I Started A Fire - Rambling Involved

I heard a bark right after Friday's breakfast and when I glanced in that direction Heidi had jumped slightly doing a 360° turn into Walter wanting to play. Maybe her joint supplements are helping. It was quite a surprise to see so early in the morning. Not a lot of blogging stuff happened Friday but I did my best to make some people angry, that are not blog worthy. Ah, maybe a sentence or two about that later.

Heidi actually played a little with Walter. It has had to been years since she played with any other dog in the house. Evidently she is feeling pretty good.

Henry doesn't seem to be getting taller. But with all that extra food he has been eating twice a day ... he is definitely getting longer. The ears look short in that photo but don't let that fool you. Every time after he drinks water, the lower half of each ear is loaded with water and it two-tracks in any direction he walks. Still, he is doing very well after his two weeks two days residency.

With Henry getting half of each ear wet every time he drinks water, there are small creeks or rivers across the tile where he walks. So I have had to bring out the all-purpose hound towel to wipe the floors after him. The towel tries to dry in the sun but he thinks it is more of his toy than a tool.

I woke up Friday morning around 4am to the strong smell of smoke. The kind of smoke you smell from a forest fire, not a cookout. I laid there for a few seconds to make sure what I was smelling before getting up and closing the bedroom window. It was hard to believe just how strong the smell was. By 6am the sun was nowhere to be found and it was a cool 58° and no smoke smell in the air.

With the cool temps I got in a bike ride early Friday morning and was back home before 9am and 20 miles under me. I felt pretty good considering the lack of riding I have been doing this summer. With the cooler temps I'll be back on the road 5-6 days per week. The days are not boring when I ride the bike or go hiking. This is Henry about 10 minutes after I woke him from his late afternoon nap. He and Walter play so hard, for so long I almost have to force them to take time to rest.

By late afternoon the hazy skies were back but no smells of smoke in the air. 

Standing outside in the middle of the night, enough light from the sky to still see the horizon, I realized that even when the mountains are not in view, that is still a great view. Vacant land that looks like it goes for a million miles, not seeing the development on the other side of that ridge. Whether in the middle of the night, right before sunrise or any time during the day ... the view is the one thing I love about this house.

Mule Mountains are barely visible. I also noticed looking at photos of his area from last year, those trees I thought were growing and was going to block my view, have not grown that much taller than what I showed a few days ago.

Well it was an expensive Friday for me but money well spent. I canceled both real estate contracts, the one to buy the house I had on contract and cancel the contract I had to sell my house. If you didn't know any better it sure seems like I have started WWIII or a huge forest fire here in Sierra Vista. I think it is really more of a $(#! storm.

When I wrote that paragraph above on Friday I was certain we could wrap up that cancellation by the close of business on Friday. I had sent the official written notice to my agent cancel both transactions at 8:34am. I know everyone is busy in the real estate field but really?? May not even be finished by Monday? The last I heard late Friday after 5pm was the listing agency would be in touch with me on Monday. I had already electronically signed their document saying I'd pay them their 3% commission. I signed another document electronically that the seller of the home I was buying could keep the earnest money. In fact I had electronically signed every document my agent sent me throughout the day almost as fast as I received them. We're not finished evidently. Evidently there is more to that cancellation than I thought. Seem much more than buying a house.

I am going to have enough material to blog about for many days I have a feeling. Some data shows in 2019 the state of Arizona had 550,070 real estate transactions. I have no idea nor can find it within the first few pages of my internet search, but by the reactions on Friday you would think I might be the first person ever cancel two contracts in the history of real estate deals. And ... it's not like mine was their only deals. Don't they know how many deals buying RVs or trailers I backed out of between 2011-2015???  LOL

Before I moved last June in 2019 I read a lot online about Arizona laws for real estate, for investments, their taxes and about being a retiree. I had a pretty good idea what the ramifications would be by canceling as a seller and as a buyer. Of course since I am not a lawyer, they must have thought I'm just a dumbass, so the listing agency could "recommend I get legal counsel to discuss the ramifications of my decision". Do I need to pay a lawyer to tell me I'm screwing myself? I already knew that during my analysis on what to do and knew it for sure when I hit 'send' on the email.

That comment set me into rage because it sound more of a threat than a friendly suggestion. Let's just say the phone conversation went way off the charts before I hung up on my agent. My anger may have cost me some cash in this deal but I think it is more likely they are all money hungry and want as much blood as they can get out of my bank account. After all they are in the business of making as much money as possible, client thoughts or feelings be damned!!

I was reminded various times during these 35 days that she was my friend, not just my agent. We met on an early morning dog walk when I first moved here. She loved Stella when she saw her. We were friends that didn't do much together and barely stayed in touch. She was shocked when I sent her a text late night on August 6th telling here I would SERIOUSLY consider the house I linked.

To me though, the definition of a friend and a real estate agent are two different things. A friend would have accepted my announcement to "rescind my offer" the MORNING AFTER I made it and signed the documents for her agency and the seller. Yet the agent did what she was trained to do ... reply in a calm manner, talk about all the positives and gradually lead me to change my mind and keep the deal going.

Remember when I said I was keeping a log about this and neighbor issues?? Well my log shows in red text that 20 days later I emailed my friend/agent the official written notice that I wanted to cancel both deals as I had just accepted an offer for my house 3 days before. That email followed contract instructions and was a legitimate way of communicating that cancellation. But my friend was not on the other end of that email, my agent was. She went to the next chapter of her training handbook and kept both deals alive. I was giving her all the right answers just like sheep being led off a cliff.

Somebody had fallen in love with Walter's bed.

Now in all fairness to those involved, I said many times that I wanted to move, how I loved the new house, the new neighborhood, the pool, the gym, the privacy and quietness. I even told that to friends over the phone, via email and to my agent via phone calls and texts. BUT ... that log of mine shows a whole different story and may prove just how insane I may really be. (I'm not sure I am joking there)  LOL

Standing outside at 2am while Heidi relieves her bladder, I am always amazed by the view. Or right before sunset since Walter now wakes us up at 5am instead of Stella's 4:30am wakeup whine ... it's just a beautiful outside. I don't have the money to get this view anywhere else and out in the country.

ONLY ONE TIME in 35 entries did I log in that I wanted to move. That date and time correlated with my other log "Neighborhood Issues" exactly when I had enough of the nonstop barking of the doberman next door. So 34 days out of 35 I documented in my short log of dates and times that I wanted to stay in this house and not move. It took 3 different times for them to believe I wanted to cancel the deals.

I'll go into more detail of my thinking on these deals in another post. Long time readers know how I can go off in many directions and talk (type for hours) without an ending. So I'll keep this short and to the point.

Any time you see Walter sleeping ... he is snoring ... loudly.

As a buyer, the worse case scenario that cancels the deal, most documentation says the seller keeps the buyer's earnest money. I have already signed documents through the agency the seller can keep the earnest money. In my wild mind I add they could still make me buy the house although I was told they had 4 offers in hand the morning I looked at the house. My paranoia is just running wild I think.

When a seller backs out of selling his house when he already has a buyer and signed contracts it's a lot harder. Real estate contracts nationwide are always in favor of the buyer. BUT it's possible and I am positive I am not the first "seller" to back out and cancel the contract. It's not like the buyer is waiting to move in ... they were buying my house as an investment and turn it into a rental just like it was before I bought the house online June 2019.

I'm not sure if that plays in my favor. Again those documents tell me from multiple sources, "The good news is that in the majority of cases, sellers who choose to back out of selling their homes usually get to keep their homes. But in doing so, they are usually required to pay the buyer for any inconveniences they occurred as a result". (Could I be a statistic on the minority side of that data?) The seller could make me follow the contract and sell my house to them. If so, the hounds and the dog and I will be tent camping on BLM land sooner than we had planned. :(

Some suggestions are returning their earnest money. I have no plans to keep it. Pay for any inspections. My agent sent them my offer to reimburse them for their cost of a house inspection and the house appraisal. I assume that will be some of the news on Monday. 

So it sounds like in these documents I have read online on realtor websites or law firm websites in Arizona I am not the first to start this kind of "fire". I doubt that I will be the last either. So stay tuned for any further developments or conclusions on Monday.

I took off the summer from riding for various reasons that I will not blog about. I noticed my blood pressure had gone up the times I did not ride. I had an echo-cardiogram in July and talked to my cardiologist in Tucson in August. All is good and I have another echo-cardiogram scheduled for January 2021. I'll probably cancel that and go with the annual schedule since we are only monitoring the aortic valve.

I rode 28 miles this morning, riding for the 2nd day in a row.  I will take Sunday off to recoup. Then will start that infamous Monday off with an early morning ride, before they drag me off in chains to give them my last cent. I will also explain why I changed my mind on this deal in a later post. It wasn't anything new as my log shows. It is best for me, the hounds and the dog to stay in this house with the great view, a big backyard ... and ... no HOA police looking over your shoulder for the first mistake your hounds and the one dog make.

I will  say I think you will enjoy my HOA story next week sometime. Photos of the hounds and the dog will always be included in these "ramblings" of mine.

It's great weather here in the "Wild West" but I might be living in my tent  by the time this is all over.