The good the bad and the ugly

I know many of you loyal readers are anxiously awaiting the gory details of today so let me fill you in on the lovely day we've had.

Everything happens in threes right - well it happened today.

First, our real estate agent heard nothing last night with regards to our offer. She was calling and paging the sellers agent all night and got no word. She had said for us to have some sleep and think happy thoughts. We did, and slept very well. Strange for me, as I'm normally a nervous sleeper and would be up a million times. But something kept me sleeping - so I'll take it!

Woke up and by 9:30 heard NOTHING and was starting to get a little worried. I emailed Agent M, she said that she had just gotten paged from the sellers agent and would get in touch via email. Guess they couldn't get ahold of the sellers last night, so they were meeting in the afternoon to go over the offer. Agent M asked if we could meet her at her office after work again so that we could go over their response.

I decided to talk to our mortgage chick and confirm everything and let her know what was going on. She came back and told me that we couldn't get the house for what we wanted. I freaked - hit the roof, blew a gasket and threatened to go to another lender if she wasn't able to help us. Within five minutes she was apologizing to me for reading the numbers incorrectly (James is paid in US funds and that effected the rates and stuff.) So anyhow, she said that we'd be good to go.

With that horrible thing out of the way, I get an email that James' car got hit in the driveway by my brother in law and that he just feels awful about it. Both James and I know that his car isn't the best of the best, so we were more concerned about my brother-in-law, who is a sensitive sort. My sister told me that they'd pay for the damages, and when we asked what they were, neither of us were that concerned. Some scratches on the door and the mirror. No big deal right? It didn't matter really, as it just seemed to be another thing that was bad today.

The next thing that happened to me was that my pen at work exploded all over my hands - and without noticing it, I went and put my fingers on the keyboard. I now have several letters that are all blue, and I had to go to the bathroom to clean my hands off before going to meet with Agent M.

James didn't fare much better as he has a really bad canker sore in his mouth that has irritated his world. All in all - things didn't look that great.

We meet with Agent M, and sure enough they didn't accept our lowball offer. We bantered back and forth before going and settling on an option. We knew our top - and we knew they didn't want to barter back and forth. We decided give them our best offer, which was still lower than their counter, agree to whatever terms they wanted and say "If they turn it down, then they turn it down and we walk away." They had until 11pm to give us an answer.

We didn't feel that positive about the situation when we left - even though we were now only $3000 apart. We went to eat as neither of us wanted to cook, and spent the $30 we had in our pockets. Dinner was pretty quiet and the only thing we really talked about was what we'd do if the deal fell through. Knowing how much house we could get if we went the townhouse route, we decided we'd probably keep looking at newer homes. We were hopeful, but not, especially after our bad day.

We came home and were met with wishful eyes of my parents and my Uncle Bob who were sitting down to dinner. They wanted to talk about the house and what was going on and so I pulled up the trusty computer to show the photos and the MLS listing. (I'd share with all of you, but until all is said and done, I don't want to get my hopes up too much.)

The computer died just as the slide show was done and we talked about all the possibilities with the house. My mother was very positive that this was the right house for us and James and Uncle Bob got in a very serious discussion about the appliances and the merits of putting a laundry room on the top floor.

Dad went out to plow and then the phone rings. Whoever it was started talking to my mom like it was me and she was all flustered when she realized it wasn't. Mom said "It's Heath, it's... it's her mother. Hold on." Sure enough it was Agent M.

"There's one condition and then you've bought yourself a house."
Tentatively I say "Okay - what is that?"
"They want to know if you'll change the move in date to March 13th instead of the 6th and they've accepted your price and everything else."

Of course!!!!!

So now we have to start on the financing and arrange the inspector and get everything moving at a very rapid fire pace. We have a very short window to get everything said and done. This is crazy and insane and I'm so incredibly happy and excited at the same time. But I know how much we have to go through and it's a lot - namely the mortgage. I think we'll be fine, but I want to be extra sure and until we have final CMHC approval, there's no point in getting my hopes up too much.

So stay tuned to all the fast and furious changes that are sure to come in the next week.

I must say, this truly is a great birthday present!