Kathy - it doesn't figure on the amt. collected. It goes per item - for a $1.00 item, 6 cents is figured on sales tax (our tax rate is 6.25%), for a $12 item, .75 cents is taken for tax, etc. It then multiplies how many $1.00 items, how many $12.00 items, etc. and figures it all out and gives me a total for tax and a total with tax. So for an experiment just now, I multiplied my total by tax rate and yes, it came out more than $3.00 higher than it should have on the tax. So I know that's not what it's doing. HA I'm not very computer smart, my hubby and son set these spreadsheets up for me. Just for an example, the one I am looking at is 6.75% tax, my total money collected was $803.00 and the tax amount is $50.82, making my show amount $752.18 that is actually mine. Whereas if it multiplied my total times the tax rate the tax amount would be $54.20 Oh this is all so confusing otherwise, but I see what you're saying if you want to list the tax separately on your bill of sale.

Katsura Gardens (508-746-9559) has a 20% off sale on nursery stock, i.e. shrubs, trees and perennials. This combines with the MA tax-free days this weekend. I don't know how long the sale will continue. I went there to get some Espoma Rosetone which they usually carry. They were out of Rosetone, so I came home with three Juniperus virginiana Grey Owls instead. I've been thinking about them for a few years, and it was a weak moment since I was already planning to buy something. I'm hearing thunder, again. Last night was exciting with the lightning. Claire

Ojoy & Dave- Thanks for the responses. The LA says they are waiting for the 2nd lein holder to process the package and approve. I don't know if this means the first lein holder already has, or if they are not even involved. He said it would be a minimum of 30 days as it takes them 7 days to just process the incoming fax. I know one of their banks is Home Street Bank, but I dont know if they have the 1st, or 2nd. We too have a rental home lined up. It's smaller than we are used to but has what we need so we can wait awhile, I'm just not looking forward to it. In the meantime, I hope rates stay low. We plan to continue to look at homes and if we find something else we really like, we will retract the offer and begin anew. Dave, Thanks for the advise. I guess we knew going in this might be the case, and we liked it enough to give it a shot. Now that we've been away from it for a few weeks, I've started to feel anxious and impatient about the process. I pull up the (really bad) RE pictures to remember why we are doing it, but I can't help but hope something else tickles my fancy so we can go about this the "normal" way. I get how investors can wait it out. Chances are, they are the really good deals and if it doesnt work out, there will be another. It's not so easy (at least for me) to imagine waiting months for a response. I am really curious why they went ahead and opened escrow and the agent seems so confident that it will go through though.

Not beyond stupid! When we were renovating our bathrooms three years ago, I happened upon a site that had my shower pan which I had picked out. The high end bathroom shop priced it at $576.00. I purchased it from an on-line store with their Easter sale price for $336.00! Free shipping free and (Ahem) no tax. The delivery guy even brought it in and carried upstairs for me. Moral of the story - you just never know.