The Call

WE GOT THE CALL!! After 10 weeks of anxiously waiting, the bank had given us a response to our offer!

I remember it like it was yesterday. I was at work, pounding away on another countless appraisal and Wendy calls. "Allan, I just talked to Friendly Shark Realtor and she said the bank gave us a counteroffer and we have to accept it by 5 o'clock or the house is gonna be foreclosed on tomorrow morning. the bank's attorneys have already filed all the paperwork..."

The time was 3 o'clock. After 10 weeks of waiting, we have TWO hours to decide if their counteroffer (which happened to be about $50k more than our original offer!) was do-able. Yikes! Wendy quickly drove to my office as Friendly Shark Realtor haggled with the bank and drew up a new contract for us. She talked 'em down another $20K, which was "the banks absolute bottom line" and after a lot of soul-searching, it was gut-check time. Either we accept the offer or lose all chance of getting our dream house.

We did it. The house was going to be ours! Woo-hoo!!

Then the next day, we called Friendly Shark Realtor and told her we didn't like the new price and she needed to get us a better deal. "What?" was her response. Yep, we wanted her to do basically the impossible. But, thankfully, she did it! It took a lot of work and it took an extra few weeks, but she did it! How she did it may or may not have been ethical, but when you save $7,000 it's hard to care about things like that. And now, finally, the house was going to be ours. (We got the official final call the day before Wendy's birthday. What a great present)! All that was left was getting our mortgage and insurance finalized, getting the appraisal and inspection taken care of and countless, countless trips with Wendy to Home Depot to look at paint swatches and pick out the perfect colors to paint each room. Yes, she is quite indecisive but I don't think I'd take her any other way.

Allan