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pameladeanNo, I don't generally plan out what I'm going to say in one of these; why do you ask?
The appraiser is here. We have been trying since January to refinance the house and get a home equity loan. The place has more than tripled in value since we bought it and interest rates are low, or were low, after all. We got tangled up in a bizarre city mess. This neighborhood is zoned for single-family dwellings only. Our duplex is deemed a legal non-conforming dwelling. Before December 1 of last year, the law said that, if the building were to be more than two-thirds destroyed, it must be rebuild as a single-family dwelling. (Morons. Do they want to be a city, or a goddamned suburb?) After December 1 of last year, the two-thirds was changed to half, and apparently at that time lenders started to dig in their heels about the possibility of having their lucrative multiple-family dwelling turned into a boring unlucrative single-family one by disaster natural or unnatural. It took a great deal of dedicated harrassment of bureaucrats by Lydy to get this figured out. In a surreal moment a short time after Minicon, the city representative that the Mayor's office had sent to suffer her displeasure told her she should just get another lender, while the mortgage counsellor had already told us that only one lender would deal with such properties, and their rates were "unnattractive." Then suddenly the legislature passed a law saying that legal non-conforming properties could be rebuilt as themselves. It takes effect on August 1.
I had originally requested that we have one or two weeks' notice of the appraiser's arrival so that we could clean the house. I got home from California on Sunday and was informed that the appraiser was coming on Tuesday at 3:30. I wasted a bit of time when I should have been sleeping trying to decide how much I could clean and what I should clean since the appraiser is an appraiser, not a buyer or a realtor. I finally decided that it was just not my problem. I did a bit of clearing and cleaning, but only what I wanted to do anyway.
After all, they can take a hundred thousand dollars off the valuation for taxes and still leave us with a decent loan-to-value ratio.
The appraiser is a very Minnesotan-looking blonde woman in a pink tank top and a white denim skirt and sneakers. She doesn't make a lot of foofy comments
Now for the politics or history. It's just more of me being cranky.
Oh, good God. Eric and I spent the week congratulating ourselves on avoiding all the Reaganolatry. We had to look at all the flags at half-mast, but that was really all. We also agreed briefly that that scientific illiterate, that puling sexist, that unconscious self-aggrandizing fabulist,, that unthinking militarist, that smarmy smiling villain, looked almost good next to the present occupant of the White House, and we hoped the entire affair would just backfire on the damn Republican Party. (Epithets mine, though I think Eric would agree with many of them.) Then I came home and found that, just as I'd said, it was not necessary to check the news to know that the Bush Administration was continuing its swathe of treasonous wreckage. I think somebody should take their God away from them. They aren't responsible enough to have one like that. They need a different one.
Pamela
.
The appraiser is here. We have been trying since January to refinance the house and get a home equity loan. The place has more than tripled in value since we bought it and interest rates are low, or were low, after all. We got tangled up in a bizarre city mess. This neighborhood is zoned for single-family dwellings only. Our duplex is deemed a legal non-conforming dwelling. Before December 1 of last year, the law said that, if the building were to be more than two-thirds destroyed, it must be rebuild as a single-family dwelling. (Morons. Do they want to be a city, or a goddamned suburb?) After December 1 of last year, the two-thirds was changed to half, and apparently at that time lenders started to dig in their heels about the possibility of having their lucrative multiple-family dwelling turned into a boring unlucrative single-family one by disaster natural or unnatural. It took a great deal of dedicated harrassment of bureaucrats by Lydy to get this figured out. In a surreal moment a short time after Minicon, the city representative that the Mayor's office had sent to suffer her displeasure told her she should just get another lender, while the mortgage counsellor had already told us that only one lender would deal with such properties, and their rates were "unnattractive." Then suddenly the legislature passed a law saying that legal non-conforming properties could be rebuilt as themselves. It takes effect on August 1.
I had originally requested that we have one or two weeks' notice of the appraiser's arrival so that we could clean the house. I got home from California on Sunday and was informed that the appraiser was coming on Tuesday at 3:30. I wasted a bit of time when I should have been sleeping trying to decide how much I could clean and what I should clean since the appraiser is an appraiser, not a buyer or a realtor. I finally decided that it was just not my problem. I did a bit of clearing and cleaning, but only what I wanted to do anyway.
After all, they can take a hundred thousand dollars off the valuation for taxes and still leave us with a decent loan-to-value ratio.
The appraiser is a very Minnesotan-looking blonde woman in a pink tank top and a white denim skirt and sneakers. She doesn't make a lot of foofy comments
Now for the politics or history. It's just more of me being cranky.
Oh, good God. Eric and I spent the week congratulating ourselves on avoiding all the Reaganolatry. We had to look at all the flags at half-mast, but that was really all. We also agreed briefly that that scientific illiterate, that puling sexist, that unconscious self-aggrandizing fabulist,, that unthinking militarist, that smarmy smiling villain, looked almost good next to the present occupant of the White House, and we hoped the entire affair would just backfire on the damn Republican Party. (Epithets mine, though I think Eric would agree with many of them.) Then I came home and found that, just as I'd said, it was not necessary to check the news to know that the Bush Administration was continuing its swathe of treasonous wreckage. I think somebody should take their God away from them. They aren't responsible enough to have one like that. They need a different one.
Pamela
.
Re: The appraiser
Date: 2004-06-23 02:28 pm (UTC)The best mockingbird story comes from my recent California trip, when a mockingbird sang all night long, interspersing the most affecting pure melodious runs with car-alarm and cellphone sound effects. I loved it. It did not prevent sleep, but whenever I woke, the mockingbird was singing.
Pamela
The appraiser
Date: 2004-06-24 07:46 pm (UTC)Oh, that sounds promising! When we were trying to get a mortgage, we weren't showing enough assets, so I appraised my own stuff (all hauled in from the alley, mind you) and that put us right over the top.
>The best mockingbird story comes from my recent California trip, when a mockingbird sang all night long, interspersing the most affecting pure melodious runs with car-alarm and cellphone sound effects. I loved it. It did not prevent sleep, but whenever I woke, the mockingbird was singing.
Oh thank you, Pammy Dean. I needed a bedtime story. Last night, as I lay, trying to fall asleep I kept thinking of your silly mockingbird and it made me smile. I'm such a baby when I'm sick.