house hunting part II

house hunting in the long beach area is horrible!!

i'm so incredibly frustrated.
i would have given up already,
except we kinda have to have a house to live in.

day one produce only one nice house
and a bunch of houses is not safe neighborhoods.
immediately after viewing the nice house,
i tried to apply but the realtor never sent the email.
i called several times with no answer,
finally i asked my realtor to help
and she got a hold of the application, on day two,
sent it to my email at 1:00,
didn't bother to call me to tell me it was there
and there was a 4:00 deadline.
so... we missed that house.

my realtor seems to be on a schedule of her own,
she doesn't answer phone calls,
answers emails but doesn't answer them in a timely manner,
considering she has a fancy phone and she doesn't
have to be a at a computer to read them.
the simplest question like, are you available tomorrow?
sent at 7:00 in the morning won't get answered until 'tomorrow'
i've asked the same question 3 times with still no answer.
and my list of complaints goes on and on.
i may be a bit more frustrated than the average client
but... COME-ON!!!
could you help me out a bit!!!
i'm not from the area,
i'm not familiar with the neighborhoods,
i've hauling around 3 young children
in the middle of tons of freeways
and massive traffic jams.
my poor kids don't want to sit in the car
for days and days while i drive around neighborhoods
when i specifically say 'i need SAFE neighborhoods'.
and when i arrive, i find that i'm the ONLY white girl around
with cars parked in the driveways that are beat up,
graffiti on the walls
and storefronts filled with advertisements in other languages.
plus, i'm doing this all by myself.
chuck is working (and doing a great job at it!!!)
and my realtor is 'not available' AGAIN.

can you tell i'm a bit frustrated???

property management companies are almost worthless over here.
you call them and they say
'look at the website and call if you want to see anything'
i look, then i call, then they tell me it's not available.
i ask them to do a little search for me
and they tell me that is not their job.

day two was filled with tons of frustration
and a lot of wasted gas and time.
i didn't like one neighborhood.

i'm really not even being that picky.
i need a house (attached or not, i don't care)
i need a garage (my husband has too many tools to sit in a closet)
i need a yard (small is fine, my dogs have to pee somewhere)
i need a safe neighborhood (picky huh?)
i cannot live in a 1 bed 1 bath house (find me something bigger)
i need to enter the house on the bottom floor (i lived on the top floor in NJ. it is VERY difficult to haul 3 children into the house, sometimes asleep, and bags of groceries, while keeping everyone safe. what am i supposed to do, leave a sleeping child in the car unattended? or leave them in the house unattended while i haul groceries up and down stairs? and i don't like waiting till chuck gets home, he's worked hard all day, he doesn't want to go grocery shopping.)
and... well... i think that's it.
simple enough, but haven't found a thing.

THANKFULLY i have a new contact with a new realtor
that i will call soon.
hopefully, this gentleman can help!!

on a side note, i did go into a target yesterday
that had underground parking.
i must say... that was kinda cool!!