Hmmm. This is from the selling agent to my agent:

Sorry for the slight delay. I had to remind my seller of updating work yet to be done on the home. Though she did decide to counter in price. I advised her not to go higher than she did. Also seller and I would much rather close at my office or local Lake Geneva title Co. This is reflected in the counter offer.

Just a fyi. I'm not sure if seller will go any lower in price. I also believe she will not do any repair work post inspection report. Especially since installing a new well. Seller will also be leaving monday morning on a 4 day business trip. Her availability to me will be limited. Anyways see what you can do. Thanks much for the offer and good luck on your end.

Must think on this.

It's been on the market for a long time and has dropped in price some, and my offer was $12k below asking. So it's not an unreasonable price by any means, and much less than they initially set out to get. (And the fact is, I really want it. It's not perfect, but in a venn diagram of location, characteristics and price it's pretty uniquely in the sweet spot.)

Go, brenda, go! Good fortune!

I'm thinking of doing some kind of container garden on my otherwise-unused patio this year. It may never get beyond the thinking/planning portion, though.

To put my crazy fully on display, my offer was a nice round number. The counter is also a pleasing number. Counters I would make come out awkwardly. This is genuinely weighing on me.

Do you have an idea how much work needs to be done, if the seller doesn't do any more? Is that still within your budget?

There's only one area of real concern, which is the roof condition. If that needs immediate work, we'll need to work that out either in having it repaired or dropping the price. Otherwise there are things like the screens on the porch need to be replace, no big deal. The porch steps probably need some shoring up. That sort of thing. The roof is the only deal-breaker I can see. (And as noted, they did just redig the well, which would have been the other potential spoiler.)

Good decision~ma, brenda! I will not advise because I just never negotiate anything so I have no idea.

I may need to start doing my training runs without the dog, he refused to go on after the first half hour (I mean, we did keep going but he walked and I sort of jogged in place beside him most of the time. He is 10 years old, I don't want to push him too hard, but he loves running right up until he gets all tuckered out. Hm.

Yeah, I have no idea what I'd do. Roof most definitely, but porch steps would also kinda be big for me.

I priced out potential stones for the wall. There's going to be some fancy tetrissing going on. Probably going to run around $90, so I need to think on this (and see if I find something I like better. And maybe get it delivered. I guess I'm battling ivy again this summer, sigh.)

Also got some poly-stain and have applied it to all my samples to both practice application and see if it changes my opinion on any of the reject samples. And I think it definitely will work for the floors too, though I might need to prestain in a couple places.

Hey, if anyone needs a bazillion different colors of stain, I'm now your girl!

4500 over the life of a place is not a bad deal. But, if the roof is an issue I might counter offer with the idea that here is the counter based on the known issue of the roof. ( and the part you don't talk about is how long it has been on the market)

Work up at crack as of dawn with a horrible headache - thanks wind and pressure system. decided to skip church and turned off the alarm. Then woke up in a panic that I had not brought my work phone in the bedroom with me and I am on call. I thought it was maybe 8am, nope, it was 9:50! I had missed 3 calls. Big wooha with power out at one terminal and yadda yadda production manager had to be called to deal with it and he's all mad. Things I did not say, but will probably have to say on Monday:

- I would have had to call him too, because I did not know who the power company is for that terminal and I did not know the blah blah machine could be operated on diesel.

I let him just assume I was at church, because I have told them over and over that on Sunday, even when I am on call, I will be at church and sing in the choir and will not have my phone with me from like 7:30 to 9:45. SO… totally in that window, I would not have answered the phone anyway.

So now I am up and made pancakes and coffee (I need to get in this habit more, cooking is good and good for mac and me to eat together). mac is out playing with neighbors and Bailey the dog is lamenting his absence with whines and pleas for constant attention.

Those are excellent excuses, msbelle.

My mac and cheese (that I froze last month and thawed to eat) is soupy. Disappointing. But still pretty tasty.