House Hunting

The new year brings new things, and this year after renting for eight years I've decided to put down some damn roots and buy a house.

Unlike a number of my counterparts, I've decided to stay inside 285. ITP baby!

There is something about moving outside the perimeter of Atlanta that I-1285 represents that changes a person. It makes them more homebound, by the simple act of home assimilation and traffic. People get home after work, take their shoes off and their done, it doesn’t matter how hot the party is or how free the drinks are, that drive home is a killer at midnight. As one of my coworkers put it: “there are too many jurisdictions between here and my house”.

I’ve taken my brother with me and although he’s actually accomplished very little in the long run, he is my resident skeptic. When he finally goes along with what I’m thinking, then I know I’ve done enough homework. I had to talk him into the area of town I’m looking in, and then into why. He’s bought in so far, but he lives in Alpharetta, so his thinking is a bit “warped”.

So anyway, today I’m looking at this house, just riding through hitting a lot of places. By the way if you’re a developer, you may want to move the notification that the house has been “Winterized” to inside the front door. So we stop by this house, pair of houses really, side by side mirror images of each other. Outside looks nice, peer through the window it looks good, I call my agent to check it and dammit, it’s under contract. Now I’d checked my listing less than 24 hours ago and this one was cool, so I’m like whatever. So after we look around a bit more, I find say what the hell and call my agent for the other house. That’s one’s under contract too! Now I’m pissed. Two times and two misses in 15 minutes.

Do these people not update? Everybody in Atlanta is trying to sell somebody something, so keep it moving folks... geez. Looked at this other spot up the street, call and the agent won't give my agent permission to go in. And I wonder for serious, for serious, just how much they want to sell these homes.

Finally called it quits for the day after about 4 hours, cause my brother who is out of shape had to go home and get a nap and the game was coming on.

Barkeep - two shots of Old Grandad. And he’s paying.