jamesq | My Scary Roller Coaster Ride Weekend

Saturday I woke up late, having crashed the night before. I had a morning meeting with Diane (my realtor) during which we made up an offer for the 1/2 duplex.

Diane has been a great help during this whole ordeal (which includes selling the Pointe of Screw condo). She's knows all the things to watch out for in a house (not that there was anything in this case).

The seller was asking 199K and had several potential buyers. Diane estimated the actual worth of the house at 230K, so I offered 212K. Several hours later, they accepted. Given the oddball price, I can't help but think that the seller and I are both walking away from this deal thinking "heh heh, sucker".

This of course threw all of my current plans into disarray (not that I mind - it's nice to see the light at the end of the tunnel for a change). I would not be renting an apartment - It would be too costly to have to break my lease. The only place that was willing to rent month to month was The Fortress - for $785/mo.

Luckily it was Wendy to the rescue. She pointed out that SAIT and U of C both have huge student residences that are largely empty during the summer. Each has a sideline renting rooms out to non-students during this time. SAIT was the better deal at only $500/mo. This gives me a place to stay until I can take possession on July 1st. No damage deposit, no lease to break, basically just a really cheap hotel room that isn't the Cecil.

Strangely, U of C was charging 600/mo for their dorm style rooms (no kitchen, shared bathrooms) whereas SAIT was charging 500/mo for a bachelor suites with its own kitchen and bathroom. I'm not sure why they would be that stupid. They only thing I can think of (other than the gouge factor) is U of C also rents the rooms out nightly, not just monthly. I suspect the monthly rate is just 30x the daily rate.

The rest of the day I was antsy and a little nervous about home ownership (I never really had the chance to be nervous with the condo because I was to busy being pissed off). Gareth and I went to the Cheesecake Café to celebrate.

I also saw Holes - the kids movie set in a tough love boot camp. It was surprisingly good - one of those rare movies that keeps the attention of both children and grown-ups. The only difficult part was explaining to a pair of six year olds why people would kill a man for kissing a woman (circa 1900). That the kids honestly didn't care that the man was black and the woman was white gives me hope for the future.