Maggie the Cat seems to always land on her feet.
Mood:  hungry
My friend Tanya likes to call me Maggie the cat. Not because I resemble Elizabeth Taylor but because I always manage to land on my feet. Maybe it is just the luck of the Irish. :)

I decided back in December that I wanted to buy and house but I knew it would be difficult to come up with the extra cash I needed for the inspection, earnest money, and appraisal fees. The nest day I get offered a part time job at Tir Na Nog. Extra cash problem solved.

I was worried that the inspection fees would be costly but I found an ad online and managed to get $15 off the inspection. Then the guy said if I wrote a reference on his site he would take and additional $10 off.

After the inspection I submitted my repair list to the sellers. A lot of it I thought would be rejected because it was all stuff I could have easily done myself. But my agent said to put it down anyway. They could always say no. Well as luck would have it, they are trying to close on a house and they can't do that until they close on this one. The husband feared if he didn't meet my demands that I would back out of the deal so he has agreed to fix everything and even fix two things I didn't mention on the repair list.

I was a little worried about the condition of the roof. I contacted the builders and they representative agreed to meet with me out at the property. He said the roof looked fine but that it had some damage done to it by what looked to be a large tree limb. The owner expressed that the limb came from the dead tress on the neighbor’s trees and they he planned to fix the roof. The builder said that after I move into the house and have a problem with the siding or the roof that we would come out and take care of it free of charge.

As I got ready to leave the house I went over to look at the large dead trees on my neighbor's lot. There are about 4 of them and they look as if they could go at any minute. I knocked on the door to see if I could talk to the owner to see if they had plans to remove the trees and express the liability I would place on them if they damaged my roof. This little Hispanic woman opens the door and true to form...doesn't speak any English. The daughter of the family who owns my house came over to translate. I found out that this woman just rents the house but I didn't have any luck getting the name of the owner. I look at the deed records for Wake County and found out that the house is owned by the City of Raleigh. I called and talked to this REALLY sweet woman who said she would check it out. This morning I got a concerned call from her. She was appalled that she didn't know of this situation and said she was starting a work order to get them removed as soon as possible. She also gave me a form to give to the current owner to be reimbursed to the repairs to my soon to be roof because the damaged was caused by their trees.

So everything seems to be falling into place. Just when I think there is a hiccup the situation turns around and usually to my benefit. The lawyer has been booked and the appraisal is about to happen. So barring a major catastrophe March 30th at 1PM I will be the proud owner of the little house on Silverdene.