The Housing Crisis - Part 2

I am waiting at my apartment for this brain genius rocket propulsion human species wizard home inspector to show up at my apartment to tell me what apartment is worth.

I am waiting, and he is ten minutes late.

I call him but he doesn’t answer, so I leave a voicemail. He calls me back.

Oh geez I gotta tell you I’ve never seen anything like this. I’ve been here for 25 minutes, there is just nowhere to park, I mean I can keep trying but I just don’t know we might have to reschedule this.

First of all, we are not rescheduling. I don’t care if I have to drag his car up to the roof with a rope made of spit and licorice rope I will make sure this idiot gets into my apartment.

Second of all, we are not rescheduling.

I will keep trying. That’s what he said. Trying. Trying is not a word one uses to describe finding a parking spot. Looking is more like it. Basically he was just driving around the block with his eyes open, which is how almost all people drive.

Ten minutes later he arrives at my door having apparently managed to find a spot.

I open the door and see before me a kindly old gentleman which makes all of the hate and anger I have saved up for him hard to apply.

He walks into my apartment and starts asking me questions which I am trying to answer as best as I can because this guy apparently holds the key to whether or not my apartment is worth what its supposed to be worth which shouldn’t even be a question because I own it.

Bah.

Would you call this a living room slash dining room?

Dude, I would call this a living room slash dining room slash Turkish bath house slash discotecca if I thought it would help me refinance my mortgage faster. So yes, call it whatever you’d slash like.

How many square feet would you say this is?

Um, 27,000. He fathoms a guess but I raise his estimate.

Yea, I can’t check because I don’t have my measuring stick.

Measuring stick? You were going to get the square footage of my apartment with a 3 foot piece of reject wood? It’s no wonder this guy only works 10 hours a week, if I only had a stick to measure with I wouldn’t want to work more than 10 hours a week either.

I maintain a pleasant demeanor though because again, I don’t want him to leave and tell the bank that my apartment is worth 14 dollars. After five minutes he is gone. As he leaves he tells me he will send the documents to the appropriate people, which, I don’t even know who that is anymore since I am dealing with so many different idiots.

Like the guy at the bank who was processing my refinance who calls me and says:

Hey Rich we need you to send in those forms.

What do you mean? I sent them in last week.

You did? You sent them here?

Yes, I sent them where you told me to send them.

Oh Ok, my partner didn’t tell me. No problem.

Well, not no problem entirely but why don’t you go ahead and take your partner out for a coffee or something and get your shit together because if you come back and tell me the refinancing of my motorcycle went through I’m going to walk into the bank and just start doing karate.

And I don’t even know karate.

But amazingly the process continues on to the next step where I have to get the board of my condo to approve my refinance. Because that makes sense. The building in which I own an apartment needs to approve of me spending less money every month. I don’t even know how to get in touch with my board so I call my broker; another space genius prodigy mind-winning superhero.

I ask him how to get in touch with the board. He tells me to email the management company. I email them. What follows is the EXACT email conversation that took place.

           

I really wish this were an exaggeration.

Dear Bob and Joe,

Gentlemen, I am currently refinancing my mortgage and need to send over the paperwork to be approved by the board. Can you let me know where I need to send it? I have it ready.

Thank you.

Best 

Richard

One minute later

??? What property is this for?

The so and so apartment building in Queens

Send it in

Please tell me where to send it.

Here

Bob I don't have the address please send me the address where you would like me to send this.

Joe please deal with this request thanks.

Can either of you please tell me the address of your company so I can send this in? I'm not sure what the issue is here.

They don’t respond. So later that day.

Bob and Joe,

Please give me the address of where to send in my paperwork for my apartment so the board can sign off on it. I am concerned at this point at the lack of professionalism in responding to this email. Can you explain to me what the issue is?

By the time the conversation ends I am in such disbelief I am looking around my office like I am on candid camera. I feel like annoying 14-year-old girls from the valley runs my apartment complex.

I want to quit my apartment and the process. I want to buy an RV with cash and park it on a deserted beach outside of Tijuana. I cannot believe that other people have managed to successfully refinance their apartment without ending up in a homicide trial.

I become convinced everybody I have encountered in the process is a complete and total moron. I want to pick them in a room filled with one way mirrors and watch them interact like baboons, which aside from the ones I've met, I am not sure they aren’t.

When I began the process I stupidly hoped I could get it done in a couple of weeks. I was mind blown when they told me it would be many many weeks.

The process is still not done though I am pretty sure the end is near. Either the end of this process or just the apocalypse is looming. Either way I am never refinancing again.