Such a sense of desperation — being in an unhappy circumstance at home. Though I take dogs to day care and to the office each day, I worry that one of the two left at home decided to bark (because that is what dogs do — even gooddogs — which, I hear, some people own). I don’t feel I can go to the grocery store because it’s too hot to leave dogs in the car, and they aren’t permitted to run the aisles at Trader Joe’s. If I leave them home for the 45 minute trip, they might bark and disturb the neighbors.
The house my client found for me in Los Lunas turns out to have been foreclosed and will be auctioned off in early September. It’s always difficult to outbid the bank, and I wouldn’t know what was going to happen until after the sale — that’s another three weeks. I need answers sooner rather than later.
This morning I was reviewing the out-of-town homes for sale listed in the Albuquerque Journal. One ad leaped off its column and shouted at me to call the number. I waited until 8:00, woke the broker up. Drove down to Los Lunas and met him at the Dion’s on the main drag. We drove about 6 miles east of the Village to a private road. It dead ends into a 140,000 Acre ranch. A retired couple has already basically moved to a home near their kids and their house is for sale for less than they paid for it. It’s on an Acre, has a vacant Acre next to it. Wonderful community well water, natural gas, high speed internet is available. The furnace, hot water heater, and evaporative cooler have all been replaced within the past three years. The septic tank was replaced with a much larger one in 2008. One side of the land is fenced and there is an interior fence around the patio in the back. The house is just shy of 2000 square feet. It has three full baths. The third one (right next to the laundry room and door to “what will be a garage”) will lose its bathtub in favor of a booster bath and built in grooming table.
The master suite has an adjoining sitting room — don’t know why they’d call it that when it’s really a new puppy room. Total — four bedrooms and the puppy room, a living room, family room, bright island kitchen, formal dining room, kitchen breakfast bar, and the three baths. Best of all, I can afford it.
The paperwork is sitting here. I am meeting with the Realtor tomorrow evening or Tuesday morning to sign everything. Wow! Scarey.
The plan: a handyman will go into the new house and retape all the drywall, float the walls, re-texture and paint it all white. Then he’ll pull up the carpet in the bedrooms (the general living areas are all oak parquet) and he’ll lay Pergo. Finally, new molding all around and French doors replacing the patio slider. I’ll move. The handyman will come to the townhouse, patch and repaint. I’ll have the tile cleaned and will re-carpet the stairs and bedrooms. We’ll sell the townhouse. Then I’ll build the garage and do the exterior fencing, have the acre scraped and the weeds and “stuff” hauled away. I’ll seed with buffalo grass and native wildflower seeds, then hope for some rain.
Ya’ll come visit — hear?
