Checkmate

Buying a house is hard y'all.

(Sorry, I was just reading an article about Britney Spears, and she kind of got into my head.)

(The article was saying that while staying at Promises rehab clinic she wrote "666" on her bald head and told the staff she was a tiger. Then she tried to hang herself with her bedsheets. Of course it's a bunch of baloney.)

Anyway, what I was trying to say is that buying a house is very difficult. Not just from a monetary point of view, but emotionally also.

My Uncle Chris (if you were at our wedding, you'll recall he was the rapping Uncle from London, totally awesome!) told me that trying to buy a house can be soul destroying. Those were his exact words. Soul. Destroying. I thought it a bit dramatic, but hey, he's a hip hop artist and I know how they can be.

I have come to find out that he was right.

Matty and I have been looking for about a year but got really serious about it over the past 6 months. We have looked at every condo, townhouse and single family home within our price range in the city of Costa Mesa. Well, ok, there were NO single family homes in our price range, but it was fun to look anyway. Yes, we could probably get a better deal if we expanded our search to, oh I don't know, Riverside, but we have no interest in that. We love Costa Mesa, and that's where we want to stay.

We know what price range we're looking for and there really hasn't been a whole lot out there. It's not that we're in any hurry because we have a pretty rad living situation as it is. We currently rent an townhouse that I love and will no doubt miss when it's time to go. We're not on a deadline to move out, so we have been taking our sweet ass time.

And it looks like it may have paid off. We have our eye on a very delectable property in Costa Mesa that fits pretty much everything on our wish list. Except for the price. It's definitely over priced for what it is at this moment, but we are desperately in love with it. We could add some TLC to it and it would be the shit for our first home together.

We put in our offer on Sunday afternoon and hoped for the best. We totally low balled them because we have to play the game, and to do that it's in our best interest to start at the bottom.

After we signed all the paperwork to submit our offer, I honestly felt like I was going to pass out. I never expected to feel so nervous, nauseated, anxious, terrified etc all at the same time. It was quite a bizarre feeling.

All we could do was wait to see what the seller came back with.

Wait. Wait. Wait.

It seemed like the minutes were draaagggging by....every time the phone rang I jumped. And then held my breath. "No Mom, we haven't heard back from the sellers realtor yet."

We finally heard back yesterday and I felt like I was going to pass out waiting to hear how he counter offered. I know we came in very low compared to his asking price, but I'm sure he dropped at bit too.

Drum roll please.....

The seller is calling our bluff. And he's stubborn. And he's giving me an ulcer.

He came down $5,000 measly dollars from his asking price. That may seem like a lot of money, but in the grand scheme of things, it's like him selling for $100, we offer $40 and he drops his price to $99.95. It's definitely not what we wanted to hear.

The good news? He responded. He could have told us to shove it and that would be that. But he didn't. So now, we're dancing.

Matt and I have to come up with a counter offer back to him, and it's got me all bugged out dude. I really love this place, and I can so see us making a home there. But it's terrifying because one false move and it's game over. We don't know what we're doing here, it's the blind leading the blind. Thankfully we have lots of good people around us that we can turn to for advice. It's so stressful because I feel like we're walking on eggshells. Do we go up a little, up a lot, are we giving too much away at one time, what is he thinking of us, does he know what we can go up to, can we play the game better than him, what's his next move going to be....it's a never ending dialogue of questions and it's got me wound tighter than....than....ugh...see, I'm so on edge that I can't even come up with anything witty there. There are lots of things that are wound really tight, and I can't come up with even one.

We'll decide on a number, shoot it back to him and then go back to waiting game.

When did we become such grown ups? How did this happen? One thing I know....there's no one I'd rather go through this "soul destroying" experience with then my Matty.

Fi told me something today that is my ray of light and my new mantra: "One day, you and Matty will be sitting on a couch with your kids watching a movie in your dream house and the stress from all the decisions getting 'there' won't weigh an ounce." Isn't that the most beautiful thing you've ever heard?

And the stomach twisting, gut churning continues...