One of our favorite things to do on a Sunday afternoon is to go visit the real estate open houses in Oakland. We've been going for quite a while: a year and a half, actually, and seen a lot of changes. The realtors all know us by face. That's not really a good thing: we represent the hard-to-convince prospective buyer who's prob'ly just wasting your time.
Also, sometimes we suffer from absent-minded professor x 2. As on this Sunday when we walked into to a house only to realize we'd already been there two weeks earlier. The (same) realtor looked at us skeptically, "Did you come back to buy?"
She knew we hadn't: on our previous visit we'd pointed out oddities like the extension cords running across the baseboards, and the cracked plaster behind the potted plant.
We complain about lots of stairs, because we won't be able to climb them when we're old. We walk into expensively-flipped kitchens and proclaim "hideous!"
L* has an innate sense of direction, so she usually knows which neighborhoods we're in, what we've seen before, and she's been keeping an eye on which houses have sat on the market, which are new listings, and which are bank-owned.
Me, I'm more like those people with short-term memory loss: every day is a surprise.
Lately we've been around Maxwell Park, Millsmont, and some other little area with all these "storybook" houses.
L* likes to chat up the realtors. Even the hooty lesbian one who one time told us we needed to look "on the other side of the freeway." She apparently has the same short-term memory problem as I, since the next time she saw us she radar-focused on L* and said "I"d love to meet to talk about your dream home." All my femme hackles came out and I've all but hissed at her every time we've seen her since.
We saw two houses we liked last weekend. Both of which are almost in our price range. Of the blue one, which I liked, L* said "I don't know if we're up to it. It's kind of a 1920's glam. We're more mid-century rasquach." That is, it might be too much effort for us to try to live up to the 1920's glam. Yeah, we could get the blue velvet couch that L* has been wistful about, but what will we do about the cat hair?
Well, we're in no hurry (at least until our landlord decides to put our house on the market).
Also, sometimes we suffer from absent-minded professor x 2. As on this Sunday when we walked into to a house only to realize we'd already been there two weeks earlier. The (same) realtor looked at us skeptically, "Did you come back to buy?"
She knew we hadn't: on our previous visit we'd pointed out oddities like the extension cords running across the baseboards, and the cracked plaster behind the potted plant.
We complain about lots of stairs, because we won't be able to climb them when we're old. We walk into expensively-flipped kitchens and proclaim "hideous!"
L* has an innate sense of direction, so she usually knows which neighborhoods we're in, what we've seen before, and she's been keeping an eye on which houses have sat on the market, which are new listings, and which are bank-owned.
Me, I'm more like those people with short-term memory loss: every day is a surprise.
Lately we've been around Maxwell Park, Millsmont, and some other little area with all these "storybook" houses.
L* likes to chat up the realtors. Even the hooty lesbian one who one time told us we needed to look "on the other side of the freeway." She apparently has the same short-term memory problem as I, since the next time she saw us she radar-focused on L* and said "I"d love to meet to talk about your dream home." All my femme hackles came out and I've all but hissed at her every time we've seen her since.
We saw two houses we liked last weekend. Both of which are almost in our price range. Of the blue one, which I liked, L* said "I don't know if we're up to it. It's kind of a 1920's glam. We're more mid-century rasquach." That is, it might be too much effort for us to try to live up to the 1920's glam. Yeah, we could get the blue velvet couch that L* has been wistful about, but what will we do about the cat hair?
Well, we're in no hurry (at least until our landlord decides to put our house on the market).
5 comentarios:
i just came back from a day trip to oakland. it was cooooold!
I want to go with you two again to be a looky loo!
Hi Ktrion! You know, I bought in Oakland over a year ago, and during the process of getting the home loan, I had brokers telling me to look in the Sacramento River Delta because there was no way they could see me affording to live in City.
Real Estate is so prejudiced this way; it's so built into their industry, sizing you up and down, looking at what you do and how much you earn. And for those of us in non-profits and education, Wow. I hadn't felt that tiny in a while.
Have fun looking though. Oakland's got a lot of (unexpected) lovely homes.
Hey - we ARE probably related. At least I hope so. I can tell reading your blog is going to be very worth while. Looks like I have some back posts to catch up on! I like looking at houses too! My ex is an architect.
You know, I had never heard of Rasquache until I saw the word in this post. Wow! What a rich meaning it has. I'm now spending some time seeing what information can be found about it on the internet.
I learn something from you every time I visit.
(((hugs)))
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