On the way, a panhandler in Manhattan tried to get my attention by yelling "Hey McEnroe!" I guess he dug my gray hair.
The closing consisted of 90 minutes of signing paper after paper. There were the sellers. There was the annoying lawyer on their side who kept referring to SHR as Susan to his clients but never made contact with us or spoke to us directly during the closing. Instead, he told our lawyer to tell us things that she then simply repeated to us. This was the same guy who had all the contracts written up with one of the seller's names as Helen (her nickname) because he couldn't pronounce her Korean name of Hyon. This quite annoyed her and I can't blame her. There was our lawyer who never really had her heart in the whole thing ever who had food caught in her teeth the entire time.
There was No No Nanette who was the person in charge of the whole proceeding who loved to repeat her terrible jokes after no one responded to them the first time around. Example: after sneezing she said, "I'm going to blow my brains out one day that way." Upon receiving blank stares from SHR and me, she repeated her joke until I forced a laugh. Nanette kept shooting dirty looks at the woman representing the bank. Apparently, Nanette didn't like her vibe. SHR didn't like Nanette's vibe when she came back from the copy room and had mixed up Hyun's and her licenses. "Oops, how did I do that?" she inquired. I suppose all Koreans do look the same.
SHR, on more than one occasion, pointed out things to our lawyer who hadn't noticed them or didn't explain what we were supposed to do. There was some guy there, not sure what his role was, who spent the majority of the time reading a paperback. Near the end, all the official types start gossiping about the turnaround time of certain banks and bitching about other real estate type stuff. Snooze.
Near the end, our lawyer asked SHR and me, "You guys aren't married are you? I didn't know you were married." Nevermind the fact that she had asked us the same question in December, nevermind the rings we wear, but how can she represent us for a number of months, and prepare and read over so many documents and not notice that we shared a last name? What a wonderful lawyer we had.
Checks were cut. Handshakes were in order.
Then the keys were slid across the table and we were homeowners.
The view the next day with the leftover couch, since removed.
We moved in on 4/7.The big question that you might have - What about the neighbors? Any salsa parties? The answer to that is a resounding no. However, it has been replaced by some strange strange whooping, hooting, and singing from our next door neighbors. More on the apartment, new neighborhood, and hooting neighbors later.
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9 comments:
I hate Real estate people (with the exception of two family members who are very good at their jobs and fascinating human beings to boot).
I hate them all. I hate their crap jokes and ridculous prejudices. their bad clothes and thier little ways.
You did well to come throuh it in one piece.
our broker was super cool though.
their broker gave us nothing but misinformation.
Woo hoo! Although if you have gotten rid of the old left over couch, where am I going to sleep?
we have another couch. and an air mattress. but the air mattress has a weird bubble in it.
when are you coming? we'll go to a mets game!
Realtors- assholes to a man, but they can at least spell.
Erm... not for a while, alas. Work promotion, school, and imminent baby are all chewing up my gad-about time.
I'm glad you and "Susan" are getting settled in to your very own place- wicked exciting.
great post
But now I'm scared is this what I have to look forward to? I wonder if realtors are more laid back on the island.
Ms.Listo has the patience of a saint.
you better watch it, wizzle. for the record, it was not really food stuck in the lawyer's teeth but a poppy seed.
susan and don: congrats. can't wait to see your new place!
Closings really are the strangest. Strange people with strange roles no one explains. Signing. Money. Lawyers. Strange.
Ours this time was so different since we were selling to friends. The lawyers kept having to interrupt our chatter to make us do stuff. It got strange, though, when our friend's toddler fell and busted open her head and had blood gushing down her face and had to go to the ER. Poor thing.
We love love love our real estate attorney. Totally did not love our last one so we were thrilled to find one we love. He is going to do our wills, too. If anyone needs a good estate lawyer, we have him.
We went brokerless this time and sold it ourselves. I highly recommend this. If you are capable of using a phone, you can do the real estate agent's job. The broker for our sellers is totally useless - just keeps asking us when things are going to be moving along even though it's HIS clients who are the reason for the delay and we are just sitting here waiting to own the place. One more month....
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