And the Four-Car Garage?

I started looking at houses today. 

I’m so excited!  Not.  This is an investment property, and I’m not sure I want to sink my money into a rental house.  I’m giving this a chance, though, because everyone says that Utah real estate is the best way to invest my money.

We looked at two properties.  The second one was a little hard to find – MapQuest was even a bit inconclusive; but I go running in that neighborhood sometimes, so it isn’t totally unfamiliar.  After much turning, and turning some more, I led us in procession(Chuck, Susan the real estate agent and I) to number 7722.  It is rented, and the tenants preferred to be out of the house when we arrived. 

We knocked.  No one greeted us except the pit bull, calling from the back yard.  They had not locked up and we walked right in.  The place was a dump.  The flashing sucked.  An attempt to update the drywall in the kitchen had not been finished.  The circuit box was not up to code and had little capacity.  The plumbing was pretty bad and the tile was coming unstuck from the grimy bathroom wall.  I could not believe that they wanted $230,000.00 for a mess like that, but it had only been on the market for a couple weeks.  The price will have to come down.  However, it does have a four car garage with extra height.  I want that so Chuck can have some workshop space that will hold his sailboat. 

“Well, not impressive, but let’s go look at the garage.”

Chuck said, “There’s no garage.” 

“Yeah, there’s a huge, tall four-car garage.” 

“Nope.”

“But it clearly states that there is a …” Susan and I huddled over the ad once more. 

“Yes!  Right here, in black and white, there is a…”  I backed up and looked at the house again. 

Oh, shit!  Wrong house!  We needed 7722, but the next block WEST.  We had been peering under the sink of, checking out the closets of, breaking the circuits of, criticizing the bathroom tiles of a complete stranger’s house, which was not for sale. 

Beeline to the cars!  We were just about to succumb to a fit of the giggles, when Susan said, “Oh, my God.”  Good real estate agent that she is, she made sure the house was all locked up tight, and left her business card on the kitchen counter.