A quick update

The trip to the bank was less positive than I might have wanted. I have no idea what they base their figures on, but the bank is basically saying that with only my wife's salary, we can only afford a mortgage 1/2 as large as I had hoped. That means coming up with a ridiculously large initial deposit. There are ways to deal with this, not to be discussed online.

After the bank, it was a long, depressing drive to the noon appointment. Caught in traffic on the main east/west artery of the city, we thought we might be late, so we called the agent and left a pager text message. Little did we know that the agent also changed his route based on our traffic report. We finally got to the house (on time, actually), but had to wait a good 15-20 minutes for the agent to arrive. I wish I could say the house was attractive on the inside (the outside was quite acceptable), but it wasn't, and we left knowing which home we would offer to purchase.

Less than two minutes out of there, we were on the phone with the other people. We asked if they had received offers thusfar (they hadn't), and whether we could pop over to discuss an offer. We knew what we wanted going in, and knew what we were willing to pay for it. The difference between the "lowball" offer I might have begun with, and the price I was ultimately willing to pay was only $2-thousand. So, to save time, and after a prefacing remark, I made the offer I wanted to make, then waited for the owner's response. It was positive. Our offer was verbally accepted. We'll structure the deal properly on Monday.

Meanwhile, tomorrow is Sunday, the day of our first open house. Judging from the very beautiful newspaper and "home channel" spread, I am anticipating a reasonable crowd, and possibly some serious offers. One can hope.