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[Lupercal]

Yeah, it was just ridiculous that 65% of the voting population of the UK turned out and we struggled with that. Makes you weep a little for democracy, but reminds you how important voting really is. Not that it got us anywhere, but still.

"You want to vote? Well it's 10pm, the news is on now, I need to close up, go home and find out who won the election!"

[Patrick]

there's a giant-ass fire on Mt. Diablo, just north of my town, and it's threatening massive property damage up in that area. not only is that just generally bad, but it also threatens the property that Camille's parents are planning on buying up there, and where she plans to move in once she's back in California.

fucking christ, man, we just can't catch a break.

[Barmymoo]

I read that as giant ass-fire.

[Carl-E]

I realise the Episcopal church isn't beholden. I just don't get how in the USA, where things like abortion and gay marriage and women holding high office are such political hot potatoes, a woman can be a bishop when we're pissing around failing to get it sorted in our ostensibly liberal and equal country!

Grr. Perhaps this should be in the rant thread. Last year's vote made me incredibly angry.

Those topics certainly are hot potatoes here, and religiously so.  But the Episcopal church, though very traditional in liturgy (high mass is a treat, incense, bells, the whole nine yards) is very liberal in it's practices.  We've had women priests since the early 70's, so naturally some have made it to Bishops - this is the first female presiding bishop, though.  We've had an openly gay bishop (Gene Robinson of New Hampshire), and now have a ceremony for same-sex blessings (not officially a marriage yet, we're working on that). 

Not that there wasn't a bit of a fracas about that one - the bishop of the diocese of Pittsburgh wound up joining the episcopate of Nigeria.  Then was replaced, after the church determined that all properties were the church's, he couldn't take the buildings and people with him. 

[Barmymoo]

I suppose we were about 20 years behind on having female priests, so perhaps in 20 years we'll have female bishops (if we do not, I might have left the church by that point).

[snalin]

Aaaaand it's the lowest turnout since 1927*.

Aaaaand it turned out somebody fucked up their maths and the turnout was slightly better than last year. Faith in humanity partially restor... who am I kidding, of course I don't have faith on those fuckers.

[Akima]

there's a giant-ass fire on Mt. Diablo, just north of my town

Here too. The fire season is starting early. As I said in the Haiku thread:

Hot winds from the North,
After a long winter drought.
Red sky in the West.

[ankhtahr]

Our last federal election had a voter participation of only 70.9%. This year it might be even lower. I already asked for a mail ballot. (Here it's possible to vote by (snail) mail. If you ask for it, you'll receive a ballot which you can then put in an envelope and send it away. As I don't know exactly where I'll be on the day of the election I asked for one of those)

[GarandMarine]

I'm hoping my home town is done for this fire season, and next year as well. With close to a thousand homes burned over the last two years, two people dead and a massive acreage destroyed we could use a break.

[Carl-E]

OK, you guys from other lands do realize that your voter turnout figures are more than twice what the US gets in a good year, right?  We average around 30%. 

[ev4n]

Canada's been around 60% of late.

[Patrick]

OK, you guys from other lands do realize that your voter turnout figures are more than twice what the US gets in a good year, right?  We average around 30%.

this is damn depressing and one of the reasons I want to leave this awful country.

[lepetitfromage]

Forum Peoples, I'm having a REALLY hard time with house hunting. Even the cheapest homes that we're finding are out of our range once you factor taxes in and were getting hit with all sorts of surprises when our realtor(s) take us to look at them. This is resulting in us seeing a lot of homes that we fall in love with and then realize that we can't afford. It's getting so frustrating that we're ready to give up. We've been looking for almost 3 months now and our realtor is now on vacation and handed us off to someone else. Neither of them are sending us many listings to look at and it's rare that we actually get an answer to a question we have about a home until they take us to look at it in person- and then the answer is often a dealbreaker. We also aren't told until we press them about why we can't see certain homes.

Everyone I've spoken to has asked me why our realtors aren't finding the houses for us- they are just taking us to ones that we find on our own. ut how do you tell someone that you don't think they are doing their job??


Since we've started looking, we've probably sent them close to 100 homes. They have sent us 8. 4 of those were out of budget.


Are we just getting dicked around because we have a low budget? Because we're first time home buyers? Because we don't have a contract? They know we're serious about buying- our lease ends soon, we have a decent chunk of change for a down payment/closing costs/whathaveyou and we've been pre-approved for a mortgage.

Help? I'm at my wits end and at this point, I'm considering that living life underneath a rock would be better than what we're currently dealing with.

[Grognard]

;(  sounds like you might want to do more Realtor-hunting before you do any more house hunting.

As a buyer's agent, it's an easy way to make $$ without a ton of work.  I've had to deal with the jerks too.

Just don't know why the GOOD realtors don't seem interested in being a buyer's agent.

[Barmymoo]

Do you need a realtor? I'm not entirely clear what that is - the way I found my flat to rent, and the way I anticipate finding a house to buy, is by looking at what's available and then contacting the agent selling it to arrange a viewing. Sounds like all your realtor is doing is accompanying you on the viewing, which doesn't seem enormously necessary.

[Carl-E]

The realtor that makes money off a sale is the seller's realtor, the buyer's rep makes a pittance. 

The more the house costs, though, the more hey make  - it's a tiny percentage, but a percentage nonetheless.  You're just not worth their time unless you buy big, and even then...

So really, it's the low budget thing.  But May's right, you don't need a realtor to go look at listings.  Contact the selling realtors directly and arrange for viewings.  Then, when you find a place you want to make an offer on, try to get a real estate lawyer, not a realtor.  They're better with the contracts, and if you can find one that will work for a fee, not a percentage, they won't screw you for a buck or two. 

Please note; I bought my house at an auction.  Whole different ball o' wax. 

[lepetitfromage]

I just worry that since we've never done this before, we're going to get screwed over by settling on something that is an even bigger pain in the ass than we're ready for. I thought realtors helped you avoid that?

Finding a place to rent was SO much easier....

[Barmymoo]

Do you have any knowledgable friends/relatives who could come and take a look at the house once you've decided you think it's a good one? Sounds like all this particular realtor is doing is wasting your time and ignoring your instructions and stressing you out!

[Akima]

Do you need a realtor?

In the UK, I think you call them "estate agents". In Aus they are "real-estate agents", and typically only people in the high-end, especially buyers from out-of-state or overseas, employ a "buyer's agent". You usually have to get in touch with all the agents in your area yourself, watch their ads, visit their websites etc. It sounds to me as if lepetitfromage's agent is a waste of space.

We get voter turnouts of about 95% in Australia, because enrolling and voting are compulsory here, and you get fined if you don't do either.

[Barmymoo]

We have estate agents here but I don't know of anyone who actually uses them. In fact I've never seen anyone inside those buildings. They're just like large display cases for the photos of the houses.

[Redball]

I think Carl's got the right idea, including using an attorney to look at the contract. And if you find a place you like, I hope you'll have a licensed inspector check it out after you submit an offer, with completion of the sale contingent on a good report. I don't know much about using a buyer's agent, but it sounds like a good idea here.

[bainidhe_dub]

If you haven't specifically, I would ask the new agent(s) for an MLS listing of everything within a hard price range, generous location radius, and minimal restrictions (at least 2 bed/1.5 bath or whatever). When we were searching we gave our agent that and she sent us a new list every week of the latest listings that met our criteria. She would also throw in things slightly outside of them that she thought we might be interested in. Then you can pick through it and choose which ones you want to see, and still get the benefit of the agent's direct access to listings.

Have you already signed a thing (not exactly a contract, but not sure what to call it) saying you'll use this agent to negotiate your offers/contract?

[jwhouk]

I found our old condo completely by accident, driving by it one day.

Doing a lot of research online helps, but the eyeball test is the best way to go about finding a place.

[pwhodges]

We have estate agents here but I don't know of anyone who actually uses them.

But perhaps you've not been much involved in buying or selling houses?  You can do it without, but it's hard work, and not many people try - same (but more so) with solicitors for the conveyancing.

[Welu]

We have estate agents here but I don't know of anyone who actually uses them. In fact I've never seen anyone inside those buildings. They're just like large display cases for the photos of the houses.

I'm in the process if buying a house with my parents' help. We looked through listings over a couple months, on PropertyPal mainly. If we found something we would contact the estate agents and arrange a viewing.
We're in the process of buying now, but it was preceded by a lot of slow back and forth bidding. Eventually our offer was accepted when my Da managed to contact the owner directly and "made a deal" in Da's words. Our offer was accepted at the end of July, I think, and now it's the solicitors and agents taking their time. It seems we're actually buying from the bank, who are probably trying to get us to go away, since we paid under the asking price and they want to squeeze someone else for more.

[lepetitfromage]

Bain, we have mentioned to them our "wish list"- a long time ago. Not really much in return. And we haven't signed anything...



Another fun problem? The original dude was recommended to us by one of Nick's good friends- who is friends with him. She said he was absolutely amazing and helped her boyfriend get a great deal on an awesome house. And yet he's really not doing a hell of a lot for us.

We are supposed to see some houses tonight, I think I'm going to try to talk to the woman heading out with us to see if she can shed any light on how we can make this process work better for all of us.

And jwhouk- you know it's bad when most things fail the eyeball test.  Or.....they pass it, you email yourself the address to look up when you get home and then you find that every single house that passes is at least $50K out of budget.


Urrrgghhhhh

[Grognard]

post up the ZIP code for the area you'd like and what your wish list is...
I can browse MLS from here.

[lepetitfromage]

I appreciate the offer but finding them isn't the problem- I currently have a huge list of places we have to go see. The problem is that I'm paying a realtor to do it and they're not.


Well, that and seller's agents like to lie in listings. Bastards!

[Grognard]

YOU shouldn't be paying a Realtor shit.
They're supposed to get their money as a percentage from the final sale.
where the flim-flam are you, that they can screw people like that?

[lepetitfromage]

Well, yeah, that's what I meant. D'oh. Should have specified- they're not that bad. We haven't paid them anything yet, but they are clocking time towards a nice chunk of change. I figure, even if they do the amount of work we expect from them, it'll probably work out to roughly $100/hour. I just want to feel like they have actually worked for their commission, not just unlocked a bunch of doors for us.

[Barmymoo]

We have estate agents here but I don't know of anyone who actually uses them.

But perhaps you've not been much involved in buying or selling houses?  You can do it without, but it's hard work, and not many people try - same (but more so) with solicitors for the conveyancing.

I realised after I'd posted that I wasn't clear - I meant I don't know anyone who uses them at the search stage. I don't know anyone who doesn't use them at the purchasing stage!

[Barmymoo]

Fire them.

[Loki]

Dear diary,
today everything went better than expected.

In other news, found out something interesting today.

And I just realized while lying awake that if I am trying to comprehend all the relationships between the people of my social circle, my brain is starting to melt, because the problem can be approximated as a complete graph. As I calculated today in the shower, such a graph has sigma i=1 to (n-1) i edges. My n is something close to 15.

[LTK]

Now you understand why we need such big brains.

[lepetitfromage]

So.....the house we saw last night was so amazing that we kind of got really excited and put The Realtor Talk off for another day. She did, however, help us with the paperwork involved in putting in an offer.


Please cross your fingers/say prayers/send positive thoughts our way. This place is unreal. Built in '99, 2700 sq ft, 4 bed, 2 bath, finished basement(!), city water/sewer, low-ish taxes, only $125K. It's in an artsy/cute/touristy neighborhood, but far enough away from the main strip to be peaceful. Last time it sold was for almost twice as much. Only downsides: needs new tile in the second bath, the yard is small and ugly, carpets have to be replaced and it needs some interior cosmetic work.



But.....it's a short sale, so who knows how long it'll take for the bank to get back to us.

[LTK]

I got up nice and early today so I could work on my report (8:30, yes, as a matter of fact I do consider that early) and I fired off three consecutive e-mails to my supervisor, so I feel very productive. Then I negated those extra waking hours I got from getting up early by taking a nap mid-afternoon, but whatever. I think I'm making good progress, I should have this finished by Monday.

[Grognard]

So.....the house we saw last night was so amazing that we kind of got really excited and put The Realtor Talk off for another day. She did, however, help us with the paperwork involved in putting in an offer.

Please cross your fingers/say prayers/send positive thoughts our way. This place is unreal. Built in '99, 2700 sq ft, 4 bed, 2 bath, finished basement(!), city water/sewer, low-ish taxes, only $125K. It's in an artsy/cute/touristy neighborhood, but far enough away from the main strip to be peaceful. Last time it sold was for almost twice as much. Only downsides: needs new tile in the second bath, the yard is small and ugly, carpets have to be replaced and it needs some interior cosmetic work.

But.....it's a short sale, so who knows how long it'll take for the bank to get back to us.

W :-oW
In my neck of the woods, you're looking at $225k, minimum.  Even with fix'n up, that seems to be a good deal.

[lepetitfromage]

The last time it sold (in 2007), it was bought for $293K!! We're guessing that they thought they could afford it and then were quickly proven wrong. The process will probably be a big ol' headache, but the joys of a short sale is that sometimes you can snag a kick ass deal!


*fingers crossed so hard that it hurts*

[Grognard]

sounds about right for 2007.
*knocks on wood*
I hope you get it.  YOu'd have alot of equilty right off.

[Redball]

Please cross your fingers/say prayers/send positive thoughts our way. This place is unreal. Built in '99, 2700 sq ft, 4 bed, 2 bath, finished basement(!), city water/sewer, low-ish taxes, only $125K. It's in an artsy/cute/touristy neighborhood, but far enough away from the main strip to be peaceful. Last time it sold was for almost twice as much. Only downsides: needs new tile in the second bath, the yard is small and ugly, carpets have to be replaced and it needs some interior cosmetic work.

You might see that you can do the bathroom tile yourselves. I did quite a bit when we moved into this house, including the bath. And intelligent landscaping can do a lot for a small, ugly yard. You might think of it as somewhere between an art project, an accessorizing project and interior decorating plus sky.

[Akima]

Best of luck with the house LPF! On houses with small ugly yards; I found John Brookes' books The Small Garden, and The New Small Garden Book very helpful.

[Loki]

Thumbs pressed! (German equivalent for fingers crossed)

[lepetitfromage]

Thumbs pressed...I like that!

Thanks everyone I'm really hoping that all the good wishes we get add up and tip the scale in our favor. Just gotta hope that the bank accepts before someone else puts an offer in. We knew when we were starting this process that we were going to get our hands dirty- in our budget, it's a given. But we really don't mind and actually kind of look forward to it! He's handy and enjoys home repair stuff and I'm creative, kind of handy and willing to learn the rest! (I learned a few things after helping my parents rebuild after the 2 stupid floods.)

Assuming it's only the tile that needs to be replaced and not everything underneath it as well, we could probably just fix it by adding a decorative tile around the outside edges- it's near the bottom where the tile meets the tub. It would be cheaper since we wouldn't replace all the tile and it would add a little funk to the boring beige.


Another wonderful thing? There are two trees in the backyard that are the perfect distance apart to hang a hammock.

[bainidhe_dub]

Joy and sadness. Robert's cousin-on-his-mom's-side had her baby yesterday (but named him Logan ugh). Robert's cousin-on-his-dad's-side and his girlfriend just had a baby and he died at six weeks old (apparently something his aunt also went through many times).

I almost got creamed yesterday while turning left at a stoplight that was out following a crazy thunderstorm.


Good luck LPF!!

[Jace]

I don't really know where to put this but today I learned that my girlfriend's younger sister's friend gave her ex a handy (possibly, could have just been playing with it, details are inconclusive to whether or not he finished) and then he "did stuff to her too" which I think we both know what happened.

Highlights: watching a 14 year old girl turn bright red when my girlfriend asked "did she put his pee pee in her mouth" and then "well what do you want me to say 'did she suck his cock'." because we are adults and know how to mess with a 14 year old.
Further highlights: me then later making the joke "You said all your friends suck, but I mean earlier you told us explicitly that one did not. I'm getting some conflicting information about this"

Further Further highlights: In a discussion about how this girl sneaking out to see boys in the middle of the night is bad and could possibly be considered negligent behavior on the part of the dad (whom she is living with presently and he is suing the mother for child support even though he gets social security and doesn't need the child support), jess's mother says that one of the omg terrible things that could happen is that she loses her virginity. To which I got to have the best reaction in the world and just look up from my soup and go "it's not that bad." Then later telling jess's sister that it really ain't that big a deal to lose your virginity as long as you aren't pressured into it.

Top of the world highlight for today: walking by the justin beiber cardboard cutout that had been repaired (the cardboard was starting to weaken at the fold marks and thus it was falling over) that belongs to the 14 year old (I think she got it a year or more ago?) and having the light from outside catch it in such a manner as to be able to see the smeared marks over the lips of what appeared to be lip gloss/chapstick/lipstick poorly wiped off. Invisible from dead on, but at an angle it was clear as day. Pointed that shit out to Jess and then pointed it out to her sister with the comment of "might wanna use windex next time." Hearty chuckles were had. To clarify this: I caught that this girl and her friends had been mackin on this cardboard cutout of teen heart-throb justin beiber.

[Carl-E]

Ahh, the wonder years. 

[Jimor]

Later today I'll be attending part of a local film festival that shows about 20 locally made music videos, including one I directed.  The organizers also made a sample video for the screening that used mine as the backbone (and they did a really great job of editing all the other clips into it!).

It's going to be super cool to see it on a BIG screen in a great old art-deco movie house that's been around for decades, and has been beautifully refurbished as the city's premiere art theater. Of course, in my mind, all the flaws that only I can see are now going to be 20 feet tall. 

Edit: forgot to mention one additional point of ego-boo: I hadn't even entered my music video for the festival, instead the organizer contacted me to ask to show it!

[lepetitfromage]

Jimor, that is awesome! Congrats!

And, take comfort in the fact that no one else will know that the "flaws" are flaws and some might even enjoy them the best! That has happened WAY too many times to me re: creative ventures.






In other news, I have no news. I have been a big ol' unproductive shlub all day and have taken not 1, but 2 naps. One of which I just woke up from. Time to clean the toilet so I can say I did something today 



Edited to add- seems that cleaning the toilet was not enough productivity today. I just got done cleaning up a huge mess after dropping a 3/4 full jar of salsa out of the fridge. Now the floor is mopped, the floor mat under the sink vacuumed, the cat's dish and water bowl emptied, scrubbed and replaced. And I'm STILL getting fragments of glass stuck to my feet. *headdesk*

[Carl-E]

The third dog we were caring for (we have two, this one belonged to a friend who lost half her foot to diabetes) finally left on Sept. 2nd.  It was a small dog, but a big PITA, especially walking all three at a time.  Not to mention the social issues, which after two months were never ironed out, just left to simmer on the back burner.  The occasional growl-snap would crop up. 

Things were back to normal, peaceful, walks were easy again. 


Today, my wife found a little dog on the highway, half starved, flea infested and reeking to high heaven.  It's been washed and collared and is making itself at home in the kitchen. 



And it seems she's already given it a name. 



FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCKfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckFUUUUUUUUUUUUUckfuckfuck. 

[Papersatan]

Today I went to my first college football game.  GO BLUE!

Pro tip: wear sunscreen if you go to a football game, particularly on a day with no clouds... I have the worst burn I have gotten in years

Otherwise today was amazing.  I pregamed, the game was to be a cupcake match, but it ended up really close, so it was tense which made for a fun time full of drama.  I learned all the cheers and shit, then I partied until midnight.  It was a great time over all, so hurray.