8:48 a.m. - 2005-05-15
It's just a dream away

This Move Is The Right Thing To Do

Did you ever launch into a new direction in life, aprehensive as to whether it is the right thing to do or not?

In the going through of the garage and the moving of boxes yesterday, (for which we are both so sore we can hardly move today), several things happened that lead me to believe that this move is destined to be and not only the move but the move together...as man and wife, continuing our marriage.

In the last two weeks, Mike has been continuously, without fail, "Not Slothful"...I wouldn't go as far as calling him the husband of my dreams, but he has been moving everyday in the direction of accomplishing this move. From stripping wallpaper to packing boxes to being willing to give up many of his "treasures". He has also been very pleasant lately.

I'll start with the garage. In the 20 years we have lived here, our garage has been a mess. If his bedroom was a black hole, then our garage was the mother of all black holes, having sucked up junk from other peoples lives as well as our own accumulation. I no sooner clean it out than more junk appears.

To date we have housed, a broken snowblower (we live in a condo), A kitchen sink, tires for cars we don't own, spare license plates from the cars of everybody he knows who has scrapped a car, and......a time clock...yes...a time clock, mounted to the wall, complete with the rack to put the time cards in and he even has the time cards.

In all these years, I have never been allowed to throw any of these things away, although I did manage to pitch that kitchen sink when he wasn't looking.

Back when we were drinking, he used to save the cork from every bottle of wine and champaign we consumed. He had a giant bag of cork in the garage. Whenever I would try to throw the bag of cork away, he would find it and put it back. Once I asked him, "why do we need a giant back of cork?"

His very serious reply, "because someday there will be a cork shortage and people will come begging to us for cork."

I did manage to sneak that bag of cork out of there years ago and now and then he will remark, "now, I wonder where my bag of cork is."

Funny though what a move will do to a junk collector, especially a lazy junk collector that loathes physical work. Yesterday, we decided to start on the garage and moved quite a bit of stuff. Much to my delight, he has decided that a full 2/3 of what is in there can be taken to the curb on garbage day. I am pinching myself to see if I am dreaming. (however, he does want to keep the time clock...go figure.)

Then what I hope will turn out to be a major miracle happened. We were schlepping the boxes from inside the house when my young neighbor came over. She and her boyfreind who own the unit next door are teachers. All their freinds are teachers and have the summer off. Here in the great state of Illinois, teachers are paid quite handsomely. Their salaries start at 45,0000.00 per year. She and her boyfreind and their teacher freinds all have money to invest, a whole summer off and knowledge of rehabbing homes.

It seems that our other neighbor is also moving and these teachers have decided that they would like to purchase a couple of units in this development to rehab and rent as an investment. The possibility of getting 2 units in the building they live in is just too much opportunity for them to pass up.

I explained to Anna that I intended to paper the walls in the bedroom, install new carpeting and a new countertop and range hood fan and clean the place up for resale. She told me that once we get decluttered, to come to her with our numbers before bothering to do any rehabbing and we would all sit down and see what kind of deal we can work out.

I almost did handflips....Not only would this deal take the work of rehabbing this place out of my hands, but we could be out of here and in a new home within two months. Hell, I could even have time to throw in a couple of tomato plants before the season ends.

Now it all does come down to the dollars though. I need to get 185,000.00 out of this place. If I put 2500.00 and alot of sweat into it, I am confident that I could get 192,000.00 for it. However, I would have to put it on the market and wait a good couple of months for a sale.

We had always planned to sell it ourselves instead of losing 10,000.00 to a realtor, so selling it outright so quickly, sparing us the work is attractive.

The only thing I am worried about is that these young people will want to use the rough shape it is in on top of saving realtor fees to get me down real real cheap. Mike is almost ready to give it to them just to be able to get out of the work of rehabbing and the hassle of having to keep it spotless during the sale period.

I told him that we don't have to act hard up and that we have something to deal with. These places appraise out at 200,000.00 in pristeen condition. Selling it to them for 185,000.00 is selling it cheap in my mind.

What do we have to bargain with? Location and timimg. Our unit is quite possibly located in the most perfect spot in the entire development of 300 homes and it is located right in the same unit as the one they live in and the other one they want to buy. The timing is right because they will have the entire summer to work on it.

My next step is to finish dejunking and clean this place up good. Then I want to get a realtor in and get an appraisal of the place as it sits now. Once I have an official number, we will go to the neighbor girl and start to bargain. If I can get 185,000.00 for the place. We are outta here.

I am going to do another drive by today. It looks like a beautiful home. It is under contract right now with a contingency.

We may be in the position to buy without a contingency and steal it away from the people who have the contract. Ohhhhh...this is getting soooo exciting.

P. I. Yarnsmith.

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