my brain was not wrapping itself around the cold hard facts of the current housing market crash… this is unacceptable i said to anyone breathing… there is no way in hell im selling my house for
the same amount i bought it for 8 years earlier… i have receipts showing the 50 grand i put into this joint… you are seriously demented if you think im gonna take a loss on this property, i emphatically stated to kat, my real estate go to person… 78 days later my brain was wishing it could wrap itself around a pole…
id gotten an offer shortly after listing my home for the exact amount id asked for… 2 weeks later the buyer decides the plumbing is not up to their standards so we fall out of escrow… 9 days before the second escrow was to close the appraiser tells me my house is not worth the agreed upon price… this is a fine how do you do i think to myself… not only was i not looking at selling my house for slightly over what id payed for it now im being told it wasnt even worth that… we muddled our way through that when a week before we are to close the lender decides my buyer was not qualified enough…. wtf… wtf… wtf…. she was putting down 50 percent… 50 percent … who in their right mind would not take that bet… talk about the pendulum swinging… when i was mortgage hunting they were giving out loans to the homeless… now you were required to pay cash upfront, turn over your firstborn to slave trade and sacrifice your 4 left fingers if you even think about defaulting…
id always been told that it would be a far easier sell if the house for sale was furnished tastefully… i put a lot of time, energy and money into making my abode a model home… by all accounts it was decorated to accent all the positives the place had to offer… not really sure how much it helped in selling the place but now i had 4 days to get rid of all of it… neither the buyer or i wanted to extend escrow any longer once we got the ok from the bank… we hauled ass to make the sale happen in 4 days… that was all the notice i had was four days… luckily my neighbors and i agreed to have a garage sale two weeks prior… i posted a ton of pictures on craigslist in hopes of attracting those looking to furnish a 2 bedroom 2 and a half bathroom home/apartment… aside from my bulky pieces i still had a ton of s**t everywhere else… man i thought id gotten rid of most of my stuff but good lord i had even more stuff here there and everywhere…
stuff stuff i was swimming in stuff… i was completely overwhelmed… getting rid of loose stuff, my furniture and remaining keepsakes was a ginormous task in itself …, there were some things that i needed to pack up and take to my parents new home in arizona for storage… i had four days to create a miracle… i didint even have time to think about it i just had to move… and quickly…
i should count my blessings just by the mere fact i got an offer, however if one more person said to me you are so lucky to sell in this market i would have said you are so
lucky i am not a black belt in tai quon do cuz youd be flat on your back right this second… with all that had transpired those past 3 months im surprised at the low body count… talk about stressed… i wasnt living anywhere for three months… i never really moved back into my house cuz it had no tv and besides it just wasnt my house anymore… it was impossible to live in my rv cuz although it was parked out front my old house it was sort of a go to place to store things, catch the evening news and on occasion take a 2 day stop over in the surrounding area… i was a woman without a country… it was very unsettling to say the least… with all that i had just been through this took a toll on me… i wanted to be free.. free of this house, free of alll this junk, free of hackers/stalkers/ upset neighbors… free to go whenever i wanted to go and free of all the heartache of the past three months… the last thing i felt was freedom…
debbie, my neighbor, reported that it would be a sun shiny day unlike our last multiunit garage sale which ended in a big bust due to a huge rainstorm… 6 days it rains all year in california and after weeks of planning it rained on our big event… that was then… this is now… lightning rarely strikes twice… we opened our doors at 9 am sharp that saturday with high hopes… the sun was out the birds were chirping and the sound of buzz saws were ringing in our ears… what in the hell is going on out there… andy my other neighbor goes to see what the ruckus is all about… on either side of our alley ways which were the only entrances to our garage sale were tree trimmers… their enormous trucks blocking both streets therefore cutting off access to our main event… as well as to my one and only chance to make what little money i could off my furniture and remaining artifacts… we all shook our heads in amazement… andy had been cracking jokes earlier about our bad luck with the past sale… no one was laughing now… we almost started crying when the guys told us theyd be there all day as the two 20 feet trees had to come down…
there wasnt a damn thing we could do about it… we managed to get a few determined shoppers but our prospects looked pretty bleak… our nerves were frayed by that annoying buzz saw sound, our high hopes for tons of money passing hands where fading , our spirits where starting to droop… we sat around and talked about the good old days… mikey p stopped by which boosted my moral… mikey stayed at my place to keep an eye on it for me while i was roaming the planet as well as to pass on my mail to whatever exotic location i happened to be exploring… he joined in on the reminiscing… he was officially one of the gang after all… since id never seen him living at my home it was weird to picture him as being andy and debbies neighbor as well…
im not sure what ju ju mikey p spread throughout the atmosphere that day but shortly after his arrival the garage was filled with shoppers… business was a booming… i couldnt keep up with all the traffic… mikey please dont go i begged him… i really needed the help… not only that if he was the one responsible for this sales spirt i didnt want him going anywhere…id been in la going on four months… id seen mikey p once during that whole time… seeing as hes one of my favorite people i was looking forward to shooting the s**t with my old buddy and pal… plus he owed me money… lol… just kidding….
garage sale extended… check in tomorrow for the rest of the amazing deals…
today’s ” must have” fun facts…
« Odd News
Grandma’s ashes mistakenly sold
Published: Oct. 14, 2010 at 1:38 PM
FORT WALTON BEACH, Fla., Oct. 14 (UPI) — A Florida woman said a potted violet containing her grandmother’s ashes was mistakenly sold at a yard sale.
Piper Gaffrey of Fort Walton Beach said her husband was running the sale before she arrived last week and she soon found the potted violet holding the ashes of her grandmother, Marjorie Potts Gaffrey, who died in February at age 99, had been sold, the Northwest Florida Daily News reported Thursday.
Gaffery said she posted a message on her Facebook page asking whoever purchased the flower to take good care of it and she was surprised to receive a message in return from the buyer.
“Fortunately, it was (bought by) someone who knew me,” Gaffrey said. “I was just glad to have her back.”
DUNCANSVILLE, Pa. — Police say a Pennsylvania man picked up more than he bargained for at a yard sale.
Ott says the snake likely slithered into a milk crate containing items the couple had purchased.
The pair bailed out of the car on Interstate 99 and called 911. A state trooper was unable to help them find the snake, which Forshey tried to pin to the floor with a crutch he uses.
An ambulance was called as a precaution, but Forshey is OK.
Authorities believe it was either a garter snake or a copperhead that didn’t inject any venom when it struck.
Kofski Antique’s estate sale is a seasonal staple of furniture and other household goods from Palm Beach estates, according to PalmBeachPost.com. But it’s taken a twist this year.
About 60 percent of the items on Saturday — which ranged from a $2,750 set of silverware and $750 candelabra to a $90 set of classic Hardy Boys books — came from the once-wealthy. Forty percent came directly from victims of the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme.
Kofski owner Chris Hill said some buyers were looking to furnish their empty investment homes in hopes of increasing their resale value.
1. Ansel Adams negatives. Rick Norsigian was in the market for an antique barber chair at a Fresno garage sale when he spotted a couple of boxes of glass negatives. His interest piqued, Norsigian offered the owner $45 and ended up going home with them. After noticing how similar the images seemed to some famous Ansel Adams photos of Yosemite National Park, he had them examined by experts. They were declared authentic, most likely rescued from a fire that destroyed a third of Adams’ work in 1937. People from Adams’ camp are skeptical, to say the least, even comparing Norsigian to Hitler. Whoa.
2. Vintage Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield pictures.
Purchased for $2.00 at a New Jersey garage sale in 1980 by photographer Anton Fury, the photos are still in his possession while he figures out who they belong to and where they came from.
3. Floyd Landis’ bicycle. Most bikes found at garage sales were maybe worth a couple of hundred bucks new. The one Greg Estes of Owenton, Ky., found was worth $8,000 and was custom built for Tour de France 2006 winner Floyd Landis (well, he was the winner until he was stripped of his title for doping). It turned out the bike had been blown off the vehicle transporting it to an event in 2008; someone found it by the side of the road and decided to throw it in a garage sale, hoping to make a few bucks.
4. A 16th-century oil painting. The portrait was found at a garage sale in South Bend, Ind. Purchaser Frederick Wright didn’t really even care for the piece and only bought it because the man depicted reminded him of a character from the British sitcom Are You Being Served? After interpreting a French inscription and discovering that the portrait may have been done in 1573 by French painter and designer Francois Quesnel, Wright had the piece appraised. Its worth was estimated at $4,000 to $6,000.
5. Original artboards for the first issue of the Avengers comic book.A creative little girl bought the blank drawings to color in when her stepdad wondered if they might be worth something. They were: about $48,000. It turned out the boards had been reported stolen and the family was arrested (and later released):
6. The Declaration of Independence. Or at least a version of it. This tale is pretty famous, so you may have heard it before. If not, it goes a little something like this: Guy buys a cool, weathered-looking copy of the Declaration of Independence at a yard sale, then stashes it in his garage for years. Guy gets engaged, guy and girl clean out their junk so they can move in together. Guy gives copy of the Declaration to a thrift store. A week later, he finds out it was the real thing. Well, it was a copy, but it was one of 200 official copies commissioned by John Quincy Adams in 1820. It sold for $477,000 in 2007.
7. A rare Velvet Underground acetate disc. In 2004, record collector Warren Hill forked over a dollar for a plain acetate in a cardboard sleeve that had the words “Velvet Underground” scribbled on it. An acetate disc, in case you don’t know (I didn’t), is a type of record that was used for recording different mixes or getting preview copies of albums to DJs. Anyway, Warren got a quarter back from his dollar, and his 75-cent investment ended up netting him about $24,999.25 after it was discovered to be a demo of the first album the Velvet Underground ever made. The demo was rejected by Columbia Records.
8. A diamond-encrusted pendant shaped like LeBron James’ jersey. Vaneisha Robinson shelled out $5 for a cute LeBron pendant at a garage sale several years ago, then later had it appraised out of curiosity and found out it was 14-karat gold covered in two carats of real diamonds. The pendant originally belonged to Maverick Carter, the head of LeBron’s marketing company. Robinson says she was pressured into turning the pendant over to Carter’s mother and filed a lawsuit last year.
