Argh, so stressful! It seems like such a crapshoot getting a realtor you work well with...you need someone who's good at what they do AND who you mesh with. But, yeah, if you're already having this many issues before you even get it listed.... ooh! fingers crossed!

Tortilla chips the fake pirate booty from Trader Joe's potato chips cheese fruit peanut butter deli meat popcorn chex (or the knock-off rice bitz from Kroger; the corn one has gluten) I have a coconut flour muffin that I make in the microwave, too...sometimes with shredded cheese....they can either snack on those, or I use them to make little pizzas or for sandwich bread

not in georgia! :grouphug: DH is a math teacher, and I always thought one compensation for the salary was job security....but not so much lately. He thinks he's okay for next year, but that's largely because our county is probably doing 8 furlough days instead of 4 next year to keep from losing teachers. 4 straight years of pay cuts, but at least he has a job! I hope it works out for you guys!

STILL no word from the bank re: our offer. Our agent keeps e-mailing the agent who's handling the listing for them, and he just keeps saying, "nothing yet" and then finding some new thing that's wrong with our offer. Why do we want such a long closing? (because we haven't sold our house yet and we'd like a good shot at doing that before we close) We need more earnest money. (take our offer and you can HAVE more earnest money!) Argh!

:grouphug: Maddening, isn't it? Our agent seemed to think our house looked great a few weeks ago...now after 4 weeks without an offer, she suddenly has 400 new things for us to change. I know it's her job, and she's trying to help, but it's hard not to feel defensive and judged and....overwhelmed.

hooray!!

I'd prefer hardwood, personally, but it's not a strong preference, and I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who would prefer tile....so I say go with what's easiest for you!

Well, the north metro Atlanta area would fit all your criteria...I'm thinking Roswell/Alpharetta.

How's everyone doing? We got everything together to finally submit our offer, then heard back the next day (yesterday) that there was another offer. boo! So we resubmitted with the best we can do (still a great deal if we get it...but the best we can do is a good bit under asking, so....) We were hoping to hear back today, but nothing. Another showing tonight! So we're getting traffic at least...hope it starts turning into offers soon!

I love Odoban, too. And I'm sorry--it all sounds miserable!

I'm almost 37, and I don't color my hair yet, but I see it coming. I am not very good at being a girl at all--don't do makeup, etc--but I've thought it over and I don't think I'm the sort who can deal with the gray hair gracefully. I have some here and there now (started around 30ish) but I don't think it's too noticeable yet.

My six year old is doing Singapore math, WWE 1, the Aesop books from Royal Fireworks Press, lots of reading to me and to himself...and then everything else he sits in with his older brothers. So SOTW, and....a disorganized mess for science, or so it feels a lot of times. I think I felt the need to be a lot more...official with his brothers, but he's my youngest so he still seems so young. Although HE doesn't think he's young at all, so despite my lack of effort he's flying through everything. Anyway...he also does piano with his Dad, takes tap dancing and musical theater classes, and has done two plays this year, so he stays pretty busy.

I figured it out ;)

Aww...you'll get there! I was so anxious to get ours up the week before we listed....our agent called to say the carpet install had to be pushed back and I was in tears. I felt like we'd NEVER be finished.

I know; you're right. I keep thinking families with young kids will appreciate our house more; it sounds like we've mostly been getting older people looking to downsize (downsizing into a four bedroom house seems weird to me, but whatever. It does have a big master on the main level, so maybe people like that). And we have a piano AND a guitar in plain sight, so we have the musician angle covered ;) TWO showings this afternoon! An unexpected surprise on a Tuesday. Fingers crossed.

We do chick-fil-A once a week right now because we have a crazy schedule of kid activities on Wednesdays that keeps us out from 4 to 9 in the evenings....but an actual restaurant we might do once or twice a month. Used to be more, but then we all cut out gluten, which makes it more complicated to eat out....and it also means we're spending more on groceries, leaving less money for restaurants.

How's this for a fun snag? My father-in-law is financing the loan on the foreclosure, so there's no finance contingency....it is, as far as the bank is concerned, a cash sale. But they still want to see proof of funds from FIL...bank statement or investment papers or whatever. Catch is...he's in AUSTRALIA for the week. Ugh. So this will be fun to try to deal with while we worry that another offer will come in.

We submitted our offer yesterday on the foreclosure, and we're supposed to hear back by 5 today. We went in pretty low; I'll be (pleasantly) shocked if they just take it; probably they'll counter offer. If we get that, we do another price drop here before the weekend and hope it sells super fast. Before my agent has a chance to talk me into spending a bunch of money sodding my (wooded, completely shaded) backyard. She came over yesterday and made a bunch of suggestions, but I feel like we're just wildly guessing as to what exactly made the buyers pick the other house over ours. We haven't gotten much specific feedback at all, but what we have gotten has mentioned price as the problem, so I'd just as soon go low and let THEM try to get green stuff to grow under our millon oaks and hickories. anyway, I feel like we're due for a good news day, for a change. Let's hope I'm right!

Well...there's the Eastern Star. But I think it's just kind of like a part of the Masons....as in, you have to be related to a Mason to join. But I don't really know. My grandparents do all that, but I've never been interested.

I think it looks lovely! I love older homes, though....most anything (or at least anything in our price range) built after 1990 feels wrong to me. Not BAD, just not right for us. Not homey.

Ugh! Our agent gets an e-mail when the lockbox has been activated, so she's able to see from her end when people go in and out. Maybe you should ask about a high tech lockbox upgrade? Clearing out for showings here is getting harder with the streak of 80 degree plus days we've been having. We can't leave the dogs in the car while we go do something. so far we've only had hour windows to deal with when that's going on, though. Two more days and we're back in the 70's!

There are TWO offers on the other house in our neighborhood. Trying to remind myself that this is a good thing: it means our competition is gone AND that there's a lot of interest in this neighborhood/type of house/price range. But it's hard not to have hurt feelings.

Yay--realistic buyers! We're putting in an offer tomorrow on the foreclosure we really, really want. We came up with some creative financing ideas, so that I think we can do it without the contingency and still not go bankrupt if we don't manage to sell this house right away. Worst case scenario, we can look into doing a lease purchase or something here. But this house is enough of a bargain that, if we have it under contract, we should be able to get really aggressive on price here and sell fast. At least that is our hope! We decided we'd be kicking ourselves for decades if we let this slip away, so we're going for it. No feedback yet from yesterday or today's showings.

Three showings is great, Saille! fingers crossed! I'm so stressed out I'm thinking very seriously of making DH watch Beaches (featuring Bette Midler and a very young Mayim Bialik) with me tonight.

I know, I know....I don't get it. And when I say they have granite, I mean just that....not that they've done some incredible kitchen renovation that includes granite....they still have very dated oak cabinets (as do we); they have white appliances (we have black, and ours are newer, I think)...but they slapped a granite slab on top of it all, so it's awesome. I guess people don't see granite that much in this price range, so when they do they feel like they're getting a FANCY house? I've kind of given up trying to figure out people today.