#(*&#*!$^#

It's after 7 p.m. here and the buyer's realtor has yet to respond to my realtor's request for a response on whether the conditions on the house sale can be lifted. As you can tell by the title, I'm not happy.

Let me back up a bit. As of Friday, I had done everything I needed to do, and they had arranged for and received the information on the house inspection. Our/their last hurdle was financing. Sunday evening I had a call from my realtor saying he'd heard from Josh (the other realtor), and an offer had come in for their property.

Woohoo, that means the financing should be a slam dunk! They wanted to know if I would agree to a change of the possession date to October 1st, rather the the 16th. I said no, because that would only give us a short window to find a place and arrange the move. As my realtor said, he didn't think that would affect the offer they were getting, they'd simply need to counter with the date. They did, and by the time I headed for bed, we'd heard they had a conditional offer in place.

But the morning brought the news that their buyers were unable to get a mortgage. As my realtor said, "how does a realtor sign an offer on Sunday night and then Monday find out his client has no money?" 

The deadline for lifting the conditions remained the same, that is today. So, at this point they are in breach of contract, and the offer they gave me is void. I can walk away now, or sit on it and hope they get another offer soon. They do have a nice property and there has been some good interest but.... 

In the meantime, we visited three more properties this evening. The first was alright, it's an older home that has been fairly well maintained. The electrical panel would need to be updated, there is no flooring or insulation in the basement - though it is a good solid basement - and, something I've never seen before, the eavestrough are drained into a pipe in the basement. On the other hand, the house is elevated and the likelihood of water is the basement is low. However, it has a huge yard and is a corner lot. More than C wants to take on.

The second property was a dud. We looked at it because it would have been a short walk to C's work, and has had a number of price drops. We found out why - the basement is a mess, the upstairs has serious structural issues, and that's as far as we went.

The third property is a contender. While it has no basement - it's built on a crawl space, it is a decent size, the kitchen was updated in the last 20 years or so, and there are three bedrooms. There are also two bathrooms, though the second one is simply a two piece tucked into the laundry room. It appears they moved the laundry to a stackable pair to put in the sink and toilet. It's a wee bit odd, and would be something C could have returned to the former layout. The bedrooms are a good size, though someone tried to be creative with the paint colors. Out back is a single garage that needs shingles on one side - it's clear there was an issue at some time because the plywood has been replaced. It needs eavestroughs too. For storage, there is a large new shed that was built not long ago. With a window and proper door, it reminds me of your bunky, Patsy. I think it is smaller though.

Again the yard is a bit bigger, but it wouldn't take much to remove what grass (and weeds) currently exist and have it xeriscaped. It does back onto a commercial building, so the chain link fence needs to be changed out for a better privacy fence. What really captured C, was the neighbour's homes are well maintained, it's in area of the city he likes, and there is a Tim Horton's within walking distance. :)

He's going to think about it overnight, and I have a feeling we'll have the realtor look into a valuation for the property, as we think it is slightly overpriced. I won't be surprised if we aren't into an offer by this time tomorrow night. Unlike the buyers for this property, we have a realtor who knows how to do things right.