Not bad news...but not good, either.

After finally getting ahold of the salesman at our builder, we have....interesting...news. What's not bad is that they haven't rejected the idea of renegotiating the price on our new home. What's not good is that they haven't really given any real thought to it. That is because the folks in the ivory tower of the company headquarters of our builder has unilaterally decided to pretty much cancel any contingency contracts.

What that means for us is this: Once our new house is complete, we can either buy it right then and there (which we can't do at all if our house isn't sold yet at that point), or we release it -- which means they can sell it to whomever they'd like. It doesn't necessarily mean that we won't be able to get it. Our salesman isn't going to purposely point people to the house we had customized for US try to get them to take it out from under us, but if someone DOES really want it, and they have the money, they can buy it.

If we have to release it, then we can start fresh with a brand new contract and negotiate a brand-new price. (Of course, if we buy it once it's built, we'll still renegotiate the price anyway).
If someone else buys it, we can always have the builder build another one exactly the same on another lot in the neighborhood. In any case, the bottom line is we just have to "let it ride" and see how things fall out. A lot depends on if we sell our house and how soon. It's OK I guess, but things just keep working out so that we still have to wait to see the final conclusion, and that gets frustrating. Maybe that's God's way of pushing us to wait on his timing. I'd like to think so.

Strike Two...

Well, we were shot down again. Although our buyer's own agent considered our house the best choice, the client "decided to expand their search closer to where they work". The agent also stated that he would "definitely keep this one in mind" -- I would hope that means he might be the first agent to actually show our house to more than one potential buyer. Oh well. Third time's the charm (I hope).

We'll let you know how the price negotiation with our new place goes tomorrow (hopefully).

One of Three

One of Three...that's what we are. Just got word that a buyer has our house as 1 of 3 possible choices. We've got a little homework to do to get some more information for them, then, we wait to see if we are the "chosen ones". Pray it up, folks...

New House News

Jamie & I went over to our new subdivision yesterday for our "pre-drywall meeting". What this means, basically, is that we look at all the internal wiring and piping and such to ensure that everything is where we intended it to be, and any extra wiring we negotiated is in place before they actually put in insulation and slap sheetrock on the walls of the new house. It was nice to find out about what switch is where for what, etc.

What is of concern is that recently, when talking to a mortgage loan counselor, I learned that banks will assess the value of a new house based in great part on the value of homes recently sold in that subdivision. Knowing this, I had a real estate agent pull up a report of homes sold in our new subdivision this year, and discovered that homes were selling substantially lower than what our negotiated price was...as in $30k substantially.

I put together a polite but firm e-mail to our salesman, letting the builder know of our concerns over the price on Friday. The response I got (so far) was "I will look into this and see if we can reasonably make any adjustment." Last I heard since then, we should be expecting an answer on Thursday.

Continuing in the vein of belief that God will open the doors he wants us to go through, and close those he doesn't, a lot is riding on their response. Jamie & I really love the new house, but if this doesn't go favorably for us, it may be difficult (if not impossible) to get the payments to a place where we can afford it, or possibly to even get a loan at all (if the purchase price ends up being higher than the value the lender's estimator assigns to the house).

For the few that may read this, your continued prayers on this matter are greatly desired and welcomed. Stay tuned...you'll find out when we do.

Coffee Talk

Last night Jamie & I went ITP (That's "Inside The Perimeter" for those who don't live in Atlanta) to Smith's Olde Bar. No, we weren't going bar-hopping on a Thursday night. We went to see the amazing Meghan Coffee, who was doing a release-party concert for her new CD, "Songs To Sail By".


To say she was great would be an understatement. She's funny, refreshlingly honest, and enormously talented. Her songs were moving, her lyrics intriguing, and her band, as my brother would say, was "stupid ridiculous". Here's my "artistic" shot of Meghan doing her thing. Nice impressionist-painting effect on that picture, right? Nah. Just a bad cell phone camera in a dark room.

Raise the roof!

As you may (or may not) be able to tell, our new house now has a fully shingled roof! What you can't tell from the photo is also the fact that the furnace & ductwork are all in, and it appears that the rough plumbing is pretty much in. Our bathtubs are even installed. Our open house the other weekend was pretty much a bust, and we haven't had any visits since. Keep us in your prayers. We'd love to see everything go smoothly, but if for some reason this whole new house deal isn't what God wants for us, then we are at peace about just staying where we are. Stay tuned for any updates as they come in...

Time flies...

Less than two weeks ago, our new house was nothing more than a concrete slab.
Today, check it out...fully framed, windows in, the beginnings of a roof up.

The construction manager said the roof should be fully shingled in a few days. Estimated completion date: August 29th (at the earliest).

Also, we're doing an open house this weekend trying to sell the old house, so keep us in your prayers!

...but only LESSER well known is THIS!

Just for fun...


more graph humor and song chart memes

If you don't get it, go to the movie store and rent this.