House Update

We went for the second showing with Gary and Momlie yesterday. They definitely liked it, which was great. No one thinks it's perfect, because it's not, but everyone can see the potential in it. Gary pointed out quite a few things of note - cracks in foundation (not deal breakers, but they are there), galvanized pipes, decent electrical, where the sun will hit the property, inexpensive (relatively) ways we could quickly make some changes to make it more livable, etc. He asked ahead of time if he could be critical without offending us and we said YES!!!! That is why we especially wanted you to come, because we know that you will be our devil's advocate. And he was, which was perfect. I had a whole list of questions about various things and all were answered. We also got to meet the next door neighbor who was very nice and told us some of the scoop. At lunch yesterday, we decided that once I talked to the zoning department at the county today (left a message for them Friday but hadn't heard back yet and I needed clarification on a possible easement next to the potential property) we would make an offer today.

I heard back from the county today and got tons of information about the property, including the fact that it has two "special considerations", one for wildlife habitat and one for views, which basically mean that you have to get special permits before doing any changes to the exterior of your property. Like, because your house is visible from the Multnomah Channel, they don't want boaters to be enjoying their nice day on the water and look up and see your neon green house. Kinda like an HOA, but it is county regulations. Things like that. And you can't build 30 stories high and ruin your neighbor's view, etc.

Once I had that, we were ready. I called our realtor and left a message and she returned my call around 5ish. She had not previously asked and did not realize that we wanted to make an offer contingent upon our current house setting and was not pleased with that. She said that there is another couple interested in the house and they were just finishing up securing financing and about to make their own offer, and she wanted us to have a strong offer since there is likely another offer out on the house. I talked to her some about it and she said she would call the listing agent to see if the seller would consider a contingent offer. I said "well why would he SAY he would, that makes no sense!". And she said "well, if I say you're a great buyer and very interested and all of that but that you just need to sell your house first, he will tell me". So she did that while Geoff and I talked about what we wanted to do. We had previously discussed just renting our current house but decided against it, so we spent some more time talking about if that was what we wanted to do. We decided it just doesn't make sense for us due to a number of factors, and told her that we definitely want the offer to be contingent on selling our current house. Actually Geoff told her this - he answered when she called and he was so great with her. I was upset at that point and he was just fantastic. He said everything I was thinking but not able to express properly. So, she is going to type up the offer as we want it, email it to us in the morning for approval, and then she will present it to the seller. So maybe our house will be on the market tomorrow? I don't know. :) According to Geoff, she said that it doesn't look good that our house isn't even on the market yet and we still want that contingency. But we don't want our house just on the market randomly, we only want to sell it if it means buying this other house. So it is what it is - he can either take it, leave it, or negotiate it. It's out of our hands, and if it's meant to be, it will happen.

An interesting thing about the whole experience, aside from the fact that it's like a 180 degree different market from when I bought this house in June of 2005, is buying with someone else. When it was just me, I made my decision and that was that. Now I have to really make sure that what I want to do is what Geoff wants to do, just like he's doing with me. So we are overly tentative with our opinions sometimes. It's particularly amusing because we're almost always on the same page. One of us will finally say "I know we're not making this full price offer with no contingencies, and that may cause us to lose the house, but I'm okay with that. I can get over it. Can you?" And the other will say "Yes, definitely! I feel the same way. I'll be a little sad for a bit, but our house now is great and other things will come along." PHEW, okay. Now we can move on. That's how many things happen with us and it's been especially apparent in this house process. I'm sure you married people got quite a kick out of this little anecdote.

Yikes. I just spell checked this and I had 5 spelling mistakes. That's atrocious. (yes, I spell checked atrocious but it was right!)