the pavement ended and we progressed along a poorly maintained dirt road. The whole drive I kept thinking this would make for a miserable journey if we had to do it weekly.
It took about a second to tour the 2 bedroom/1 bath homestead. It appeared to be built by a handyman rather than a home builder. The Queen would have my head if I forced her to buy this property. And most of the 200 acres was cliff that started behind the house. Okay. Jokes over time to go.
As we were leaving, one of the neighbors pulled up in his black 4 wheel drive dualy crew cab pick-up to see what the hell we were doing. We had driven through his property to get to the one we were looking at. His name was Ken (Keith?) and I assume wanted to check us out. He also had a need to talk (Which is why I go with Ken) Ken is the one who told us everyone on the Usona Rd owned guns and a backhoes. He also told us there was a gun range nearby. The beauty of the gun range was the bullet's trajectory went across the top of the property. Who wants to live on a property where the bullets flew over your head?
Ken also wanted to tell us the history of one of the most famous residents of the area. Just up the road, basically where the pavement ended, was the former compound for a White Supremacist/KKK group headed by William Gale. It was winery but it also had bullet proof guard towers and a weapons stash. The FBI had gone in twenty years ago and cleaned it all out and sent Gale to jail. Turns out, Gale was getting ready to be let out and he stilled owned that property up the road. So many pluses for this place.
The last place we saw was an inarguably beautiful home. But it sat on top of a mountain. The driveway was at the end of another long badly cared for dirt road. And the driveway basically went straight up the hill. The selling agent told our realtor you better have 4-wheel drive to get up to the house. We hiked up the driveway rather than drive. Upon reflection, we could have driven up. But we wouldn't have made if if there had been snow. But the house was gorgeous. The views from the wrap around deck looked out onto forest covered mountains. But there were a lot of tress on the property blocked the views, too.
We stopped by our favorite house one more time on the way back to the hotel. The sun popped out from behind the clouds just as we arrived at the house to bathe it all in a golden light. We couldn't go on the property since the tenants were still there. But we walked the vacant property next door with dreams of maybe buying them to increase the size of the homestead.
On Sunday, we stopped with Leslie and filled out the paperwork to make an offer on the home. The sellers are now going to decided whether they accept the offer or not. We will keep making offers until they give us the house. By later this week, we could be in double escrow.
I am not stressed at all.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm
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Fingers crossed on the offer.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse
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It's kind of a low offer, but I'm hoping they come back with a counter.
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I hope they say “Yes”.
In the Tudor Period, Fencing Masters were classified in the Vagrancy Laws along with Actors, Gypsys, Vagabonds, Sturdy Rogues, and the owners of performing bears.
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04-09-2019, 11:18 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-09-2019, 11:21 AM by Greg.)
And then the counter offer came back. Which I think we will counter. But at least they didn't reject our offer entirely.
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If I recall correctly, this is the place with the gnarly trees (of your photos posted on Facebook). They look like black oak to me, only not as big and complex as some I've seen -- maybe due to altitude. Or are they something else?
Or am I wrong about the place entirely?
I've always been rather fond of black oaks.
Anyway, hope the ripples settle on the countering and there's an agreement.
I'm nobody's pony.
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attack!
counterattack!!
countertime!!!
knicker-joke. fingers still crossed.
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04-09-2019, 02:01 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-09-2019, 02:03 PM by Greg.)
Maybe you should leave the jokes to the Maestros, Prevost?
I feel better. It's like we've agreed to buy the house and are now haggling over the price.
But still not out of the woods. There is a bit in the contract that the seller can continue to market the house until we sign the agreement.
Meanwhile, our LA realtor is coming over today to supervise cleaning out the main sewer line and mortgage appraisal inspection as well as giving us escrow documents to look over.
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(04-09-2019, 02:01 PM)Greg Wrote: Maybe you should leave the jokes to the Maestros, Prevost?
Feint in Time!!!!
(there's a knicker-wearing yeti snickering at this...he's the only one but we'll take what we can get)
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Dude, you should be arrested-in-countertime for all of those.
[Drops foil, walks off]
In the Tudor Period, Fencing Masters were classified in the Vagrancy Laws along with Actors, Gypsys, Vagabonds, Sturdy Rogues, and the owners of performing bears.
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