Unfortunately, we still haven't sold the other house yet. Two or three contracts have fallen through now. One for bad credit and one for a disagreement about the roof. The inspectors cited some 'roof damage' when they looked the place over. The new buyers said that we should cover repairing the roof for a cost 'not to exceed $2,400'. We agreed and hired a roof repair guy who said the damage was very minor, with about a dozen shingles that were scratched or peeling up and a roof vent that needed to be replaced. He estimated $350 to make the repairs. We figured that that'd be fine, given that it addressed the problem and it did not exceed $2,400. Problem is, the homebuyers assumed that 'not to exceed $2,400' actually means 'replace the whole roof'. We tried to make it clear that this would address their problem exactly as they wanted and that the roof was in good shape, but the contract got dumped the next day.
Looks like we're probably gonna go through with the repairs anyway. It'd actually be better if the new buyers would have the repairs done on our dime, because then any warranty on the repairs would be in their name. People just have an aversion to doing any repairs though, minor as they may be. Oh well.
On another note, if you bought a million dollars worth of Enron stock on July 17, 2000, it would be worth a little under $460 right now. That has nothing to do with anything, but I thought it was interesting how the cash that could buy a big luxury house four years ago could be parlay-ed into enough money to buy a secondhand refrigerator today.