Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Know When to Hold 'em, Know When to Fold 'em

Sorry in advance for this post. It does not discuss my progress, or have anything motivational in it. It's me, throwing a fit like a two year old about not getting things I want. If that doesn't interest you, check back tomorrow and hopefully I will have calmed down.


In my dream last night, Dave and I were viewing the house we just put an offer in on for the 3rd time. Our offer was on the table, but there were other people at the house checking it out. They offered nearly double what the asking price is. I shouted "you can't do that! It has to appraise!" I woke up in a cold sweat. Happy that there wasn't another offer on it, but incredibly sad knowing that our offer was basically garbage.

Clearly I'm a little shaken and stressed by this whole house buying/offer thing. Right now my confidence is at about zero. Especially as this is happening so soon after the negotiations over the job in California. As much as I am happy about sticking to my guns and not accepting a low salary offer, I will always wonder if that would have been the better thing for me to do.

Yesterday, our offer on the AMAZING house was rejected. Not even a counter-offer. Just flat out rejection. I know our offer was low. We absolutely can not offer any more, we are topped out at our limit. But we are so close. Like, if we had $7,000 more dollars, it would work. What is $7,000 when you are looking at nearly $300,000? Its a drop in the bucket.

So, maybe that's my fault for looking at and falling in love with a house that is out of my price range. I'm leaning more towards I suck at negotiations and am too fucking stubborn for my own good. This house is awesome, we've been looking for a year, we qualify for the tax credit, rates are low, we found a renter, what is the problem?!

Of course there are other places. The seller is clearly not ready to let go of the house. We don't want to over extend ourselves. Blah, blah, blah. I want that fucking house! I want all my stuff back that has been in storage for a year. I want to be out of my 500 square foot condo. I want a yard to garden in. I want to fix stuff, paint stuff, own stuff.

The saddest thing is that I have to let go. It really is out of my hands at this point. No amount of wanting it can make it happen. No food I eat will make it happen. Crazy calls at 7am to my real-estate agent about the dream I had last night will not make it happen. It's just not my time.

3 comments:

  1. I want to give you a HUGE hug!

    I kid you not, this happened to me. My husband and I put an offer in on a house (a low offer because we only have one income because I'm a student.) Anyways, the offer was rejected! I was devastated. I cried and bitched for days.

    It's okay to be sad. That was the worst part of buying a house, I would get so attached. Planning paint colors and furniture arrangements.

    In the end we settled on another house. In all honesty, we are SO happy with this house (which happened to be over $50,000 less than the first house of our dreams.)

    I promise you, there is something that happens when you are house hunting. . . when the time is right, something in the stars lines up and BAM you get what you want.

    Do not settle, get what you want, and what you can comfortably afford.

    Some things are beyond your control (i.e. bank acceptance, owner accepting offers, etc.) At some point you just have to relinquish control and let fate take over.

    Please let us know how things go. . . it will all work out in the end.

    Good luck!

    Julia
    http://jewliagoulia.blogspot.com

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  2. Julia,

    Your comment made my day. Seriously. Not just because you are SO understanding of what I'm going through right now (in more ways then just the house) but because you are basically a celebrity blogger in this genre! (me thinking: OMG, JewliaGoulia read my blog!!)

    I was afraid to write such a whiny post, but I just could not get over myself this morning. Thank your for the hand reaching out to me and pulling me out of this funk!

    I will keep you posted on what happens.

    Violet

    And P.S. I love your blog!

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  3. Since I've never tried to buy a house or even been near that, I'll back up Julia cuz she sounds super nice and quite like she knows what she's talking about. Go her! And go you! It'll happen! xo

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