Old Car and Bike rambling

I've been searching for a 2009+ Miata off and on for many months. The criteria for what I was looking for was PRHT (power retractable hard top), in Silver, Grey, or white with a light colored leather interior and a manual transmission. Since I had been watching the cars coming up for sale over several months I had a pretty good idea that I could buy a 2009/2010 (NC2) for about $12k or less but after I sold my motorcycle, spring started to kick in and along with it, lots of new buyers looking for the same car I want. The prices started rising every week. The cars that interested me were getting sold before I could even make an offer sight unseen. My search expanded out to 250 miles from my house but the same less desirable cars kept showing up week after week. 2 black manual cars(a hard top and a soft top) and a slew of automatic transmission equipped cars with low asking prices which was a good indication of the kind of interest those cars had (ie little to none). After