The Giant Pool of Money, from This American Life

Usually I try not to admit that I listen to NPR. What can I say? Driving around the Bay Area in silence is boring. At least I *feel* something (outrage!) when listening to NPR.

However, yesterday I got a real treat. I heard an episode of This American Life titled "The Giant Pool of Money" and it was great. Almost worth all the NPR I've suffered over the years.

The episode delves into the mortgage crisis in excruciating detail and with impeccable logic, from the home"owners" who bought overpriced homes to the CDO architects, who sliced the worst of the worst mortgages into tranches that seemed to be bulletproof, but weren't.

I can't recommend it highly enought.

Got it

We got the house. The seller folded.

Interestingly, as always, "winning" in a negotiation makes me feel that I should have asked for more. Maybe I should have asked for TWO new roofs. Why not?

Better yet would be seismic reinforcement. I am a real Californian, and I don't think it does any discredit to my state to admit that WE LIVE IN AN EARTHQUAKE ZONE, PEOPLE. Many folks in the real estate business seem to have no concern that a major earthquake could wipe out the investmeents of many, many people.

Buena and I will insist on seismic reinforcements before moving in to the house--but we'll pay for those reinforcements ourselves. Closing in 21 days!

Uh-oh

There is a teensy-weensy little problem with our new home, which, remember, was listed at $995,000. It has no roof. The roof is completely shot, to the point that two separate roofers refused to give us bids for a patch. They say that patching this roof would be the roofer's equivalent of malpractice.

OK. On some level, I knew the roof wasn't perfect, since the seller's disclosure states that the roof is 40 years old. But I guess I figured we'd be able to squeek by for a few years.

We are planning to go back to the seller and ask him for a roof (about $14K). In this market, I think we have a chance. Despite the strength of "good" markets, there are houses sitting for 3-4 months--but we happen to know that our seller is doing a 1031 exchange and wants to sell pretty quickly. How, you may ask, do we know this? A little bird told us.

In contract

We are in contract on a home.

The house was listed at $995,000 and had been on the market for 25 days. I looked at the listing on Redfin and asked myself...does that guy need to sell? So we went to look at the house.

This is a pretty place on a large lot with a view in a good school district. We heard from the seller's Realtor that they were considering a price reduction. We bid $930,000 and after some haggling ended up in a $944,000 contract.

Here's my question: what is the Realtor *thinking* when she tells potential buyers that her seller is considering a price reduction? Why would she do that? Does she work for us, or for the seller?

Here's hoping that the seller's realtor will stay on our side in the coming days! We have a short contingency period, only one week, so I may post rarely.