Posts Tagged ‘House Hunting’

Take Grandma With You!

Wednesday night we went house hunting and had one quite strange experience. We were driving through this somewhat shady lookin’ street looking for the house with all sorts of people on porches glaring at us in the beautiful Lexus SUV that our agent drives. When we find the house it looks like hell. All the brick was repatched recently and really badly and the mortar was already falling out in places. Stephanie knocks and unlocks the lock-box and opens the door.

As she opens the door we hear this crazy eerie noise. Like a person moaning. Like “Ahhhheeeiieeeiiieeeee”. We’re all surprised and Stephanie shouts out “UMMMM Hellooo? Helloooo?”.

This is when all of a sudden this little pink slipper appears on the top step of the stairs up in front of us and this old woman that looks like something from THE RING comes CLIMBING down the stairs!

Ahhhhhhhhh! Scary!

Cold sunk in eyes a scarf over her head and BLACK lips! Her hands were all knotted and lumpy and her skin was pale. She was literally CLIMBING down the stairs just like something out of a scary movie. Using the floor above as a hand hold! Scary as hell!

Stephanie, says in her cheery voice “Hi we have a showing!” and offers her card. The ring woman just waves her hand and babbles something at us and continues down the stairs towards us. We all removed our shoes and walked swiftly in to the kitchen away from the slowly advancing ghost lady. We figured the kitchen was safe I guess.

Then we find out that the wailing sound was some “music” on playing on a stereo in the kitchen it was really strange, it would be quiet for a few seconds and then there would be another “Ahheeeeeieiiieeeeeiee” then go quiet again… I suppose it could have been some kind of prayer or something. I don’t know. The stove had some toxic lookin’ shit bubbling away on it and the whole house had a slightly unpleasant smell.

By this time ring lady had made it to the couch and sat down just staring at us with those sunk in eyes… those eyes so cold… I think she tried to smile at us a few times but truthfully I couldn’t even look in her direction.

The house was in pretty bad shape and it was dirty. Almost everything looked as if it had been slightly broken and not fixed. Lots of little touch-ups were needed just to bring it up to acceptable in my mind. We didn’t make it upstairs OR downstairs. Just to the kitchen and had a look out the back window.

We were in the house for all of about 3 minutes and when we left the owners were clearly sitting in their car across the street. They didn’t even wait for us to pull away to get out of their car and return home.

We jumped in the car and took off pretty quick. It’s a little bit of a shame cause the house looked cute on the outside and had a huge garage. The neighborhood wasn’t all that great though.



House Hunting

We’ve started house hunting. It’s fun so far. But scary to think that we’ll be spending so much money.

Pew Pew

One thing about house hunting though is that you never know what you’re going to come across. Even when you see the little thumbnails on the MLS listings. They never do justice to what you actually get when you enter the house (whether good or bad).

Last night we went out with our agent Stephanie Cluett and her protégé Jessica to see eight houses. Some houses that we saw last night were really cute but not us. Some were downright horrible.

With this first experience I have some advice for those trying to sell their home:

Clean up.
When I enter your house I should not WANT to keep my shoes on. I would like to show the respect that your house deserves and not want to dirty up your beautiful home. But if the floor is disgusting I will dirty the place up because you clearly don’t respect your house. So why should I? There is an exception with vacant houses. But I shouldn’t be afraid to catch some kind of communicable disease from waling around in my socks. This brings me to my next point.
Go out.
Last night there was two houses we visited where the owners were home. This just makes an awkward situation for everyone. We’re scrutinizing the building you live in and it feels rude to point out flaws in your home right in front of you. Both of said homes were filthy and our agent actually stepped in something that she “didn’t want to touch” to get off her foot. Worst of all DON’T LEAVE GRANDMA HOME and go out! Especially if she doesn’t speak English. (Check back tomorrow for more details on this).
Don’t sit in your car.
Similar to above. We know it’s you.
Make sure your agent is truthful.
Some of the listings we see stretch the truth a little and some downright lie. A garage fits a car and has a door that works. A dilapidated shed that’s falling down is not a garage!
Turn on the lights and the climate control.
If it’s hot outside make it cold inside. If it’s cold outside make it hot inside. Turning on all the lights will make your house appear nicer to the potential buyers more light is better.

That’s all I have for now. I might think of more later and add them in. Or this poor blog may just go stagnant again.