Back in the States

I'll keep this brief (and this time, I mean it). We arrived back in the US (mainland, after a brief stay in Hawaii....story coming later) on Tuesday of last week. Since the return we have been very busy with trying to get settled since we nnot only relocated from China but also have to relocate within the US from GA to SC. It may not sound like a big deal but it has been a challenge.

Step 1: Get a phone. We accomplished that by getting phones from AT&T and I now have moved up into the tech-savvy age and have a Blackberry. I don't know what that really means but I can get my e-mail on my phone and browse the web. This has become a real handy feature since coming back to interact with our agent and others in real time. I know you are thinking this is a no brainer but you can't do anything without being able to reach out and touch someone (or visa-versa).

Step 2: Find a house or at least start the search. We found an agent online and have been working with her since we arrived. She was the only agent to really followup with me when I was in China and she seemed to actually want to work for her money. The other agents I contacted paid little attention (like they were swamped with business) or wanted to look outside the guidelines I established as far as costs and size, etc. With places like Zillow.com and Homes.com, the real estate business seems a little easier for us to find information on our own but we still need someone to setup the appointments and work for us. We could contact all of these other agents and agencies but that's a lot of work to do.

Step 3: Find a car. We sold the cars before leaving the US so we had to get some wheels of our own. We had a rental but that wasn't a good, long term option. We went through the typical dealership and got the bait-n-switch stuff but we walked away and found a good dealership and sales person that didn't leave us feeling like we needed to take a shower after leaving. We got a car at a price higher than what we wanted to pay but hopefully it works out for us. It just steals money from our budget for a home.

Unfortunately, finding a house in an alleged "buyers market" isn't so easy. We've looked at over two dozen homes and found that we had issues with almost every one of them. Some of the older homes should be on a TLC remodeling show to demonstrate how to bring a home back to it's original condition. The first house we looked at was of this variety. It had been empty for over a year but it appears the owners left in the middle of the night. There was stuff everywhere (seriously, blankets and personal effects on the walls, and all over) and there was even still food in the kitchen (what had not been rotten or eaten by the rats). It was a disaster that was $50K from being even remotely ready to occupy. Perhaps our expectations were higher but we have had a hard time finding anything that we think would work out for us. We even increased our price range to look at the next tier of homes and found basically nothing. The one house we found seems to be in the bad area of town and is overpriced and probably not a place to have a family due to the crime rates in the immediate area. It didn't appear that bad coming in from one side of the house but the exiting side...that was different.

House hunting is a real pain in the butt and it will continue until we can find something. Keep us in your prayers as we look to find something. We've got a lot of things to post regarding our last days in China, Hawaii, US Airways, etc. but that will come with time. First, we'll get re-acclimated to the US and then we finish off the book on China.