Last week The Fiancé and I decided to go look at a house we’d been watching online for months. We loved it online, but figured it would be sold before we could get to our buying time (stupid apartment lease). When it didn’t sell and they lowered the price 3 times, we both figured something must be wrong with it. The real estate market in our area has been doing pretty well. Houses are selling quickly. So the fact that it was in our ideal neighborhood, not far from our ideal price and we both loved the pictures, meant something had to be wrong.
The Fiancé surprised me when he told me he’d gone ahead and submitted the mortgage app to the credit union. We had the approval and I was confused. “Why did you do it now?” I asked him.
“Because I think we have to go see that house.”
I jumped up and down with joy. At least in my head, since I’m not much of a jumper.
Immediately after hearing this I arranged to see the house. And it was the only one we saw in person, even though we looked at hundreds online, and we loved it. We didn’t even need time to think about it, we prepared out offer immediately.
While we offered low, we fully expected them to counter much higher and meet in the middle. In the end we were scared to lose the house, so we just accepted their counter. Done.
Or maybe not.
After we accepted their counter, which was only about 1.4% less than listing price, they started adding contingencies. We’d asked for 14 days for inspection and they only wanted us to have 10. We asked for 21 days financing contingency, they only wanted us to have 14.
The big one, though – when we showed up last Saturday to look at the house we were told that last month another agent had shown the house and failed to shut the sliding glass door to the backyard, this causing moisture to enter the house and warping the wood floors. We all tried to find the damage and couldn’t. But the selling agent had told our agent that they would fix the floors, so we were fine with that.
In one of the later revisions of the contract they (the sellers) added language that said “Seller will attempt to fix the hardwood floors and if repairs can’t be made the floors will be recovered with another floor covering.”
The Fiancé sent me this language and I immediately said “NO!” I was driving so I could fully text my response, but that language made it sound like they could easily replace the wood floors with vinyl or carpet and we’d have no recourse. No, no and no. I wanted hardwood, just as the house had when I looked at it!
And if they couldn’t repair it, fine. We’d just have to adjust the price accordingly.
They fought us. And now here we are 8 days later with a contract hanging in the wind.
I 100% fully believe they’ve strung us along because they are hoping someone else will look at the house and offer them more. They bought it as a foreclosure in Nov 2012, remodeled it and listed it in January 2013 for $74,900 more than they paid. They started lowering the price shortly after and it was listed $40,000 less than the original listing when we looked at it. Our agreed-upon price was $43,000 less than the original price.
We love the house. We’ve furnished it in our heads…through all of my hours spent on Houzz and looking at furniture. We plan to have the wedding in the backyard of this house!
But 8 days later we still don’t have an agreement. And I’m livid now.
In a way I’m so mad I want to start looking at other places. They just don’t seem to want us to have this house. I know it’s not emotional – it’s all about $$ – but it’s emotional for us. We have already pictured the baby gates and plastic inserts in outlets. We’ve planned the backyard wedding there in our heads. We’ve spent hours debating furniture and how we should decorate. We want this house! And there’s no question our financing will actually go through. None at all. So when they’re fucking with us on dumb stuff it’s pretty insulting.
We keep hearing “The last buyers burned us. They weren’t approved.”
I’m sorry y’all had that bad experience, but I don’t think you get to take it out on us. We have envisioned raising our babies (or baby, maybe) here! We love this house! That’s why we accepted your counter without further counters. We want to live there!
We have forgiven the driveway that needs to be replaced to the time of $15k. We’ve forgiven the small bathrooms and the yard in dire need of landscaping. We want to start our family in this house and yet you are keeping us from it because of stupid shit.
Our 49th, or 2nd?, counter went in today with the language that we get to approve the floors before closing. We’ve agreed to everything they want, but we want to make sure they don’t put some bullshit carpet in, in place of the hardwood floors. And they haven’t responded. I’m sure they thought they’d get better offers over this weekend.
We looked at ONE house. We LOVED it. We made an offer and accepted theirs. And now we just sit in limbo. I’m 24 hours away from telling them to go fuck themselves.
This is supposed to be my kitchen:
Sent from my iPhone
Suburban Mixup 