Adventures in Homebuying: My Day With the Realtor

I know you guys are all DYING to know how this went.

To be honest, I was somewhat excited to go, even though images of Mama's Family kept popping into my head. I mean, I was going to Raytown after all.

I had it all planned...I was going to wake up early, leisurely get ready, stop at Starbucks before meeting. But noooo...for whatever reason, the alarm didn't go off, and I rolled out of bed 30 minutes before I was to meet the realtor. So, I threw on some clothes, pulled my hair back, and drove to Raytown like my ass was on fire. Luckily, traffic was cooperating. I had phoned the agent to let her know I was running behind.

The realtor was perfectly well-groomed and put together. Her shiny, rhinestone-y belt buckle matched her bracelet, which matched her earrings, and her little matching green corduroy jumpsuit with little black boots. Meanwhile, I look like a bag of chewed up assholes. Schlepped in jeans, a black shirt, and sandals. Yes, I look the part of a professional and serious homebuyer.

The realtor drives (a rather posh caddy) us, and takes me to Lee's Summit. To be honest, if she had left me there, I wouldn't even know how to get home.

The first house she took me to was a ranch home. It was nice, relatively new, on a HUGE lot. Heather would get lots and lots of exercise mowing the grass because it was almost a full acre. Plenty of room for Sam to run free. However...no basement. In the event of a tornado, I would just simply put my head between my knees and kiss my ass good-bye.

Other than that, I liked the house.

The second house was rather scary, and smelly. The realtor told me it had been built in the 70's, and I am inclined to believe that everything in that house was original...the carpet, the appliances (Harvest Gold!), the wood paneling (I loathe and despise wood paneling). I made a face, and we moved on to the next house which was one block over.

A much nicer house, with lots of updates. Pergo floors everywhere, berber carpet in the bedrooms. A note on the door said to not go in the backyard. When I looked out the patio door, a dog roughly the size of an elephant smiled at me. He looked hungry.

The 4th house was a disaster. Everything needed replacing, it was overpriced by 10K. I didn't even want to see the whole thing. It was that bad.

The 5th house was nice, but small. The bathroom was so tiny, I could sit on the toilet, take a shower, and brush my teeth all at the same time.

The 6th house was also nice, but also small. There was only one number on the house. I mean, it was actually the number 1. I've never seen a house with the address of 1.

For the last house, the realtor took me to a house that was 25K more than I could afford. Naturally, I liked it better than the others.

Afterward, we went to her office where she printed off sheets and sheets of houses listed, told me to go home and see which ones I wanted to look at. She printed off stuff from Brookside, Raytown, Independence and the Northland. Next week, she said, we could go out for round two.

All this looking in other people's houses has been a tiring experience. I need a nap.