Holy schnikes I narrowly avoided disaster. I was double checking my flights and saw I booked them.............FOR SEPTEMBER!


Managed to get the correct flights booked, would've been mighty pissed showing up tomorrow and finding out I was a few months early for my flight. Probably would've gone viral on someones Tik-Tok as they had to tase me and put me on the no fly list

Currently we have a list of 26 homes saved on Zillow. Of those, 1 is off-market (most likely for a change being made I'm guessing since it went up and down very quickly) and then 12 are "pending" and the other 13 are still on the market.

This home will be the first one I'm seeing though, but we do have others on the list if we aren't thrilled with this one. The issue is that sometimes homes we like wind up going into pending status a few days after they show up on the MLS. We're doing this solo though, without a realtor, since we're looking at multiple states and we figure as cash buyers without an agent who is expecting the sellers to pay them 2-3% of the sale price, our offer will be more attractive than others.

There are others closer that we would've gone to see, but they either went under contract very quick or we can never reach the listing agent to setup an appointment or get any details.

As far as the electric grid, that is certainly a cause for concern. Although where we live now it always seems when power goes out it affects our little neighborhood of 42 homes according to the Tampa outage map, without fail we seem to be the ones who go down every stinking time. So I guess somewhat used to it.

Shortly after we moved here there was a big hurricane that came through and we lost power for around a week (and had a similar experience with a nor'easter when we lived in Connecticut taking out power in the middle of winter for a week, which was brutal with the cold)

I just can not even imagine looking for a house without deciding on the locale first.

Good luck to you guys. Hope you land in a good spot!

We're looking at over 10 states since I work remotely. We aren't attached to any specific state in particular. We just verify the home will have access to high speed internet and has low crime and low traffic and then we base it on the house itself.

But we'll obviously visit any area and do research before making our decision. At the same time, some areas present faster time crunches than others as it's harder for us to react to new listings when we aren't local to an area.

Since Kentucky is on your list, I have to advocate for NKY (Cincinnati basically). When moving from Nashville in 2013, I told my wife that if she moved us to ****ing Cincinnati it'd be over. Here we are almost a decade later, and we love it. Super affordable (although prices are starting to rise), one of the largest intact urban 1800s Italianate neighborhoods in the country, big Amazon/DHL hub so the airport has good service. I can walk across the Ohio from my front door to the Reds game in 30 minutes, although I guess you're looking for something a little more rural. Go down to Alexandria, KY, or Florence, KY, and you're still just a 10-15m drive from downtown Cincy. Go even further South and you're getting to where it's equidistant for Cincy, Louisville, Lexington, and the Red River Gorge, which is just an outstanding natural area. Lexington is an OK small town - it helps if your favorite color is blue - and Louisville is a really cool small city.

We loved Nashville, couldn't pay me to move back there now.

i've never been, but i've always been fascinated by this bit of geology

I wound up making a video of my trip to Texas, pleased to enjoy!

Well that was an obnoxious video. Have you rethought your approach on locking at future places?

Based on your attitude, please stop looking for places in Texas.

[SPOILer][/SPOILer]

Yes, we're doing a virtual showing of a place in MS tonight. ALL my videos are obnoxious though, so nothing out of the ordinary.




Yeah, salespeople gonna salespeople and try to get you in the door I guess. Lesson learned for next time, and at least I was able to make an obnoxious video about my experience.

Ha, that was a fun video.

I suspect you dodged a bullet by not moving out there.

I still have this written warning for "going 5mph over the limit" though, lol. Bunch of bored-ass cops on a Sunday morning in the middle of nowhere just fishing for a reason to pull someone over.

Location in MS?

Or just Southcentral, etc?

Out of state plates on the rental?

Roughly an hour south of Jackson MS

LOL @ me.

My first thought was out of state plates. My second thought was, no, it was a rental. I think you probably have a BINGO!

No clue as I never really looked at them. It was a newer model Chevy Blazer that I picked up from the airport

In addition to the standard heat, humidity, hail, and tornadoes, you are also bringing the decaying remnants of hurricanes into play. Probably not going to be a quick or easy commute into any place decent for shopping.

If you have serious interest in the place after the tour, let me know and I'll see if I can answer any questions you may have about the town/area.

Weirdest traffic stop I ever had was being pulled over on an off-ramp in Austin by a DPS officer who had another vehicle pulled over already. Sumbitch walked up to my window and started chewing my ass out about not having a front tag. ****er went on and on. When he finally stopped yapping, I told him that my state did not issue front plates. Then he started looking to see what he could see in my back seat, asked where I had been, and where I was going. I told him, and he asked if that was always the route I took to get to my destination from where I had left. I don't think he ever asked to see my DL. By this time I was really aggravated and told him that this was the route that I was taking this time. At that point I had already begun planning on spending at least the rest of that day in Austin. Luckily, he seemed to decide that he had wasted enough time dealing with me and told me to get out of town.

AKA two *******s meet for a friendly chat on an off-ramp in Austin.

Your cop likely turned around due to lack of a front plate, then even after seeing what state your tag was from decided not to embarrass himself by not pulling you over.

Florida DL always reeks of meth run even in Florida.

When you were talking with the cop, you seemed to be on the passenger side. Maybe that's why you were pulled over.

I got pulled over once in small town SD because I missed the sign on the edge of town for the lower speed limit. Nice enough interaction though, after talking about it, he just warned me to be careful.

Now, the stuff I drive can barely make the limit, much less speed. It's ok, I enjoy the scenery.

Good luck with MS, hope you guys find the home and town that sets off the "this is it!" alarm.

You might want to check to ensure you haven't left the e-brake on accidentally. That vehicle looked perfectly capable to me! Nothing wrong with enjoying the scenery though; I think you and I prefer the same kinds of roads.

True, but they had no way of knowing I was from Florida when they were coming from the opposite side of the highway. Just a really weak excuse to pull me over by fabricating an imaginary 5mph speed limit violation.

And I'm not some defund the police type either, but I do look at situations on their merits. Sometimes a civilian was in the wrong, other times it was the officers. Their making up a reason to pull me over left a sour taste in my mouth.

My wife and I prefer small town living away from tons of traffic. We don't attend big events crammed full of people. We'd rather chill at home watching shows and just enjoy the quiet.

As long as we have a grocery store nearby we're good. We get a lot of stuff via amazon prime anyway.

We already have heat, humidity and hurricanes here in Florida. And we came from New England where we had Nor'Easters dropping feet of snow on us and black ice.

Tornadoes do pop up here in Florida, although we've been fortunate to not have encountered one yet. Then again, we've been here for 7 years and we've NEVER encountered an alligator, I'm starting to think people made them up! :P

Have you ever been in that area? We've driven on I-55 from New Orleans through Jackson to Tunica a couple of times. Always wondered why anyone would want to live in MS.

Yeah, kidding. The Subie has some sportiness. I traded in a 20-year-old vehicle when I got it. Took off on a road trip. Of course, I'm used to driving the old beaters with all their attendant shakes and rattles.

Looked down, I'm going 90ish because I'd forgotten how smooth driving a new car can be. Oops, let's back off that a little.

/derail