The move into the new house, she is accomplished.
Overall it went fairly smoothly, but still took so much of my time to organize that "Tipping Point" will have to wait for a while. Unless I write 40,000 words in the next week. Which ain't gonna happen.
No photos, I'm afraid, because my mighty laptop , Gigantor, is on the fritz. This just as I had decided that, rather than get a new TV to replace the ailing one we just donated, I would get a little gadget that allows one to watch TV on one's computer. Since Gigantor has a 17" screen, I thought, "that'll work for my purposes." Of course, as soon as I installed the gadget, the video card on Gigantor died. Do'h! I installed the same gadget on Lisa's little Fujitsu notebook, and it works fine. So at least I had access to football on Thanksgiving -- not that the games were worthy of much time.
So now I have to figure out what to do about Gigantor: fix it (for a hefty fee but much less than a new, comparable notebook) or sell it as is and buy something new. I have techy data to gather to make that decision and won't bore readers with the details. The upshot is that it's a huge pain in the ass to get photos from my phone to my little Apple iBook G4. So my posts will be prose-only for a little while. But at least I'm still able to surf and get e-mail and such.
Better news is that it looks like the old house has already sold! We accepted an offer last Wednesday and as long as the buyers' financing doesn't fall through, they will close on December 7. Hooray! Appreciation since we bought the house will allow us to pay off Lisa's student loans, do a few upgrades to the new house, and pump the rest back into our investments. Now I see why so many rich folks are real estate developers. The house gained about 40% in value during the 2.5 years we owned it. It's all timing and luck, though. Timing in that we bought before a big rise housing prices. Luck in that Portland's market remains strong as other cities have seen a marked decline recently. But if you have enough good timing and good luck, a person can grow assets real quick. Or lose 'em in a big hurry. But such is also true if you bet on the Miami Dolphins to go to the Super Bowl this year.
Well. Enough boring crap. More pithy posts to come, I promise!
3 comments:
Congratuations on your successful real estate "swap." I miss having my own house sometimes. Sounds like the real estate market in Portland is much healthier than Denver -- Colorado has the highest foreclosure rate in the country.
Luckily, the townhouse I'm renting is big enough for my "extended" family: me, Marty, Dan, and the kitties. Marty is now moved in here and will be seeking part-time employment while he finishes his book.
The only Thanksgiving Day football I watched was the Bronco game. But, from your short description it doesn't sound like I missed much.
Hopefully you'll be able to add photos to your posts soon so I can see your new digs.
I only watched a bit of the Dolphins/Lions game...I am actually a bit of Joey Harrington fan. He's a smart, decent QB and human being (and a pianist!). I thought he got a raw deal in Detroit and I was glad to see him come back and show the Detroit fans that all the Lions' troubles over the last three years weren't ALL his fault.
This morning on the NFL Today there was a story concerning Joey Harrington. Apparently, when he took the field, the stadium "music person" played Billy Joel's "The Piano Man." The "story" was that the song was viewed by some as an insult to Harrington. Not much an "insult" if you ask me. . .
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