kiwi addendum

jeremy captured peg pretty good but neglected to tell you all about the best part of last sunday's real estate search... with our new price range in hand, we started looking for suitable houses that we could afford. we compiled a list and discovered that one of the early faves was having an open house on saturday. i was in western mass at my parents' house, but jeremy was down near boston still. so he went to check it out with my aunt. it's a huge house, with a decent yard, and in our price range. it's also a giant sty. you see, the people who live there have 6 kids, well, 7 if you count their japanese foreign exchange student ranging in age from 12 to 8 months. there is crap everywhere as you can imagine with all those kids. it could be a very good house underneath it all, or it could be a structural nightmare - really hard to tell with all the crap. so jeremy wanted me to see it on sunday when i came down. he scheduled a showing with the sellers' real estate agent for early on sunday. we felt guilty kicking the whole family out but heck, we've been playing this game with our richmond house showings. that's what you have to do to sell your house - all part of the game. we got there a bit early, and knowing what it's like (frantic last minute cleaning, making sure everything is perfect, trying to get out in time) we decided to cruise the neighborhood for a bit. we came back a few minutes after our scheduled showing and all the same cars were still there. we figured we must have screwed up the time or something so jeremy called their agent and made sure we were still on. she said she was in the house waiting for us, as was the ENTIRE FAMILY. i guess they don't feel the need to vacate the premises for showings (or clean! - eek!) we toured the house with a new strange child peering at us in each room. it was seriously creepy and made it hard to ask questions and point out flaws. it was really quite uncomfortable. and creepy. we decided we really liked the house in general, the location is quite good, and the price is awesome. but it is also a serious risk - what exactly is lurking beneath all that crap?!?!!? the bathrooms were atrocious and we have a feeling that those are the least of that house's problems. immediately following the creepy kid house we went on the peg journey jeremy discussed before. peg was a nice lady and was probably a really good realtor before technology sped by her and swallowed her whole. can you imagine - a realtor with no cell phone??? as jeremy mentioned, we really liked one of the houses in hanson. it's smaller than we want (25% smaller than our current house), doesn't have a fence for the dogs, and is a bit more of a commute for jeremy. on the plus side, it has enough rooms, a full cellar, almost a whole acre, and the best part - central air conditioning - a rarity in houses up here, especially those in our new price range!! we debated for quite a bit between the risky, creepy house and this one, eventually deciding that the creepy house was just too much of a gamble. it could be fun to make it into a nice house, but who knows how much that might end up costing. if we weren't about to be paying two mortgages for an undetermined amount of time, we might take the risk since the house has so much potential, but without knowing when the dual mortgage situation will end, it's just not a risk we can take with a roo so imminent. can't risk a money pit (awesome movie, by the way!) so while saddened that our richmond house continues to be the bane of our existence, we were both quite happy with the new choice and ready to pursue it. yeah! but... that's when our richmond realtor calls us. he called us late tuesday night as we were driving back to western mass to let us know that he was expecting an offer from the 12-minute showing lady the next day. we were ecstatic, but tried to remain calm. there's a big difference between expecting an offer and having one in hand. but there was light at the end of the tunnel. woo hoo. we might even be able to expand the budget for a new house and get more of what we want! all day wednesday we waited for a call. nothing. when we finally got in touch with our realtor we learned that her agent had written up an offer and handed it off to her to review before they submitted it. and apparently that's where it is stalled (and continues to be 5 days later.) we do not get this lady. either you want to put in an offer on a house or you don't. i'm 9 months pregnant dammit - i can't handle this kind of stress. either put in the offer or stop wasting our time (and getting our hopes up!) every time jeremy's cell phone rings we hope it's the realtor with good news, but it never is. so now a week later, we've made no more progress towards buying a cheaper house because we got caught up in the prospect of a bigger budget. but we have come to the realization that 12-minute lady's torture may be endless or she may just walk away entirely. with roo so close, we have decided we might as well go ahead with plan C (or whatever plan it is we're on now) and just buy the cheaper house, ignoring what may or may not be happening with our cursed richmond abode. heck if it does sell, we'll have a lot more money to put in savings or do home improvements with. so tomorrow morning we're going to see the house in hanson again, hoping we still like it. if so, i guess we'll start things in motion to get an offer in and take it from there. it would be so nice to not be homeless when roo is born!