Well, it's been a rough end of the year. Of course, it's not fair to judge the whole year by that, but it's hard not to when all of the last week is so immediate ... so right in my face.
Christmas sucked. I'm sick (bad cold or beginnings of the flu, not sure). And I may be paying for counting my chickens before they hatched. My dream home that we've been working towards is suddenly sinking into a quagmire of uncertainty, like an elusive oasis.
The sellers' real estate listing contract expired today, or yesterday - I'm not sure when, but the bottom line is, it did, and they didn't renew it. So we don't even know if the place is still on the market or not! It was very much like suddenly getting the rug yanked out from under us. We were asked to wait a couple weeks due to this death in the family; we were waiting as patiently as we could, confident that as soon as we were able, we were going to make an offer, negotiations would ensue, and we'd get the house.
Then they suddenly - maybe - yank it off the market. It's the worst thing, because as long as it's still for sale, there's hope - if it's not even for sale, there's no hope.
Granted, I don't know that it's off the market. But they let their listing expire and didn't relist, and my agent has contacted them directly today advising that she has a "very interested, very qualified" buyer wanting to make an offer, but they didn't return her call. Not a good sign if they're still planning to sell it - especially when they hadn't had an offer in 10 months. You'd really think they'd jump at the potential of one after all that time.
There was some talk about them suddenly balking in the last few days about the price - apparently the house was subject to short sale, they didn't think they were going to sell it for enough to cover their mortgage and fees, and they started getting all angsty about that. But if they still want to sell it, I don't know why they'd not at least see what we have to say - for all they know, we could be offering their asking price. We haven't even made the offer yet. So for them not to even return my agent's call smacks to me of someone waffling about not selling the place at all.
And that is sending me into a near-devastating depression. Of course I knew I shouldn't get my hopes up about the place, but it was impossible not to. It was absolutely, positively perfect. I'm not just saying that because we decided we liked it. I'm not kidding - two years ago I made a list of my "ideal, dream house" - not the kind of dream house you'd design if you were building it yourself, but 'dream house' in the sense of what might already exist that we could buy. And I knew when I made the list that the likelihood of finding all those things in one house was slim, as they were quite a mish-mash ... things like acreage (at least 2 or 3) plus city utilities - that's hard to find. But I made the list as a true 'dream list' - the 'in a perfect world, this is what we'd find' type of house.
But lo and behold, this place had it all. The acreage, the city utilities, the water source (a river), the 4 bedrooms, the fireplaces ... every. Single. Thing. It seemed so incredibly meant to be.
Well. I'm trying not to deflate too much yet. The fat lady ain't sang yet. They haven't actually said they're taking it off the market. Maybe they've just been too busy to call my agent back. Maybe they do still want to sell it, just let the contract expire to save on the fees they'd have to pay a real estate agent. Maybe, maybe, maybe. If, if, yadda yadda. Sigh.
So that's where I'm at tonight, and it's not in my happy place. Maybe I'll have something better to say tomorrow.
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