More Real Estate Drama...

The continuing saga of our never-ending real estate transaction...

If you're really bored and you haven't read any of my past ramblings about our bizarre real estate dealings, you might want to click here and here to catch up. Otherwise, here comes the most recent installment in the craziness.

When I last updated, we upped our offer slightly on Mr. Howell's house and he never really responded. The realtor called us about a month or so later and said that he would accept a higher offer and that was about the end of it.

More recently, we brought a friend of ours in on the case who is also a broker and happens to now work in the same office as the broker that has the listing on the house.

Under his supervision, we resubmitted our offer with the same price as before, but also adding in a contingency clause to sell our house first--so it was actually inferior to our previous offer--but the market has gone down the tubes even more since then, so that's what we felt comfortable with.

We submitted this about two weeks ago--our new realtor telling us that we should get an answer in a day.

A day went by--still nothing, but the realtor said Mr. Howell needed another day to discuss it with his daughters (he's a widower). Another day...nothing.

Another week...nothing.

Our realtor was getting more and more frustrated as it was nearly impossible to reach the listing agent, and when he could speak with her, details were always sketchy about why we weren't hearing back.

It all started to become laughable to me!

Then finally, on Friday our realtor called and said that the he found out the seller was working on some kind of cryptic deal and couldn't make a decision until he was finished. He wouldn't reveal what this mysterious deal was to anyone except his listing broker and she was sworn to secrecy. She would only tell us that it was "something really weird." (!!!)

At that point, we issued a kind of an ultimatum that we would "appreciate" an answer by noon on Saturday. Sooo much time had gone by and we just couldn't stand being in limbo anymore!

Of course, noon rolled by with no word, so we went on with our weekend. I headed out to get some stuff framed (including an original Little Edie poster--I'm so excited to have it!).

Anyway, while I was at the frame place, Don called to say our offer had been accepted!! I was shocked!

So, at first, I was really excited--but as the day went on, I started to feel overcome with panic.

It didn't help that when we went out to dinner to celebrate, Gooser sobbed through the whole meal because he doesn't want to move. But he started to perk up a little when I told him that the closets of the new house would make very good batcaves!

In the middle of the night, I woke up consumed with doubt and worry that we are making the wrong decision, but after talking to Don today, I feel better about it.

The next obstacle now will be selling our house--Mr. Howell changed the contract giving us only 45 days to sell. I don't know if that's even possible--but we're going to try!

In the next week or so, I'm going to be in a frenzy of cleaning and organizing--in fact, I think I'm going to box up a bunch of crap and put it in storage so my house doesn't look so cluttered.

Please wish us luck--we're going to need it!