House for sale! House for sale!

Escrow on Dale died a slow death this week. Our Realtor guy called the other agent early in the week to remind him that for escrow to close on Friday, the $$$ had to be in escrow by Wednesday.

"Well, if the $$$ aren't there, I guess you'll just have to put the house back on the market," the other agent said.

!!!

Wednesday came and went. Thursday our guy FAX'd us the paperwork to sign demanding performance of the contract. We returned the paperwork on Friday and signed some more paper telling the escrow folks it was time to close out the escrow. While his nibs was working, I finished clearing out the stuff I'd moved to Dale from the warehouse when we vacated it at the end of its lease, at the beginning of the month. I hadn't =quite= finished sorting through all the boxes of clips and magazines and papers. Still had eight or nine to go. Oh, well. Pack them into the pickup and move them out.

Swept the floors. Deadheaded the agapanthus. Watered. The place is clean albeit bare. The yard lives.

Friday, the other agent wasn't returning our agent's calls.

The money never showed.

ELEVEN WEEKS AND STILL NO $$$!

Feh.

We at least got their deposit into our bank account back in July when we renegotiated the terms of sale. We'll be using part of that stash to put the place back on the market, but we'd never intended to have the place up for sale in September.

The weather's fine, though, and some people will be thinking about buying a new place in time to move in before the holidays, so maybe it will all work out.

We'll be back at Dale today whipping things back into shape. Boy, am I glad I kept the yard alive.

Tomorrow the stagers return to refurnish the house. We've signed up the gardener guy to blow off the tree debris and water the yard once a week. I'll water and check on the place at least once a week too.

Our guy has the house on broker tour this upcoming Wednesday and plans for open houses on the weekends.

In fact, one of his Realtor guy cohorts had nothing better to do today, so, even though there's no notice in the paper, he's putting a sign out on the highway and he's going to have an open house this afternoon. We'll be around working on the place, but our guy says, hey. No problem.

Our guy's also going to bring by some good friends who have good friends who are moving back into the area so they can look at the house and see whether they think their friends might be interested. ...

Our Realtor's a great guy -- thorough, honest, smart -- and I think this past lousy escrow will have a silver lining in the end.

x'd fingers.