More backandforthing with David, about those special invoices, for some 2-3 hours... ends like this:
he (10:44:17): but yes... you may be right... the sale header may receive an invoice;
he (10:44:30): it may not be a bad idea...
he (10:44:37): see I'm flexible...
I (10:45:04): well what was the other idea? have the sales unrelated to invoices?
he (10:45:09): I hear you think "Flexible flexible, if only I could understand what he means "
he (10:45:32): yes unrelated to invoice what my other idea.
I (10:45:38): trying to understand what was the other way you thought of.
I (10:45:45): so, how do we invoice?
I (10:45:52): in that case.
he (11:58:08): merde
My main source for this period are the emails to my parents, it's almost like a diary. Here's the recap.
The offer was accepted, at 63000$. Seems we got it right. We just returned from the agentulja, where we signed a heap of papers. If everything goes by timetable, we may get the keys around 9th of july, then slowly make it livable and move in.
About the UniJewel's accountant:
„With that guy I sat perhaps five or six times a dozen minutes, and as much more on the phone, and I don't what else has he got to do. Few times it seemed he had someone in the office (not larger than your bathroom, expensive is the space on Manhattan :), so he kept the conversations short, while he's verbose by nature. By David's assessment, he's simply a klutz. The mankind has to do something with the 10% of dull folks, as the statistical estimate claims there are. Some among them understand that they aren't assembled properly, so they manage in their own ways.“
We need to hurry somewhat, our rent expires on 31st of july, and we'd try to move out by then. The contract is annual, and we are paying an extra month, at 25$ surcharge, which is still cheaper - by new contract it would be even more expensive than that, tariff changed.
Lena is accepted into the magnet school, which is supposed to attract the gifted kids, where the curriculum is stronger. Since there's only one such school in the whole town, the schoolbuses' routes are longer, have to cover the whole city. This is good, because by geography, she'd be assigned into some crummy local school, because the area is rather black. In the row where our future house is, the ownership is mixed, less than half black, but on both sides ther are rentals, both across and specially in the back. The latter is subsidized, in a way that it's still private, but the lessor has to have a paper from each tenant that their income is below some limit, and then the rent gets lower because it's not taxed. Less tax is less money for the schools, so the schools are less equipped, has worse teachers and better problems.
My folks are asking for a larger pack of aspirins and a smaller one of ibuprofen (called brufen there). These are sold off the shelf in a supermarket, which still has its own pharmacy, but the guy there is in charge of only the prescribed meds. These Amers are crazy. Nina flies on 22nd and should return mid-august. As she arrives to Belgrade in the evening (because the London layover is some 5 or 6 hours), Danilo will wait for her at the airport. I have no clue where she intends to stay and for how long, but I wouldn't be surprised if she stayed in Belgrade a lot.
About the house: there are no houses of hard material here, except perhaps the box shops and universities, that's cinder blocks, and few high rises, and even there the partition walls are just slat frames with sheet rock nailed. The brick is on the outside only, but at least it's half a brick thick, not an eighth as we kept seeing. Yes, they often just put some tiles which look like bricks. It's about 130-140 squares big, plus a 9x8 patio behind*, plus a two car parking behind that. It's one of the six houses in a line, near the middle. The outsides differ; ours has a roof on two waters frontside, so the rainwater goes through neighbors' gutters. Backside roof is one water and I think we have our own gutter. There's also some tool shed in the backyard.
Downstairs there's a large kitchen, dining room and a living room (which we may join into one), a wash cabin and a half bathroom (just the seat and a sink), and three bedrooms of different sizes and a full bathroom upstairs. There's a lot of closets, so no cupboards are needed. There's no carpet downstairs, and the one upstairs is to be replaced, it's stretched and wrinkled.
With the house we get a stove and a dishwasher (who knows whether it works) [got that wrong, no washer, perhaps mixed it up with the trash grinder], and also a fridge, which is a writeoff. Can get a new one below 400$. Likewise, washer and dryer combo is below 750$.
The power and water were off when we visited two days ago, the water heater drained, so we'll see what works and what not.
Virginia Beach has some 6-7 postal codes, and we're perhaps a mile or two from our old code. Looking on the map and the net, it seemed that the shops will be even farther away than they were there, but they turned out actually closer now. We just didn't notice the distance once we got used to it. The nearest supermarket was at 2,2 miles, will be 1,8 now.
The loan is usually to 30 years, but we took the 15 year one, counting on paying it off in six at most**. Now that this is pretty cheaper than we initially calculated, the monthly installment will be half what rent was, and also the expense of interest and maintenance is tax deductible. The only real reason why we paid the rent so far was that we didn't have enough for a down payment.
In other news, the rasejani have put together a complete and perfect disclaimer:
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* trick of the eye. It's just 6x6m. And it's not six houses in a row, but seven.
** didn't come out like that, see 10-V-2007..