The Offer

I do believe we've been in a perpetual state of waiting for months and months.

I've felt sort of homeless since March when we listed the house. This transition is taking so long, and really I'm just ready to settle down and have a place of our own.

After we moved out of the house early May, we came to mom and Kevin's house for what was supposed to be a few weeks. I laugh at my adorable smooth transition plans. How cute and naive I was.

When we got here, Eden had just barely been denied, so I went to have a talk with the owner of the house next door. When he saw me walk into his store, we explained Eden had been denied and he said, 'You need a key!' and went over and cut a key right on the spot.

He had thought we didn't want it for the past few months, as we assumed we would be going to Japan. He let me know he had some people who were walking through the house in the next few days, wanting to buy it. It was currently unlisted, but he had started working on getting it in listing condition.

We asked what he was asking for it, and my heart sank when he said about $100k more than we were hoping. I think he saw the sort of distress and look between my mom and I, because then he sort of leaned in and softy told me, "Just make an offer. I'll tell my sister you have priority."

So Greg and I hashed it out over the next few days. We didn't want to make an insanely low offer and offend him, but we were also worried that Greg would have to retire early, and that would affect our financial position in the long term. Then I remembered we had quite a bit of cash from our house up north that we could potentially use as a down payment. It was tricky though, because at this point in the story, our closing on the house up north had just fallen through and we were waiting on the new appraisal, so it was all sort of imaginary cash until we could get that appraisal done and close. Also we knew we needed a bit left over for repairs and updating the house, so trying to find a middle ground was difficult.

We were also elbows deep in getting the appeal done, and had no idea how that would go. What would happen if we bought the house, and then ended up getting cleared to go to Japan? We didn't want to make the owner wait on her appeal either by making the sale contingent on her appeal. So....math. Greg did math. So much math. ALL the math. And we realized, we could move some stuff around and be able to afford the house and go to Japan if our offer was accepted.

So....I went to see the owner and made our offer.

Happy Sewing!!

-Shelley