Today was crazy, completely crazy. Nothing that we expected happened.
I got to the office. I called our real estate agent. She was thinking that it was time to follow up as well and set about contacting the selling bank to see what was going on.
Our agent called seconds after the decision was made to give us the house! We can’t believe it. We were so sure that after more than a week since we put in the initial offer that there would be no way that we would be getting the house now. This doesn’t seem possible. (At this point “too good to be true” should have occurred to us.)
We were very surprised as our bid was pretty lean. We found out that there were four offers on the house but ours came out on top. We actually were not the highest bid but we had the most stable funding and had a good offer and an early one so, in the end, we won.
So it is turning into a crazy day. We were so sure that we were not getting the house. Now we are. Now there is a lot of planning and stuff to do. I ran home for lunch which gave Dominica, Souder and I time to talk about what was going on with the other house. Souder was up to start doing the work on the cabling that he didn’t manage to do last night because the electrical issues arose.
While we were there the electricians arrived and were working on things as well. We are getting prepped for the fact that this work is going to cost a fortune compared to what was predicted due to the enormous amount of electrical work that is cropping up. This is going to be rough.
I went over to the real estate office to sign the paperwork for the new house. It only took a minute before we discovered what had happened: they put in the wrong bid. They had been trying to convince us to put in a higher bid initially for this house because they were concerned that we were not going to get it because we were not high enough. We had said “no”, that we had already made our best offer and we were going to stick with it. This explains why we won the bid when we knew that we had been so long. How could we have been high enough with so many people trying to buy that house. Now we know. Truly too good to be true.
So so much for the house that we were going to get. Now we are disappointed. And obviously upset. We are not very happy that after we were so clear with our agent not to put in this price that it went in anyway.
It would be easily to be really pissed at our realtor for doing this but, after talking to her several times about it, it is very clear that she honestly is confused about the amount of money involved and does not, even now, understand that what she put in for us is as much money as it is. She somehow thinks that we are getting some big reimbursement from the bank at the last minute or something crazy like that. I’ve been over the numbers with her over and over again and she just can’t figure out why this isn’t the number that we had agreed to. It is very frustrating but she certainly didn’t do it on purpose, she doesn’t even know what she did.
We decided that we at least wanted to discuss the offer. The upside to the mistake is that, according to the selling bank, our “real” offer would not have gotten the house. So we are now, because of the mistake, in a position to get the house that previously we would not have been able to get. So, in reality, it is kind of a no harm, no foul situation. Even as it is with this higher than expected bid we are still not the highest bidder, just the best bidder.
At least now we have the real numbers to work with. This isn’t a bidding process now, it is just us accepting or not accepting the standing arrangement.
So Dominica and I talked about it for an hour or so. I talked to our future tenant. I talked to my banker. We have everything approved should we want to go forward with the house. We have until ten tomorrow morning to make the decision.
Our final decision was… to get the house. We ran the numbers again and decided that it still made sense. A “house in the hand”, we decided. We still got the house for a great deal – less that someone else was willing to pay right now, for example. So the risk is very low. It appears that we could easily sell the house if necessary at some point.
So we called the agent and she called the selling bank. We have a house and we have all day tomorrow to wrap up the paperwork for it that we had started, and then stopped, today. Our closing date is now set on February 18th.
So, while it was all crazy, we have decided that it is for the best. We really do want the house and feel that it is a very good, long term property for us to have. We are planning on staying in our current house for a long time and owning that house makes that that much easier.
We feel at peace about the decision. People often think of the Lord closing doors to protect them from things that they should not do – like the car they wanted being sold before they get there or their offer not being accepted on their house. “Oh well, the Lord is protecting us from something.” Well, we feel that this is that, just the opposite. Our offer wasn’t enough to get the house and so, to make sure that we got it, the offer was “wrong”. Now we have it.
We watched a little BattleStar Galactica 2.5 tonight before Dominica went to bed, sort of, and I headed to the office to work. Dominica failed to get any sleep, though, because Liesl had caffeine (not my fault, Dominica gave it to her before I got home from work) and was a terror. She was visibly exhausted but could not go to sleep. One moment she would be passing out and the next as wide awake as could be. Very unlike her normal self. She was almost acting drunk, banging her head against the wall, lots of screaming, not communicating well. It was a rough evening.
I was up until two in the morning working. I managed to get an article written just before Dominica fell asleep. So I made her proofread it. I submitted and then it was off to bed.
I have to be up at six in the morning so tonight is going to be a very short one for me. Four hours at best. And boy is there a lot to do tomorrow!