bad real estate round-up

Before we found the place we're buying we saw a lotta hum-dingers! I'd love to show you all the horrid things we saw but I only took pictures of a small percentage of them.


At the first place we saw, this lovely mascot greeted us at the top of the stairs. As you walk up the stairs he looks like he's about to pounce on your head. This was the same house that had shotgun shell casings scattered in the driveway and the woods. YEE-HAW.


One old farmhouse had the steepest of steep stairs that were so narrow that a third of my foot hung off of when my heel was jammed against the back of the stairs. (I wear a women's size 7.5.) At the bottom of these steep and tiny stairs? Well, a door. But not just any door. A door that leads outside, but is about three feet above the ground. Do you see the possibilities?


Gotta love these roomy old farmhouse closets. Couldn't even fit a body in this one, I'm pretty sure. Also, I see four different kinds of wallpaper. Niiiice.


To be fair, this tub o' doom was found in a place that was more hunting cabin than it was house. But still... I mean, ew...


A random pile of insulation. What's that splattered on the wall? Wait, no, don't tell me.

ANYWAY.

We had fun. We laughed and pointed a lot. We're glad the house hunt is (probably) over.

Eeeeeek!

The paperwork is signed, and assuming there are no problems with inspection/water testing/other boring stuff, we will own that awesome place on August 14th.

We have been telling Arlo and Oliver that we bought them a house, but they don't seem to care. Spoiled dogs.

Third time the charm?

Well, we've made yet another offer. This brings our total to four offers on three different properties.

I REALLY REALLY hope we get this house. It's beautiful, the land is beautiful, it's right across the road from the ocean, and is only five kilometres away from a cute little town, which makes it convenient for groceries and supplies but still private.


It's been on our list of places to view for a long time, but we were never near enough to that area of the province to actually go view it. I brought up the MLS listing to show my dad a few days ago, and saw that the asking price had suddenly dropped by a very significant amount. Owners want to sell! We got mobilized and went to see it right away and had made an offer before we got home again.

Today we're awaiting a counter-offer that I'm pretty certain we will accept.
In the meantime I feel paralyzed and unable to be productive. I'd like to say "there, I bought a house" but it's so far from certain at this point, and went so badly last time... please keep your fingers crossed for us!!

So Wrong!

What not to do to your bedroom when trying to sell your house:


... I just don't have anything else to say about that.

that was no fun

Well, our real estate deal officially went kablooey today. The seller wanted the moon and wanted us to lick his boots while we were giving it to him. NOT BLOODY LIKELY. After two weeks this painful, difficult deal is officially over, and the two real estate agents involved are no longer on speaking terms.

Happy birthday to me.

On the brighter side, we have lots of properties to look at and any one of them might be as good as or better than anything we've seen yet. We are both discouraged yet relieved about the recent events - I think seeing other properties will be a sort of a healing thing to do. (You all have NO IDEA how hard we've worked over the past two weeks to compromise with the seller and his mousy little vindictive listing agent.)

Wish us luck! It's not working out so well so far but it's just a matter of time...

fighting for a sale

Well, we made an offer for the sweet little house on the hill with 123 acres and beautiful river frontage. The bad news is, we made the offer a week ago and we're still struggling with negotiations. We agreed on price a mere three days in, but the shady chump that currently owns the place does not want ANY strings attached; even the normal kind like testing the water. Even better, the listing agent doesn't understand the concept of a deadline and avoids calls and emails from our agent. This has made is a veeery sloooow, very painful process. Our real estate agent told her off pretty badly at one point and Mark and I have learned never to expect prompt responses to any of our communications with them.


Meanwhile, we have been essentially homeless for almost four months, living either in our little travel trailer or in other peoples' spare bedrooms. It will feel very nice to unpack our duffel bags sometime in the foreseeable future... perhaps we'll have a signed contract by the deadline of 2pm today. (Or 2:30 if the listing agent stays true to character.)

*Sigh*.

We are quite taken with the charming little house and the beautiful forest and river behind it, but we simply cannot bend on the water testing and other issues, lest we find ourselves with a ten thousand dollar pipe problem after the fact.

This is all more than a little frustrating!