67 Cents

We closed on both homes today. The first one, to give away (just about literally) the house we love in Royal Oak, went off without a hitch. Ken and Barbie (the young couple who saved their pennies and love it SO much) were excited beyond jellybeans. They fidgeted and babbled like a couple of young squirrels on Mountain Dew.


The new house, the two-story one, well, that was another story.

There were missing documents, a plugged sewer pipe, held up wire transfers, title issues, and a huge email flame-war resulting from an argument between the listing agent and our bank officer that went all the way up to a stiff-suit bank VP and back down before it was settled to everyone's satisfaction.

One big chunk of money coming from the seller (yes, that happens nowadays) is held up for 24 hours so even though we completed all the closing paperwork, we do not get our keys until tomorrow.

And just to keep things lively, there was a miscalculation by the title company that kept the totals from balancing until we paid the difference. We were not told of this until we got to the closing, and we didn't have enough cash on us to cover it. We were about to just write a check for it when the builder reached into his pocket and threw a quarter on the table. Combined with the money we had on hand, we were able to pay off the debt and close the sale.

The amount of this mismatch?

Sixty-seven cents.

(Incidentally, just to show how good this market is for buyers, consider this: minus the quarter the builder donated, we had to put down a grand total of 42 cents to buy a brand new $300,000 house! The seller paid our entire down-payment).