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It was hard for the twins to stay focused on work, knowing that they were going to meet a real estate agent for the first time. So exciting! The days of long commutes might be over!
After work, Lyra and Lochlan headed over to 4096 Calle de la Hermosa Hija, to meet the realtor, Darlene Pritchard.
Darlene was waiting for them at the house, standing next to her beautifully restored 1984 Buick LeSabre. As the twins walked up, Darlene gave them a big smile and extended her hand. “Darlene Pritchard. Nice to meet you! I’ve sold half the houses in Ector County, some of them twice, and I want to see what I can do for you.” Lyra and Lochlan shook her hand. Lochlan said, “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”
“Please! Don’t ‘ma’am’ me! Just call me Darlene.” She was a friendly older woman, and the twins immediately took to her, but they couldn’t bring themselves to call her ‘Darlene‘. From that moment on, she would be “Miss Darlene.”
The first stop was the living room. Lochlan was excited when he saw the sofa. “Hey, it’s furnished!”
Next the kitchen. So many possibilities!
Space for a washer and dryer!
Darlene sat Lyra and Lochlan down and spread out her papers.
“Now let’s talk money,” she began. “I think we can get the seller down to $66,000. He’s highly motivated to sell. And by highly motivated, I mean he’s got some serious legal bills. That’s another story, but it works to our advantage. But there’s going to be some other expenses. There are the real estate agent fees. There’s the title search, property taxes, closing costs, insurance. You don’t have to do this, but I strongly recommend that you get a licensed inspector to come check out the house, so that there won’t be any surprises. Check out the foundation, plumbing and sewer lines, roof, HVAC, termites, electrical. You’ll know what other expenses you’ll be looking at.”
“Let’s run some numbers.”
At this point, Darlene opened up her laptop and starts typing. She wants to calculate the twins’ monthly expenses. Darlene doesn’t know the twins’ financial situation, but she assumes they will put down a $7,000 down payment, take out a 5 year loan for $25,000 for repairs, get a 30-year mortgage for the house. Darlene also breaks down the insurance and property taxes into monthly payments.
Darlene continued, “Now you won’t need this all at once, but you’re probably looking at $100,000, all told. Now, I know a hundred thousand sounds like an awful lot of money,” Darlene says gently. “And I don’t want you two getting yourselves into something you’ll regret.”
Darlene wasn’t thinking about her commission now. She wanted to make sure the twins weren’t getting in over their heads. “Now, that doesn’t include groceries, gasoline, car insurance, or anything else you need to live. And if one of you loses your job, the other one’s still got to make these payments. So before we go any further, I need to ask you two a few questions about your finances.”
Lyra glanced at Lochlan. Lochlan glanced at Lyra.
“Miss Darlene,” Lyra says, “we were hoping to pay cash.”
Darlene paused. “For the down payment?”
“No, ma’am. For the house.”
Darlene removes her glasses. “Both of you have jobs, don’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She studied them for a moment. “Well, all right, then. That’ll keep things simple. But you’re still getting that foundation inspected.”
The closing was set for next month. It was a busy time, a lot of paperwork, a lot of appointments. Good foundation, bad roof, and indeed, the seller was motivated – he agreed to pay the roof replacement.
Darlene called up the twins and told them they’d need to bring a cashier’s check for $65,142.17 to the closing. After the call, Lochlan turned to Lyra and asked, “How do we do that?” Lyra had looked into it. “Turns out it’s really simple – we can do it all from the computer at the library.”
The twins had started a joint account at Wink Trust Fidelity since they were little. They also had individual accounts, but liked the idea of buying the house from their joint account. It was just a matter of getting their account and routing number, then heading over to the Wink Public Library to log into their Fidelity and Vanguard accounts. They decided to transfer a total of $100,142.17. They flipped a coin to see who had to pay the extra penny. Lochlan got stuck with the 1¢. $50,071.08 from Lyra’s account, $50,071.08 from Lochlan’s. They put in their account info, clicked a few buttons, and that was that.
They would use the extra $35,000 for repairs, washer and dryer, and a little cushion.
Three days later they checked their Wink TF account – there it was! It seemed almost criminally too easy.
The big day finally arrived. They all gathered at the offices of Permian Title, Tire & Lube in downtown Odessa. The twins brought a big pot of petunias from Verde, Verde y Verde nursery for Darlene.
At the closing, in addition to Darlene and the twins, were a husband and wife couple from the title company, along with the motivated seller – LeMont Rubio, and Red Robins, his lawyer (both criminal and real estate). During the course of the two hour closing, LeMont drank seven cups of coffee, using 21 Hill Country Fare coffee creamer single-serve cups (French Vanilla) and stuffing about 40 more into his pants pockets. “These are free, right?” Nobody wanted to make a fuss or delay an already dull process.
Details are sketchy, but apparently Red Robins, LeMont’s attorney, had gone to high school with the country sheriff, and released LeMont into Red’s custody for half a day. Red wanted to make sure the cashier’s check went to pay LeMont’s mounting legal fees.
The twins signed their names about a million times, as did LeMont (accompanied by the melodic jingle of his handcuffs). And then they were done! Darlene presented the twins with the keys, and the twins took her out for dinner to celebrate. Chicken fried steak and cream gravy all around. Fries for the twins, onion rings for Darlene. And Texas toast.