Our Letter To The Owner

My husband Fredd and I came to LA in 1999 – run-a-ways from a town where creativity was a handicap.

Fredd graduated from his editing program; I got my BA, Our eldest was off to college, our second son graduated from Jr. High and our daughter from elementary school. If we were ever going to try to make a life in LA, ’99 was the time.

We rented our home in Tacoma to a friend and we set out to achieve our goals in entertainment. We brought two kids and a U-Haul down here with all of our belongings we could stuff into the back compartment.

When we arrived, my husband’s job was given away, the kids were hungry and my friend was still promising to pay the rent. We ate cinnamon French toast on Lankershim Boulevard for breakfast that first day. In typical fashion, the kids weren’t finishing their plates. Fredd and I looked at each other, not sure how our “goals” were going to fill their noon bellies, and pressed, “come on guys, eat up.”

Here we are eleven years later. Our eldest works in IT and loves the music scene in Seattle. Our second son is a computer engineer in San Jose. Our daughter is a personal trainer in Seattle. My husband is an editor at a company he could have only imagined back in ’99. I’ve worked for years as an assistant until now where I’ve got my own office and work as the company’s art director.

Your house is a dream come true for us, our real world Oscar. We’ve worked unbelievably hard, sacrificed so much, and now that quiet, tree-lined street you’ve cared for so long could be our reward. When I walked out on your patio I saw it wrapped in Christmas lights and all our friends around the food table. I could hear the shovel sinking into to healthy, organic soil in the yard where I’d raise vegetable beds. I imagined my new puppy, who was waiting in the car, running and playing safely off-leash.

I can tell by the improvements that you’ve made to your home that you are a creative like us. The sun will glimmer brightly off the stained glass panes I’ll make in the garage and hoist up to the skylights.

We want to finally leave apartment living and go back to having a guest room where family can come and visit. Your place is perfect for us in every way. We’ve been looking for over a year and experienced more than one disappointment. I am proud to be a veteran, having served in Special Ops in the years of Noriega but as VA buyers we are the lowest in the hierarchy.

I hope you’ll consider our feelings for the home along with our financial offer.

Into The Deep End

Re-focused and confident, our search surges with new possibilities. A 3-2 in Northridge is a little too Country. Interesting addresses in Lake Balboa are a little too Rock-n-Roll. Then we see it, glowing like the pool in “Cocoon.”

Kitchen cabinets painted FDIC green, but "that’s just paint." Ebony hardwood throughout all 1100 square feet and a spacious backyard, a blank canvas for my mini farm. All total, nearly 7000 square feet of 4D, customizable, personal-expression space!

Fredd picks me up after work. We’re sharing one car to save money and pay down our debt so we can qualify for more debt than we’ve ever been in?

So, yeah, Fred picks me up and we head west, discussing the PM Monday commute and the feasibility of public transportation. While just above our heads, four choppers point in our direction and a fleet of cop cars streak past, toward Universal City. Turns out it’s the last leg of a high-speed chase that ends with a Burbank PD bullet in the driver/ murder suspect.

Side note: California has more inmates on death row than any state and it costs 90K a year to keep them there. Death cheaper than Life?

The neighborhood is “ridiculously quiet”, Our Agent observes. The cupboards aren’t so bad. Fredd promises to wash dishes for the first year as the place is sans dishwasher. Okay. No air conditioning – no problem – we just get it in the contract. Phew! Good thing ‘cause we’ll sweat our butts off in 114° July and August.

We scan more papers for the Mortgage Broker. Thanks in part our One Car policy, we’re equipped with our best credit score ever. The offer will be ready to sign by EOD Tuesday.

That night, we’re incredulous yet compelled to talk details: we’ll have to buy a fridge, the windows are bare. We don’t even own a shovel and the soil is going to need serious amending. At the table, our life is transported to a garden home in Reseda. Ah yes, Max and a yard. The cats, they could finally set foot on real grass not that stuff we bring home in the 3” square white cartons from PetCo.

Tuesday, 5PM, we sign the offer but only after a finance call where our Broker tells me SHE’S worried about the fact that we don’t have any savings! "Imagine how worried that makes me?" I ask her.

Our Agent, calls before eleven on Wednesday, the offer has been rejected. They got offers over Asking with cash down, and no mysterious VA mess attached.

We’re going to need a strategy.