Of Leases and Pancakes

Ok. I'm back from a whirlwind day and a half of house hunting, and am happy to report we did find something - well, we found 2 somethings. First, let me say that for as much looking as we did, to find only 2 places that were acceptable was quite disappointing. Of course, we were on a very short time frame - 2 days - and price wise, I was nearly blown away. We live in a small town, real estate is somewhat reasonable. I'm actually on the lucky end. I rent a 2BR single family house with plenty of room in a good neighborhood and pay $350 a month. No freeways, close to everything, less than 2 miles from work.

Apparently this isn't so with the rest of the world.

The first one we looked at was a 2BR/2BA single-wide trailer in a fresh-made trailer park with no grass and 2 inches between each abode listing for $485 a month. Inside...ok, the carpet was fuschia. Need I say more?

Next was a house for $500 with a fireplace, 2BR - sounded good, but the street was lined with sparkling hoopties sporting 20s and the porches were full. Moving on...

And another one for $500 that was well worth it by the sound of it from the landlord on the phone...everything we were looking for, but no pets. So that's out.

And on, and on, and on to house after trailer park until finally we decided to have a look at the one we saved for last - a brand new community of duplexes, well-built, preferable school district, everything we wanted - side-by-side refrigerator included, 2BR/2BA, berber carpet, alarm system, yard kept, dogs welcome, quite nice - except the price. $725 a month. Now...you might say "that's not abnormal" but remember, my rent is $350. For me, it's very abnormal, bordering on insane. But, we had resigned. Hot Springs had beat us, and we were about to give in. So we gave up for the night, and went to our refuge for the evening telling the people at Pebble Peak Ridge we'd talk it over and would probably be back in the morning to sign the papers.

No sleep. Thinking and thinking, as we tossed and turned in our comfy bed at my brother-in-law's $1200/month lakeside cabin's downstairs guest quarters. Up at 2am and out to smoke and watch the moon's reflection on Lake Catherine, and back to tossing and turning.

Up at 6am with visions of lease signing dancing in my head, I showered and prepared to sign my life away. And off we went to The Pancake Shop - the only place to have breakfast when you're in Hot Springs as far as I'm concerned - to fatten our bellies before we lightened our wallets. As we waited for our pancakes, we discussed that maybe we should look a little more before going back to Pebble Peak Ridge - I could just start calling some of the realtors and ask if there were any rental properties they knew of in hopes of a bite. Right off the bat, we were turned on to a 3BR/2BA brick duplex just 2 streets over from my brother-in-law's place - an even more favorable school district, $650 a month, and it just so happened the place was to come available that very day, though it needed to be cleaned. I was able to persuade the owner to show it to us immediately :)

So Friday, we'll be the proud 6-month lease holders on that little hard-to-find sucker. I had no idea what a problem housing was in that area. Arkansans, how 'bout a heads up next time? Jeez!