the.second.one

just an update real quickly on the house:

we finally got a brick guy out friday and he gave us an estimate on the work of $7800. thats actually way better than we were expecting (i was assuming it would be almost double that) so we were actually starting to feel a little encouraged. also, the brick guy said he knew a roofer that he worked with pretty often that did good work for a reasonable price and could handle our job no problem, so if this all goes through we'll definitely be talking to him to see if we can get a better price on the roof issues. (also, saturday another brick guy finally called me back and hes going to do an estimate for free which is nice because then we'll have two estimates and we can start looking at how much wiggle room there is between the two guys and possibly negotiate a little with one of them.) so after we talked to the brick guy we immediately went to the realtor now that we finally had all our estimate and paperwork together to make our final offer to the bank. we discussed our options and ended up offering the bank half the original list price given the cost of repairs and that the house is actually now condemned and will have to be demolished soon if they dont sell it. well that was friday.

so saturday we decided that there was a very good chance that even if we did get the house, we probably werent going to be able to move in right away and we should probably figure out what we were going to do about that. we ended up getting a storage unit and taking a load of stuff from the apartment over there to start the moving process. we also found a washer on craigslist (because we dont have any appliances in the house) for a steal! its brand new, bought in 2006, the woman got it and then got a deal on a washer dryer set so shed only even used it a few times. well she got the set and this thing has just been in her kitchen since late 2006. brand new it was over $400 (and its still in that condition) we got it for $130 :) good deal. we also got this really sweet old dining set on craigslist saturday. its like a 50's diner-ish type set all chromed out and vinyl covered, its so awesome. very vintage, very cool. $75 for a table with a leaf and 4 chairs!

back to the house... yesterday (monday) the bank countered our offer. 33k and they pushed the closing date back even further. needless to say i was irate. i cant believe they are so unwilling to work with us! we've been completely reasonable this entire time, haven't tried to screw them or low ball them or anything. and this is what we get... so now we're having to seriously decide what we want to do. we've already dropped about $800 on inspections and estimates for 2 houses we've made offers on so far. we really do like the house, but our initial budget isnt enough to buy it at that price and do the repairs. plus im just angry and want to say "ef you" to the bank on principal alone. idunno what we're going to do, but i guess i'll let you know when i find out more.