The Phone Call

After months and months and months of riding the "she said she will sell to us, but oh wait, now she is not sure when" roller coaster with Bettie we started to feel like we were just wasting our time.

We began to search the MLS. We were ready to find "our new home" at this point. We went to several open houses hoping that one of the properties would "feel like home".  Of course, none of them did.

After looking at several homes that just weren't the right fit for us, we started to consider the idea of expanding our current house. We could build a second story and finally have the room that we needed. We would not have the backyard we wanted but adding to our current house was definitely was an option/Plan B. We got bids for the addition and realized that is was going to be a huge expense and probably not worth it. Urghh.........nothing seemed to be working out.

So we just lived life.

Finally, spring came along and one night we received a phone call. It was from a Realtor in our area telling us that she had just listed a home in our in our neighborhood. "Where is the home", I asked? It is your neighbor "Dave's (we will call him)" house.  Dave happened to be the owner of the 5 bedroom home on the large lot the very same Dave that had responded to our letter months earlier.  I gasped for air... oh my gosh.....

Well this was it! The waiting game seemed to finally be over.  Finally Dave was ready to sell and Bettie still had not moved. "What's the asking price?" was my second question to the Realtor. Once again...my heart dropped... the price was lower then what they had quoted us months earlier...however,  we still felt like the price was way too much!!!  Especially given the fact that we would plan to remodel the inside

What to do????  Should we buy this house? After all, this was the only other house that we had liked, besides Betties. Or do we continue to hold out for Bettie's house??....We know we had a HUGE decision to make!!

That following Saturday the Realtor hosted an open house at Dave's property and of course, we stopped by.  After looking at the house again,  we decided that we needed to submit an offer.  So that is what we did, we submitted an offer much lower then the asking price and we hoped that they would accept it......or at least respond favorably to it :).

Meanwhile... we decided to contact Bettie.  We figured we would let her know about this other house and that we had submitted an offer it.  We wanted to basically let her know that if she wanted to sell to us now is the time.  We could wait no longer!!!

"OK, lets meet and talk about getting a contract signed then", she said........What???  Did we hear her right?  She FINALLY wants to do this????? We had been waiting a 1.5 years and just like that she said, "Ok, lets do this........... WUHOOOOOOOOOO!!! We couldn't believe it. All we needed was a little leverage with her and we finally could start the official process of buying her house.