What have I done??

I made a deal with the devil today, or at least that's what it seems like. I made my first offer on a condo - the condo I gushed about yesterday.

I met Dave at 6.30, and Joe came along to check the place out with me. We went upstairs, and I think Joe liked it. I liked it even better than I had the day before. The neighborhood at night is nice and quiet. I ran the water, flushed the toilet, opened and closed all the windows, asked 50 thousand questions (so many that it left Dave speechless) and then we went to check out the storage space - which is very ample. The laundry is down three flights of stairs and outside - so not very convenient I'll say.

After pacing around again in the apartment, trying to get a hold of my brain - it really needed wrangling (I think I came close to blowing all the circuits in there,) I finally said to Dave, "so .. um.. what do we do now?"

Well, what we did is this. We dropped Joe off and then went to Dave's office, where he explained allll the paperwork that had to be done and how an offer was made. We agreed that the price was too high, and we made "our" first bid at 92% of the asking price. I also had to pay $1k in ernest money.

The forms were: a W9 for the interest I would be paying on the ernest money, and an offer agreement form, that said that I would have a 20 year mortgage for no more than 5.5% within 30 days of my offer being accepted.

It took me about 15 seconds to fill in my part - my name, address and social security number. It took me about 15 minutes to sign my name. That is a HUGE Commitment and an awful lot of money. Dave kind of laughed at me, but he was very kind and was really good at keeping me from freaking out.

Within 10 minutes of faxing in "our" offer, I had an answer. The seller wanted more money - and so the dance begins. It seems this particular seller is not very motivated and wants his price. I price both Dave the Real Estate Guy and I feel is too high. If he doesn't come down at least 5% from his asking price, I'll walk away.

In the meantime, I have to start shopping for mortgages and movers.

I wish I hadn't given up my membership to the Retrotown mailing list. I could use a group prayer right now.