I’m over it.

While waiting to meet Grace’s dad at the property, I got there first and parked. A few minutes later, a pick-up truck pulled up behind me and a man and his very annoying needs-Ritalin-pronto son got out. I didn’t get out and talk to them, but they walked onto the property but couldn’t get in because they need an agent who can open the lockbox for the key. Mr. W arrived next, and said hello to the man, asking if he’s here to see the property, too. They chatted for a long time before Mr. W came back to me to report. According to the guy, who’s meeting his agent there, too, he has put an offer on the house already. And he’s only 1 of 14 offers. Assuming he’s telling the truth, then the bank probably low-balled the offer price deliberately to generate the highest level of response it can for a sale. Maybe it’s hoping for a bidding war. This was distressing and discouraging.

A good thing happened, though. After Grace’s dad arrived and we got a good look inside the house, my interest waned considerably. It is the best house we’ve seen so far anywhere near that price range, and altho it is fixed up and pretty nice, it is nowhere as great as I’d thought it was last night. It’s definitely still more move-in ready than the other short sale house, but on closer inspection there were little details wrong with it. A crack in the foyer tile. Stinky old carpet. The carpet was stained upstairs. The bathrooms, altho upgraded, aren’t THAT nice. The downstairs powder room needed its countertops updated. The inside of the kitchen cabinets are lined with half-removed old adhesive shelfing paper. Some of the cabinet doors were sitting crooked. The insides of the drawers were gross. I don’t think they changed the cabinetry so much as simply gave it a new maple resurface. The pool was dirty (altho yes, that’s just superficial). These are all small, inexpensive things, but it just kinda burst my bubble, is all. Strangely, Mr. W’s interest was piqued. In the exact opposite way that I was disappointed, Mr. W was impressed. It was worse than I’d imagined, it was better than Mr. W had imagined. So now HE wants the house and I’m kinda “eh” about it. Maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

I asked Grace’s dad what he thought. He said the asking price was very good, but the house itself needed some TLC. Yeah, exactly. To me, the inside of the house also appeared to be bigger from the outside looking in, than it actually was once you’re in. Altho the four bedrooms upstairs are pretty spacious, more so than the other house, too. We decided that we’d put in a bid for the house at the asking price, and let our credit speak for itself. If one of the other bidders wants it more badly than us and is putting a ton of money down on it, then fine, they can have it. If someone else is bidding over the asking price and their credit can survive that, then fine. We’re leaving it to the hands of fate, but we’re really okay either way. So by this time Sunday, we’ll have two active offers out on two short sales. And we’re still not quitting our house hunt. “The one” may still be out there.

Since we had a realtor on hand, the three of us went to see the two other properties that we’d seen immediately before we saw this property yesterday. Even with more daylight, the back yard that scared me yesterday still scared me. But that was nothing compared to the inside of that house. It smelled of paint or varnish, it was old, all the closets were the old hinged door style and small, one bedroom had a deep brownish stain in the center that looked like some poor dog or child had been hung and killed suspended from the ceiling fan in the center of the ceiling (this is the house with the weird fenced kennels in the yard), one bathroom was painted black with almost Satanic-like frescoes painted into the shower. Mr. W warned me not to look in that bathroom but I did anyway. I’ve learned to trust him on stuff like that next time. As for the other house, we didn’t even bother going inside, just looked around the outside and that was more than enough. I now think that the reason “the one” glowed so brightly to me yesterday was cuz we saw that after the first two. How perspectives can be altered due only to context.