House Hunting: Done

These last two weeks have been NUTS!

Things with the house sale were going along beautifully, I was all set to close on March 1st.  Then, on Feb. 28th, around 4PM, the appraisal came back to the lender - 10K shy of our agreed upon purchase price.

rrrrrrkkk!  I put on the brakes.  (I'm not positive how you spell the screeching brake sound...)

I didn't think, in this day and age, paying 10K above the appraisal price was sound financial practice.  The sellers were (are) of the opinion that because they invested X dollars in the house, it HAS to be worth that much, my bank's appraisal was completely bogus, and they weren't going to budge.

Thus started a week of:  It's on.  It's off.  It's on. It's off.  (I have a whole new crop of gray hairs.)

I thought we had a agreement - if the bank would come up 5K, the sellers and I would split the other 5K.  The bank re-looked at the appraisal, and came up, not 5K, but 6K.

OK, that just leaves 4K to split.  But, oh, no.  After agreeing on the phone over the weekend, when the time came to amend the purchase contract, they wouldn't do it.  Arrggh!

Finally, last Friday morning, after an attempt Thursday by their agent to deceive me into thinking they'd amended the contract per our latest agreement, when in fact, all the advantage went to the sellers, and the entire over-appraisal difference landed on my side of the balance sheet, I'd had enough.

First thing in the morning, (3:40AM is first thing, right? - I was a bit peeved and couldn't sleep), I sent my agent an email saying I'd had it.  I outlined my final offer, and gave them until noon to respond.

They accepted it at 11:45 - with the stipulation that I close that same day.  (say, what???) Thank goodness my bank had penciled me in, just in case.  I closed at 5:00, had the locks changed by 6:30.

I guess I'm glad I own a house again.  Any ideas on how to get the bad karma cooties out of it?  It's not its fault it belonged to those entitled jerks.  (I'm thinking maybe a party with lots of laughter.  Bad karma cooties just HATE joyful noises...)