Rental reflections and recollections

I have always rented.

From days in Stuyvesant Town, to summers during college, and after college throughout Atlanta, I've always been a renter.

For the past couple of years, we've rented a house instead of an apartment, while trying to navigate through the ownership process.

I've learned that there will be items you find in your past that you never knew existed - because you thought something was closed, or because something was fraudulent.

I've learned that trying to assemble conference calls between insurance agents, appraisers, sellers, mortgage processors, and closing attorneys is a process eerily similar to chasing chickens.

I've learned that even if you spend 100 hours poring over numbers, that nothing is set in stone until the papers are signed.

I've re-learned some of the calculations that will probably be very handy in future classes at Robinson.

I've learned that it's very easy to access tax records.

I've learned that this process is probably the most tortured and yet most rewarding material item around.

I've learned that there is no way in hell I want to work in the mortgage business.

Lastly, I've learned that even if you do a superhuman amount of effort in gathering information, connecting people, filling out forms, and clearing items, that something will always come back to bite you. In this case, it was the one item that we couldn't affect because it was left over from the previous sale of the property.

Today, we've stopped renting.

I'm going to leave now, so that we can go to the closing attorney's office and sign all the papers. I'm writing this now, because I'm pretty sure when I get home tonight I won't be able to type very much after signing as many documents as I expect to sign. I hope to post a picture later, if Blogger decides it wants to behave by then.