I sleep late, have breakfast at the same diner every morning, fish a little, play with my children most of the afternoon, take a nap with my wife, and then enjoy an evening of sipping wine and playing cards with my friends."

I'd probably give them a gift card or certificate for their patience, cooperation and understanding.  

This is not a "RA-RA lets go out and make money by taking out a cash advance on your credit card and flip a property" type deal.

Centrally located near the shops and public transportation, and schools. check check check. 

A bunch in credit cards, no doubt, but still a significant chunk of cash.

And these days, mortgage applicants must be careful with using credit cards before closing because credit will be pulled again and they don't want to lose their qualification.That means if they did intend to use credit to buy the fridge, they could be a week w/o it.I knew a guy who installed mini-blinds at all the windows since he felt that having to fit 14 windows might turn away some buyers.If your market is such that most homes do not come with a fridge, then if yours has one, you have an automatic one up.

She did offer that she can give me the debit card for both the social services and the child support or basically assign for me to get the check directly so it can be applied towards the rent, thereby guaranteering my rent.

Everything hinged on housing prices which was driven up by household debt, then wall street further leveraged these securities thus building the house of cards that would fall when the linchpin of ever rising housing prices stopped.Balance sheets of the household sector are still weak.

I had a bank that would do a refi at 85% of the tax card.  

Well I have to confess, when I was a beginner Investor years ago I used to just send my contractors each a  gift card for $50-$100, and my thinking was that I did show them that I care about them.