We got a house!!!

Well, the story requires me to rewind a bit. Anyway, so we had found a nice 4-bedroom, 2-bathroom house (though, that 4th bedroom is meant to be an office, or a tiny room for your least favorite kid) within a subdivision that we really liked. It had a spacious living room and a formal dining room which we were going to use for a gaming room. (That's D&D for you non-gamer-geeks. What with the game getting as big as 7 people, all our books, pewter miniatures, the map grid, and all the snacks, we want to get a very large dining table to fit everyone.) However, the listing price was waaaay higher than it should be. It may be worth that much in a booming economy or a seller's market, but in this market, they set their asking price to be about ten grand more than the house is worth. (And remember, this is Texas, so houses of that size in that area are going for less than $150k, so ten grand is a big percentage of the house value.)

Anyway, we gave them a lowball offer in hopes that they'd come to their senses. They didn't. They lowered their asking price to about $5k more than we thought the house was worth. Our realtor suggested asking them to get the house appraised so they can put their money where their mouth was. That house was just not worth what they thought it was. And there's a reason why that house has been on the market for months.

As I've said before, they were comparing this house to another one that sold last summer, but that house didn't have holes in the walls, funky paint, smoke permeating the walls and carpet, and worst of all, tenants that didn't treat the house too carefully. Let that be a lesson to all home-sellers... if you have tenants, they will lower the value of your house. If you're lucky, you'll get non-smoking old people with no kids or pets who are obsessive-compulsive about cleaning. But chances are, you won't, and they'll just trash your house.

But the sellers were adamant that they won't go any lower. So then Whateley thought, what else is available for the asking price that these sellers were asking? So we searched again in that subdivision, and found a 3-bedroom, 2.5-bathroom house with two hundred more square feet!

So we checked it out, liked it, and said screw it to the previous house we bid on. Which, funny enough, then they lowered their absolute lowest price to be $2.5k lower than their previous absolute-lowest. All I can say is... too late! Good luck trying to sell that house with that kind of mindset.

Anyway, we made a bid on that bigger house, and we got a verbal acceptance! In the next few days, we should sign the contract and begin the house inspection and all that dealio. But we're very, very excited!!!

So in the coming weeks, I'll keep my faithful readers apprised of our situation. But here's a picture of the house: