What Do You Think?

"DON'T WORRY INSIDE A DOG BUT IT IS SAFE IN JAIL"

If you were looking at house listings and saw this in the remarks, you'd be completely confused. Right?
Then you would realize that this poor-english speaking lister is trying to tell you that there is a caged dog on the property. Right?
Then you would wonder what agency would allow such horrible english on their listings. Right?
And shake your head in disbelief. Right?
Then you would wonder if it is a series of sentence fragments that accidentally got smashed together. Right?
Then you would give up because you aren't interested in that stupid property anyway.
Good, 'Cause that's what I thought too.

Matt wants to know what the poor dog did to get thrown in jail.
Drunk barking?
Barking and Entering?

Wow! House shopping is apparently taking it's toll on our sanity...

REALLY?

After all that hemming and hawing - all the anticipation - the bank lowered their price by $1000. REALLY? All that effort FOR THAT? Huh.

Remember how I told you that I don't do well with this game playing business? Yeh, so now I'm just irritated. If that's all the effort they can put into this "relationship", I do not feel the need to stick around. Seee - ya!

I guess my feelings about this place were all wrong. Oh-well, onward we shall go.

We found a few other places that Matt is going to look at this week and report back to me. One day, maybe one day, we'll have a real live home to call our own. Unfortunately, we are now becoming short on time and I'm becoming short on patience. We only have 3 weeks until we have to let the apartment complex know whether or not we're moving out in January - which is also just about as long as my last big nerve can hold out.

Anyhoo...go check out my honey's site to see the "Weekend in Pictures, Part Deux" that I promised a couple of weeks ago.

AAAAND! (this is my favorite part) WE'RE GOING HOME FOR CHRISTMAS / NEW YEARS!!! HOO-RAY!

Dear Friends in the warm weather I-miss-it-so-much state,

Please have lots of alcohol ready as I will be very cold and oh-so ready to drink!

Sincerely,
Me

Did I mention that it is unaccepatbly cold right now?

Tag! You're it. Wait...

I forget. Is it our turn to counter-offer or yours?
I'm so confused...

We haven't counter-offered the bank yet. We've been working out our next move with our agent when a surprise phone call came. Apparently, the bank wants to counter their own counter offer next week before we counter and asked us to "sit tight". (confusing, right?)Basically, the lister says the bank knows they're offer was unrealistic.

Huh! I thought my "let them wait and sweat it out" was only making me feel better. I guess it may have actually made them a little nervous. It probably didn't hurt that our agent sent the lister pics of the roof damage and the latest "going rates" for townhomes in the same area.

This might turn out to be an interesting game after all. I love watching players dig their own hole, especially when it benefits me.

TAG! You're it....AGAIN!

The Game is Afoot

Update on the house situation.
We submitted an offer on the "the gem" and the bank has replied with a counter-offer that made Matt, myself and our agent say, "Puh! Not in this market!"

We are giving it a few days, then we'll come back with another offer. I'm sure they will counter then we will...yeh, the game is on. Matt and I have decided what our max is and our agent is gathering information as well as running some numbers.

We'll see how far it goes. I don't do well with these types of games, I dislike them. My patience is already wearing thin.

Anyway, I'll update as things happen.

Stay tuned for another "Weekend in Pictures" post in the next couple of days!

A Diamond in the Ruff

Back to the house shopping drama.

We were out bid on the PINK carpet townhouse. Which to me, is fine. I liked it but wasn't willing to pay THAT much for it. Not with all that work that Matt and I felt it needed.

We found another that was sold 2 days after being put on the market - before we could put an offer in. Yeh, it was that nice.

BUT! I have spied a gem. A gem that is sparkling just for me.

When Matt and I started our search, I found a property that had been on the market for well over a year and was very obviously over priced. This property immediately intrigued me. I had to know why its been there, empty and lonely, for so long. The lister told our agent that it was overpriced from the beginning and no one has shown any interest in it, but that nothing was wrong with it - as of the last time she'd been in it.

So Matt and I added this to our list of properties to visit. We did. I liked it. He didn't. We had just seen a fantastic property before that we both really really liked and I think we both dismissed this particular property. I've talked Matt into looking at it again.

You know how you get that feeling? The one you can't ignore? I've had it about this property from the day I found it on the internet.

Now that we're a little more seasoned as house shoppers, I feel we've overlooked a real gem here. We know that it has some water damage in one bedroom - which I'm assuming is a roof issue (we're having an inspection this Saturday) But there is nothing else wrong. It has new kitchen appliances, fresh paint and the flooring is in great condition. Considering the time that its been on the market, with no interest, we are considering making a "low-ball" offer with documentation of the damage. The worse they can say is "No", right? If we get this place at the right price - at the price I'm tossing around my mind - it would be easy to fix the roof/water damage and land ourselves a nice home and investment property. (Assuming the financial and housing market ever - even kind of - recovers)

Maybe it won't work out...maybe it will.