Taken For A Ride
Ok, one of the worst feelings you can get is the feeling that you have been taken for a ride, and that's exactly what happened to me and my brother. We've been trying to buy a house together for the past 3 months or so. Now, keep in mind that in the bay area houses are very expensive, even ones which are a piece of crap.
So the latest house we tried to get was in the Los Gatos. The sellers were asking $799K and we bid $760K for it. Now this house has been on the market for over a month and the sellers have moved out quite a while ago. Even though the house looked nice on the outside and inside, appearances can be deceiving. The house has a major termite problem, the electricity throughout the house was not grounded, not all the pipes in the house were copper, and the roof needs to be replaced. And my dad, who is a broker, offered to give his commission to us so we could fix all the problems with this house. So we felt this was a reasonable offer.
Apparently another party interested in the house also bid the same price. So we were given a counter offer of $785K and the selling agent offered to give up $15k of her comission to the sellers since they were adamant about getting $800k for their house. The selling agent's name is Barbara Silvester and she works for Alain Pinel Realtors. She seemed nice since she was willing to give up part of her commission and we got the feeling that she was on our side. But again appearances can be deceiving.
I guess she is a good friend of the sellers and she helped them buy the house they just moved in to and now she was helping them sell this house. She told us that if the house doesn't sell, there is a renter already lined up to rent the house for $2500. So after giving it a lot of thought, we decided to accept the counter offer.
My brother and I decided to head out around 8:30pm or so to check out the neighborhood. When we passed by the house, we noticed the lights were on and that there were two cars outside. My brother had just checked out the neighborhood less than an hour before he took me there and there wasn't anyone in the house when he checked it out. So we were a little suspicious. We called our dad, who is a broker and he told us that he faxed over the offer and that the selling agent told him that she got it and that she was going to have her seller sign it tomorrow.
We figured she was showing the house to the other party who was interested in the house. But it didn't make sense to us that she would show them the house after she already got our signed counter offer. Apparently she tried to gain our confidence by offering to give up part of her commission in order to get us to sign the counter offer so that she could use it to show the other party so that she could get them to make a higher bid for the house! How devious is that?!! She totally screwed with us. She probably lied about there being a renter willing to rent the house too! It just goes to show you that selling agents are only looking out for the interests of their seller! And in this case, she was looking out for herself too! Since a higher bid for the house will mean a higher commission for her!
Whatever the other party bid, I hope they know that the house has only been appraised at $775K, so whatever they bid above that amount is going to come out of their own pockets. In addition, they will have to shell out at least $20-30K to fix all the problems with the house.
Day After Thanksgiving Shopping
Ok, so how many people woke up early Friday morning after Thanksgiving to hit the stores to get some shopping done? And how many of you went to Best Buy only to find out that what you wanted to get was sold out? Yeah, me too. It was kind of disappointing. I got there earlier than I did last year, and everything that I wanted was sold out. On the plus side, the line to purchase stuff didn't wrap entirely around the store to the front entrance this year.
So I noticed this year that the after Thanksgiving sales weren't as good as last year. Also at the malls, the lines were so long that it didn't seem worth it to spend so much time in line just to get an extra 10% off my purchase. Even though I didn't get as much stuff this year as I did last year, it still felt good to get out and walk around the mall or the stores. Weird, huh?
Another thing I noticed was that things were way overpriced. Like a small tube of lipgloss at Bath and Body Works was $10! Just for a small tube of lip gloss. I bought a pair of pants for that much on Friday.
It also seems stores are getting more strict on their return policies. My cousin bought a sweater at Guess in the morning and decided by the afternoon that she didn't like it so much, and when she returned it they wouldn't give her any money back. Instead she was issued store credit.
Well anyway, that's my two cents about the supposed "biggest shopping day of the year."
Landon Donovan
So I read online this afternoon that Landon Donovan is going back to Germany to play for the team that originally signed him. Man, I can't believe they are making him go back. He's the only guy that makes watching US Soccer so exciting. Not to mention he's very good looking. :)
Apparently he was signed by this German team when he was 16. He didn't like playing in Germany so he asked the team to lend him out to a US team. Lucky for us he came to the San Jose Earthquakes. He's been playing in San Jose for the past 4 years. Too bad I haven't ran into him around the Bay Area. I guess since now since he's gotten so good playing in the US, his German team wants him back to play for them. He's the only player ever to get the MLB MVP for three years straight.
On another note, I heard something about the Earthquakes wanting to leave San Jose unless they get a new stadium. Fat chance that will happen. So not only are we losing Landon, but we may be losing the Earthquakes as well. Since the NHL players have been locked out, we don't have the Sharks either.
What is happening to Bay Area sports? The A's and Giants didn't make the playoffs this year, the 49ers and Raiders are doing terrible, and the Warriors well they haven't been good in a long while. I guess the only team he have left to root for is Cal's football team.
Speaking of college football, I heard the SJSU football coach has quit. Someone mentioned that he has a PhD, and will be going to Florida to teach as a visiting professor or something like that. Poor SJSU, the only time I can remember their football team doing well was a couple of years ago when they almost made it to a Bowl game. They got edged out by Cal of all teams. The SJSU football team is in danger of losing their division 1-A status since attendance at the football games has been really low. When I was in the SJSU Marching Band, the band director would joke that people actually come out to watch us do our field shows rather than watch the football team.
I think one of the major problems is that SJSU is a commuter school. The majority of students that go to SJSU don't live on campus. They commute to school, and many of them also work full or part time while going to school, so no one has the time to go watch the football team play at home on the weekends. It's a shame, but I hope SJSU doesn't lose its division 1-A status.
Yahoo!
Ok, so how many people out there have had troubling logging into their Yahoo! email accounts over the past couple of months? What is the deal? I noticed this trend when Yahoo! increased their mail box size to 100MB to compete with GMail. Maybe I should just switch permanently to GMail instead of trying to use Yahoo! Mail. Plus you get a bigger mail box size with GMail anyway.
Kmart & Sears
This morning on the news I heard that Martha Stewart has made $33 billion on the news that K-Mart has bought Sears since her Martha Stewart Living brand will now also be carried in Sears stores. Wow, who would have thought that K-Mart would be buying Sears for $11 billion. Didn't K-Mart file for bankruptcy two years ago? Man, that's insane. I remember when they filed for bankruptcy everyone was so sure that K-Mart wouldn't be able to pull themselves out, and now they have bought Sears. What a come back. It seems these days that the discount retail chains like Walmart and Target are doing much better than the higher end stores. Since our economy has been in such a slump people are watching their dollars. I just wish housing prices would come down so I can actually afford to buy a house!
Bridget Jones & Hugh Grant
This morning while driving into work, I heard on the radio that Hugh Grant said he had a miserable time filming the latest Bridget Jones movie. I read a review about it online and the reviewer didn't like the movie too much. There was a mention about Thailand in the movie and that Bridget gets arrested at the airport when she's leaving and gets thrown in a Thai jail and meets women who are abused by their guys. I don't understand why they would put anything like that into the movie. Hmm...maybe I should just wait for this movie to come out on video.
And what is this I hear about Hugh Grant wanting to retire from acting? I know he's getting old, but he still looks great. But I guess he must be bored with doing one romantic comedy after another. Poor guy, too bad things never worked out between him and Liz Hurley.
