Real Estate & Reality

Cripes, we're not even back 24 hours and already, the phone's ringing off the hook and the emails are collapsing the ISP server with the zero-to-sixty resurrection of the house-hunt rigamarole.

Just up Bathurst and off College--near Kensington Market--there's a very nice townhouse on the market that more or less replicates what we're living in now, with an extra bedroom, larger dining room, sweet back patio, and much-needed storage space. It's not perfect--the paint job and hardwood floors need a little polish, and the parking spot's outdoors--but we can certainly see ourselves living there with minimal fuss.

But somehow, in less than 24 hours, we're supposed to come up with a bid, clear time from our work schedules for a pricey house inspection ($400!), and show up with a down payment "good-will-offering" in the form of a bank draft for 5% of the price of the home. Riiiiight--let me just scoot across the road to Top Variety and hit up their "Lazercash" ATM for $20 grand! (someone coulda mentioned this at some point during our marathon conversations about various ancillary topics. I'm surprised we're expecting to show up with an envelope of cash, like we're buying a used car off of Kijiji...).

After an evening of more telephone ping-ponging than the climax of "Fail Safe", Lidia and I agreed that this hysteria was all just too much, too soon, and resigned ourselves to losing the property. It's early in the game...we've really just stuck our toes in...and despite the current state of the housing market, we'll remain steadfast in our conviction (delusion?) that there'll be other prospects of equal-or-better features.

Worst case scenario: if times run out and this isn't sorted out by the fall, we'll stay in our current residence for another year and do this all again next summer, toddlers in tow...after all, this is all for them!