On the Road With the Roses: Idle Hands...

We've been alluding to something delaying our departure in the last couple of posts.

The details are finalized and we can finally come clean, so here you go.

Since we're jobless hobo bums, we occasionally have free time on our hands. Sometimes, when I'm bored and have nothing else to do, I troll the webernet for interesting deals to entertain myself. This usually just means browsing Craigslist looking at old Airstreams and bicycles and nothing really comes of it because we shouldn't be needlessly spending money.

Well, back before we left for Key West in February, I was trolling and found a real estate search tool that gave me some basic MLS access. Just for the heck of it, I typed in the address of a little condo complex I'd been sort of curious about since my appraisal days (4 years ago) and a unit just happened to be on the market. Out of curiosity, I drove by to see where the unit was in the complex, but wasn't crazy about it and dismissed it.

So.... we left town for 3 weeks and went to the Keys and, on the way back, stopped in New Orleans for Mardis Gras at Marshall and Jenny's and misplaced our camera. Stephen and Lauren Shallcross were at Jenny and Marshall's too and found our camera. When they got back to Austin, Angie and I went over to their house to retrieve the camera. We were chatting with Lauren, who also happens to be our realtor extraordinaire, and I remembered the condo. Lauren looked it up in MLS and, low and behold, the price had been lowered...

...so we bought it.

Oops

Of course, it's not as simple as that, there was some back and forth negotiation, but overall it was pretty painless.

Lauren and Angie closin' on the condo, Rose style!

Actually, the mimosas were Lauren's idea. I'll never go to closing without them from now on!

Thanks for all your help and guidance, Lauren!

Welcome to Unit 113!

Let's clean!

We couldn't afford a U-haul after buying the condo but our friends, Mike and Ayse, were kind enough to lend us their little Toyota, and Eric D provided muscle for the heavy stuff.

Thanks y'all!

We only had to move about a mile from Scott and Amy's guest house (ahhh, the Casita!!) and were able to do it in about six trips. We moved twice in 2011 before the trip so we were already pretty streamlined which helped.

What's left of our belongings has become like a kit that we can move and set up in 2-3 days.

The condo is a 2 bed, 1 bath and even smaller than the guest house we've been living in, but we love it already! Since we've unintentionally spent so much time in Austin (the holidays and waiting for better weather northeast), we've had time to begin thinking about what we'll do when we finish the trip. The condo will provide a nice re-entry point when we return and need to start earning money again. In the meantime, we're looking for a short-term tenant to live in it until we get back later this summer.