Flea, you can still use your agent if you want to pay his/her half of the commission. I've done that and it worked fine. The agent gets to do all the paperwork in order to earn the commission, which was more than worth it to me.

That would be my suggestion. You and the seller will still save a bunch, but you are more or less covered on all the crap.

For my recent purchase, my agent earned her money 100% on stuff that happened after I'd already found the place.

It seems worth at least mentioning to your agent -- she might be able to help you think it through, especially if you'd still be interested at $X? And maybe the seller would come down even using their agent if you can agree ASAP?

NB: Everything I know about real estate comes from HGTV.

Everything I know about real estate comes from HGTV.

::sits next to Jesse::

Good luck with it, flea!

Damn, I just heard a former coworker of mine died unexpectedly over the weekend at 59. You really never know what's going to happen.

I'm sorry, Jesse.

That's awful, Jesse. I'm so sorry.

I'm sorry, Jesse. You really don't.

On a pettier note: I really wanted something sweet (a lot of sweet somethings, to be honest) and talked myself into being okay with feeding my $20 bill into a vending machine and dealing with having tons of change that I will inevitably fritter away. Turns out, the biggest bills the machines take is $10. Woe.

I really should have gone to bed when I got home from seeing Eddie Izzard last night, but I didn't, and now I am paying for it with gronkiness.

I don't remember if I've mentioned it here, but my work team was going to spend a couple of days in a house together for team bonding, but that's been pushed back. I'm relieved, because while I like my team fine, there are a VERY limited number of people with whom I'm happy to share a house with, and work people are not on that list.

Yipes, shrift. I have a great working relationship with my boss, but she took me out to lunch on Friday, and even that was a little much.

Thinking about candy reminds me of my father's roommate in the hospital yesterday -- he's diabetic but REALLY REALLY wanted some candy. Before or after his lunch, it didn't matter!

I bought my house from my previous landlord and we didn't use agents. But I have a dear friend who is an agent and Sara gave me advice (not more than a bit, though, because I didn't want her to be liable for anything and get into weird gray areas - also didn't want to exploit our friendship). It was a lot of paperwork, but I got to say what I'd pay for the place and have that number readily accepted (my offer was 10K less than the appraisal landlady got when she refinanced) because of all the money my landlady saved not hiring an agent. I did buy a few books on how to buy a house so that I would know what I was doing. Best of luck, to you, Flea!!

Jesse and Shrift, speaking of awkward colleague time, I learned on Friday that one of my favorite Tweeps, who I've been twitter friends with for over 3 years, IS MY BOSS'S UNCLE. We figured it out when we finally "upgraded" our friendship to include Facebook and he could see what company I work for. Thankfully I genuinely love my boss and I make it a point to never complain about my job anywhere in social media. But STILL!!!!