Declarations May Vary

I feel like an overstuffed horse's rumpus! Hick keeps baiting and switching me! It's all about Cheap House. Hick tells me what he thinks that property is worth, and what he'd do to it. I gobble up that info, trusting Hick's judgment. He's done pretty well, you know, flipping houses and putting money in our socks buried in the backyard...pockets...bank account...investment CDs. But then when I least expect it, SWITCH SWITCH SWITCH! Ouch! That smarts!

Tuesday, The Pony came out to celebrate Mother's Day. We picked up Chinese food. I didn't have to do anything. But then Hick said we would have a talk about Cheap House over the meal. The auction is FRIDAY. The Pony already flipped on me, and said it's okay to buy Cheap House, as long as Hick doesn't pay more than our original offer (of $15,000) to the Savings & Loan doing the repossession. And Hick had declared, only a week ago, that on second inspection, he felt like we should only pay $10,000.

Oh, but on Tuesday, Hick was pushing for paying $18,000, upon which he would put about $12,000 to $15,000 into it, just tearing it down to the studs and fixing a hole in the floor and putting in windows where they were broken and boarded.

"WAIT! That means we'll have over $30,000 in it! That's what I thought we could sell it for, really quick. To another flipper. Now you're doing flipper work, when THEY should have to be the ones to put in windows and get it livable. AND we'll be paying insurance on it, and utilities. There's no reason to have TWO flip houses at the same time, when you barely have time to work on ONE. We've had Lap House for TWO MONTHS, and all you've done is turn on gas and electric and water and get insurance and clean a little junk out of the basement. IN TWO MONTHS."

"Val. I can't do it all myself. I'd hire somebody to tear it out."

"That's MORE money. And that's my point. YOU don't have time to do it. You're saying what I just said, like that's some kind of excuse for putting more money into this house."

"Val. We could still sell it for about $40,000. We'd still be making money. I won't turn on the utilities. But we'll have to get insurance, yeah."

"That doesn't seem to me to be a good deal. It will take more of your time away from Lap House, which is where we'll make the money, selling a finished house. I don't think dragging it out, putting time and money into Cheap House, just to make $5000 each (probably less with commissions), is worth all the trouble."

"Mom. Five thousand dollars is a lot of money!"

"Not for everything he'll have to do. He's got too much going on."

"Val. You can't make that kind of money on interest these days."

"You don't have to DO anything to make interest! It takes up none of your time to keep you from your store or the apartments or your side jobs or LAP HOUSE."

"Mom. Really. I'm fine with spending $18,000 and gutting the house. It will still make money."

So here we go again. Val is the odd gal out. I can only hope that there are bidders who want to pay more for this unadvertised house on the courthouse steps. I doubt that Hick is the only flipper that Loan Office notifies of these things.