Howdie everyone. To my defense I am a very inquisitive person. I am now and have always been the one asking How Why When ect...I am not one to simply kick the tires and call it a day. No way...I am the one taking the car to the drag strip to test it LOL! Even as a child I was the one taking things apart to find out how they work and some may call me nosey...I am ok with that. I ask the questions no one wants to ask and I notice things other people don't. Having said that I knew I had a bad gut feeling about Ilya's client. I will not go into details about them but lets just say I know enough to know that any transaction with these people will not be easy. So my realtor gave us the facts and covered every possible scenario and in the end Ed said our best option was to go with our plan of countering with $81,000. It showed that we were willing to be flexable but on the same token it shows that were also need to walk away with the funds to buy our next home. He reminded us of our homes true value as well as how much we need to move on. We simpy cannot go as low as $75. So we made the counter offer and asked for a response by Friday. BUT...... WE also got another offer!!!! No it wasn't either of the 2 who claimed they were going to write offers. Nope it was the young couple who came thru Monday evening!! They were approved for $80,000 and offered $80,000!! They have been out and about looking for some time now so they are ready to settle when they came upon our home. So Frank and I are going to see what Ilya's reaction will be. We do not want to cut ties with him because you just never know. But we are most likely going to just accept the second offer since it will give us the extra funds to buy the fence (it always comes down to the fence with me LOL-I guess having lived in a row home for over 20 years I really want my own defined space LOL!!) Now Ed knows this second couples realtor really well and said he feels the 2 of them will be able to make this work out for both them and us as well. Sadly Ed told us since this whole transaction will be with FHA it is not likely any settlement will happen quickly. It may take up to 45 days so I wont be in my new house for July 4th. The good news is Frank and I have vacations scheduled for the last week of July and the first week of August!! We pick those weeks every year. So there ya have it. 2 offers is so much better than one!! Cheers! Susie

"Is it because this is an empty lot..? Just wondering." Yes--we live on a small island w/ a limited amount of vacant property. Investors and builders buy up property usually before it hits the market. Now, there is a surplus of luxury homes that aren't moving. Since we don't want to carry a huge mortgage, we're forced to either rent, build, buy a teardown and build, or remodel. There's very little affordable housing in our area. It's a huge problem for people like the elderly, teachers, fire fighters, etc. They can't afford to live in our community. We did end up getting the property at full asking price. I'm so glad the search is over. Yeah!

An update, with good progress and some real bumps in the road... We didn't hear and didn't hear and didn't hear back about the last offer to each move $1500 in the other's direction with the realtor kicking in $2000. Actually, we did hear. First it was she wanted time to have family take another look at the possibilities for changing my newly remodeled kitchen. Okay. Then she wanted the ex husband to scope out the porch, which we had built (poured concrete top on concrete block foundation), then she was working with her 401K to be sure how much she could take out. Then we didn't hear for two weeks. Since we were living in our own little medical hell at the time, it was okay with us to not hear from her. Dad suddenly went blind over the course of the day on Friday, June 22. I got him to go to the ER, finally, and a day later we had a diagnosis - Temporal Arteritis. They put my 91 year-old father-in-law on massive doses of solumedrol (steroids) to try to save his sight. He was disoriented by the meds and the hospitalization and we provided 24 hour companionship/care to him for several days, then started doing 6am-10pm shifts. With five people with five full-time jobs, we did not have time to worry about the sale of our house. Dad came home to us last Tuesday night, blind. He has a lot to adapt to, and is still taking enough prednisone (steroids) to floor a horse, so is still sometimes confused (in a really philosophical/existential way!). We are still exhausted and now have a steady stream of aides, nurses, PT and OT, plus the all-day caregiver while we are at work. We got a call late on Friday from our realtor. He said that the buyer was sticking to the $139,000 figure, but he would still lower his commission by $2000 to make the deal. We took it. So we are now in verbal agreement. I refused to sign anything until we get the lease agreement and sales contract okayed by our attorney. The realtor was going to have us sign and hand write "contingent on approval of seller's attorney" - but I refused. DH's bro took the papers to the attorney's office today, we hope to meet with him later this week. Unfortunately, we are also meeting with another attorney on Thursday to discuss the possibility of suing because two physicians had all the evidence they needed to prevent Dad's blindness before it started. He went to his internist complaining of early symptoms, the doc did the right test, but did not seem to notice that the results were five and a half times the upper limit for the "normal" range! He gave Dad three copies of the results, one to take to the urologist (the internist did notice that the PSA test was slightly high, and sent him to see the specialist), one to take to the opthamologist (Dad's jaw/head pain was now behind his eyes), and one to keep. When the neuro-opthalmologist at the hospital told us the diagnosis Saturday night, I researched it online, then went into Dad's room because he had said the labs were there. I was shaking with fury/disbelief/anger to see that the SED rate HAD been tested. But it was the only lab value that was not on the first page of the lab results. The doc either did not turn the page, or was not given the second page to look at. The symptoms and the SED rate told the story and any internist should have found the correct diagnosis. Of course, the opthamologist also missed the diagnosis. He sent Dad home from a visit where the primary complaint was pain in the head behind the eyes with only drops for dry eyes! He did not look at the labs, either! Then on Friday morning when Dad woke with blurry vision, I encouraged him to call and let the eye doc know so we could take him in if he needed to be seen. The doc called back and said he was using too much of the eye drops. Dad was using them as prescribed, and told him so, but the doc just disregarded this. We were busy with a project in the house all day, Dad took the doc's word for the eye problem and it wasn't until we ate dinner and Dad tried to watch the ball game that we figured out that he could barely see anything. I got him to the ER as fast as I could convince him to go, but it was too late. If he'd been started on the steroids two weeks earlier, when the internist called the house to tell him to make an appointment with an urologist, Dad would not be blind at all. So an attorney is coming Thursday to discuss the case. Dad's caregivers will take all of his Social Security and his retirement income. Family will provide his care in the evening, nights and weekends because he cannot afford to hire care 24/7. A highly private and independent man who did his own shopping and cooking, who did not even tell you when he was seeing the doc, let alone what the doc prescribed - is now totally dependent on others. His dignity is at risk because the meds make him incontinent. He cannot see his baseball games (Go, Tigers!), read his daily newspaper, or his Newsweek. Obviously, $1500 doesn't mean much around here anymore, and we will be happy to have a renter for the next two years with the closing date of August 1, 2009 and the possibility of purchase earlier, if possible. Life has a way of putting things in perspective.

LITH, Never give a buyer until the day of close to secure financing! I have NEVER seen a contract written up this way. Shame on your Lawyer for not representing you better on this. Always put a date to where a commitment letter needs to be presented. After that date, it is up to YOU if the deal moves forward after this date. If you choose to terminate, you keep the EMD. Right now, your buyer is not in default, because there is no deadline for him to secure the financing. In fact, if you were to try to terminate the contract, would not YOU be the one in breech? Until the bank formally tells him in writing that they are refusing to proceed, I think you are under contract rather you like it or not. Also, never perform title work until your contingencies are over. Never do a survey until the inspections are over. Always perform the contingency first, that is most likely to cause the deal to go south... usually the home inspections. Title work takes an attorney a fairly short time to perform. Next time, tell them to hold off until later in the process. Hoping that your buyer pulls through. When is he due back from his leisure cruise?