House hunting/buying continues to unfold at a rapid pace. After seeing several other houses comparable to the one we really liked, we just could never find any others we liked as much. This made it seem pretty clear to us that this house had something special about it. The floorplan, the lot, the way the house is situated — it just had something about it that the others didn’t. Our crush only deepened.

So we went ahead and made an offer. We started pretty low, but after a few rounds of back and forth with the sellers, we settled on a deal that made everyone happy. Negotiating is a bit nerve wracking for me. I am of the personality type that hates asking for things, because what if someone not only says no but also hates me — clearly this is completely logical, right? My husband, however, professional rhetorician, very much seems to enjoy the process. It’s all so dramatic, though. Are we insulting them by starting low? Is their high counter-offer a “real” counter-offer, or “a fuck you”? How many times can we go back and forth? What if they walk away? What if we walk away? No fun. But we got it settled and we’re happy, so that’s that.

The next step was getting a home inspection. There are a few repairs we asked the sellers to take care of, figuring they might not say yes, but we’d try anyway. The seem to be fairly tough negotiators, actually. I was not looking forward to having another negotiation process on top of the price. To our surprise, though, they’ve said they’ll take care of all of these small items. We’re now just waiting to get a report from the termite bond company. I’m not sure if this is standard everywhere, but part of our contract states that the sellers are responsible for getting a termite & fungus inspection, and treatment if necessary, obtaining a bond from the servicing company stating that the house is free from both, and transferring that bond to us upon the sale. This basically acts as insurance if we have any termites or mold in the future — and it’s done at the sellers’ expense. Once we get this, we can go ahead with the appraisal, and as long as it appraises for the full purchase price (a condition of our contract), we will be good to go.

I am excited, to say the least.

I have plenty of other updates I’ve been meaning to share here, including a recap of our fun trip to Florida, some things I’ve been watching and reading, a recipe, and a trip to Atlanta to see The Decemberists this past weekend. I hope that this week, being just slightly less crazy than the past two, will afford some time for blogging. Fingers crossed (for that, and so many other things).