![Reviewed: House Lust [Book]](http://www.meetmyuglybaby.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/house-lust-mcginn-book-review-thumb.jpg)
With chapters on grotesque McMansions, new builds, renovation-induced divorce, 30-hour/week HGTV habits – plus realtor conferences, scary flipping seminars and time-shares: House Lust (Daniel McGinn, 2008) covers some ground. Total train-wrecks: The ‘real estate investing’ seminar the poor author endures. It’s so much worse than you can imagine and – guess what – a total scam [...]
You know when you were 15 and waited by the phone all day? Making an offer and being told to wait 24 hours is worse. After signing some official papers, we’ve made our offer on the potential ugly baby and, if no news is good news… then we’re in pig heaven. Damn all its glorious potential – [...]
House hunting takes a very long time. 60 days into our search and I’m realising it would have been better spent walking to Key West. Maybe I could have picked up some Detroit real estate along the way. I hate house hunting. No, really. I had no idea it would take this long to find an ugly [...]
While I’m looking for the ugliest house out there, agents are working against me – trying to sell properties for their beauty and features. Spinning not-so-great things as wunderbar. Endless talk of gorgeous, stunning, and spectacular. No. All wrong. I want anti-stunning. No stunning. It can have good bones, even benefits (light! bright! spacious!) but [...]
I think realtors are weird. Do they even know what a weekend is for? It’s for not getting dressed until, like, noon. At least. And if it’s raining? Why go outside ever? I only do so to hunt, then kill, a fat eggs benedict. As I’ve determined I hate house hunting, I’m beginning to pity a realtor’s weekend: [...]
Meet the worst realtor yet. I had to, so… so do you. As our weekends of non-stop Vancouver open houses continue, I’m starting to miss the beach. I think realtors are feeling it too. Still, I’m not getting paid to be there. This weekend we met Bro-Man Baseball Dude, destined for memory as Canada’s worst realtor. Really the [...]
It’s time to get our search on. With a mortgage pre-approval already in place, we had to give Agent Awesome some basic parameters. We only plan to stay in the apartment 1 year; We want it as ugly as he can find it. That’s structurally sound, no nasty surprises, just really ugly. Our criteria will differ slightly from a [...]
Despite my dismay at being a destitute Vancouver first-time home buyer – we don’t have a choice. We want to start our project and get on the property ladder now, not next year or the year after. (And did I mention no suburbs?) Today, our salaries and pooled life’s savings might – just might – equate to [...]
