Pure Hell

Selling our home was a complete headache - within thirty minutes of listing the house we had our first showing request.  We had Open Houses almost every weekend for a month, and we had only two couples show up.  Chad & I hosted our last Open House on the day of the community garage sale - we had muffins & mimosas, and I ended up sick as a dog.  I powered through and after the Open House we received a showing request for the next day.  Of course, I was even sicker the next day.  

Chad attempted to get the house ready prior to the showing, but it wasn't up to my standards. I left to go to Urgent Care (which is a completely different story) during the showing.  While I was seeing the doctor, my neighbor texted me telling me the people looking at the house had left.  I was relieved because I just wanted to go home and go to bed.  I was almost home when I received a text saying the people had returned to the house - they had 15 minutes left in their appointment time, so I went home and sat in the neighbor's driveway waiting for the people to leave.  Thirty minutes passed by, then 45, and finally an hour - the "lookers" finally meandered outside and then stood in the driveway chit-chatting for yet another 30 minutes.  I guess it's a good thing that I didn't get home earlier, as I planned on taking my pants of and getting into bed.

The good news, however, is that we got good feedback (and subsequently, multiple showing requests the following week).  Despite the fact that these potential buyers and their agent started off on the wrong foot - I mean, who doesn't at least contact CSS to have them notify the sellers that they're running behind - there was the possibility that they could be buyers, so I gave them the benefit of the doubt.  A week or so later, our agent contacted us with news that we were expecting an offer.  Talk about a sigh of relief...

We waited a few days and finally got the initial offer letter - almost $20,000 under our current asking price.  We went back and forth multiple times, the potential buyers who I will call J&J, making us feel like we were the trashiest people on the earth and that our house was a complete dump rather than an almost-18 month old home with all the bells & whistles. They kept using their occupations and the fact that we had children and animals to their advantage, finally we'd had enough and Chad used his occupation to his advantage - telling them that after working in the construction field for 15 years he knew the nuts & bolts of construction and understood the processes, thus negating the complete bullshit they were pulling on us.  We ended up meeting in the middle, after almost a week of negotiations - the final offer from J&J included a decorative mirror in our entryway and our fridge.  We attempted to ask for an additional $1000 for our fridge, as it was practically brand new and we spent an arm & a leg on it.  This also was costing us money, as we'd have to purchase a new one for the new house - yet they said that the fridge wasn't worth much, and had zero dollar value.  We gave into them in the spirit of getting the house under contract.  We signed the contract and went on our way.

Chad spent the next week in Atlanta for work, and I was going absolutely crazy trying to maintain my sanity.  We found out that Monday that they had the inspection scheduled for Tuesday morning - I did what I could and made it work, but the morning of the inspection we received a message from our agent telling us they had a carpet company coming to measure for carpet.  Since I was on my own, and had three kids, we said absolutely not - our agent, on the other hand, just wanted to get through the option period and insisted that we go through with it.  We got them to reschedule, but in the grand scheme of things we should have just got it over with.  One of my 'demands' was that the buyers and their agent were not to be in our home without representation on our side, so our agent had to sit through the grueling inspection.  Having been through this before, I anticipated a maximum of three hours for the inspection - especially considering that the house was essentially brand new, and under warranty.  Let's just say that I grossly underestimated the time needed - after SIX hours our agent finally kicked them out of the house as I was sitting in the truck, in the neighbor's driveway, with three children screaming bloody-fucking-murder.  (Side note that while I waited for our agent to arrive the buyer's parents showed up to the inspection.). It ended up being nearly 7 hours when all was said and done - I found garbage in my kitchen from them making themselves at home, and strange waxy track marks throughout the house. I picked them up and then found a burr in Cami's mouth.  The next morning after letting Rocky out, I discovered that the inspector left our gate open and Rocky escaped. Thankfully, I caught it soon enough that he didn't get very far.  I let our agent know I was very unimpressed and I found out that the "carpet mesurements" ended up moved to Friday.  I was so incredibly stressed out that Chad left Atlanta early and flew home late Thursday night to try to ease my stress.  We left, waiting in the car for our agent to arrive and represent us for the measuring, but while waiting we notice the other buyer brought their parent as well - and, best yet, the "carpet company" was actually a disaster restoration company. We found out from our agent after he arrived that they had them coming to check our carpeting for animal urine.  WOW!  

A week after the inspection we finally heard back regarding that - and the buyers had requested the most ridiculous things.  The one thing that actually needed to be fixed, a window, they didn't include in their list.  Instead, they asked for nearly $1500 in bullshit items, $2500 for the fridge they made us throw in (because there was a new dent in it), and $5000 for flooring because the hardwood wasn't actually hardwood.  They claimed that we lied in the listing since it was listed as hardwood (because when you list laminate they think that is linoleum), but would we really have that fancy hardwood in the house and sell the house for the crappy offer we settled on?! (Side note - we purposely went for the distressed, scraped floors). Our agent tried telling them that the fridge had ZERO dollar value, as they stated that in the negotiations. We ended up giving them a $3000 credit, and asked that it be applied as a price adjustment since we were given the option of it being applied as a price adjustment or seller paid closing costs; it had become increasingly apparent that all they cared about was the money, not the actual repairs.  When our agent texted us a day or so later saying he was bringing the contract over for us to sign, I knew something fishy was going on. Sure enough, they put it as closing costs.  I refused to sign it, and then was basically forced to sign it because if we didnt' go through with it the next buyers could be worse yet.

Thankfully, everything calmed down until the very end.  The day after the movers came we received a request for a walk through prior to any cleaning or everything being signed off on by us.  We went back and forth with them yet again, and told them the very earliest the walk through could happen was on Tuesday.  Chad started working on the house on Monday and finished everything Tuesday, after they were adamant they walk through Tuesday evening as we PROMISED that to them. (Yeah, found all that out on Monday, by the way). Their agent said that they didn't care about the paint, even though they were making a huge deal about the paint during negotiations.  Whatever, we through in the towel and let them come.  We got a text from our agent that night saying everything went well and they were pleased with the house.  On Wednesday, however, we received a message with more questions from them.  One request was the garage code, which we gave to our agent in word form and made abundantly clear that neither the buyer nor their agent know until after closing.  Things calmed down, and Thursday was closing.  

Chad showed up at closing only to find out that the buyers weren't done closing yet, and was told to come back in a half hour.  When he finally got into the closing he found out that the key to our house wasn't in the lockbox.  Chad refused to give any keys or garage door openers until he had that key in his hand.  Turns out that in addition to the key being gone since Tuesday evening, more things were occurring - when presented with the Loan Servicing Agreement form, the buyers refused to sign it and ended up in an argument with their lender about the possibility of their loan being sold.  *Insert major eye roll here, obviously first time homebuyer BS*. This delayed in funding, as you can imagine, and we didn't receive funding that day - yet they were given keys and garage door openers to OUR home.  I definitely wasn't pleased by this, and neither was Chad.  We finally received the funding on Friday, and we also received an email from the buyers agent.  Literally just when we thought it was over, we have more bullshit happen.

The buyers agent included the buyers on said email asking us more stupid questions about the house. I'm none to pleased about them giving the buyers our personal contact information, as you can manage.  As usual, it was more stupid questions and I can see the writing on the wall...they're going to be bugging us about every damn thing they don't understand.  The bottom line is that they need to grow up and act like homeowners, since that's what they are these days.

I could go on and on about these people, because they've been ridiculous from the get go, but I'm going to leave it at that.  It's been a nightmare since day one, and I'm so thankful that it's over.  I just wish that we'd sold our home to good people, like we did the last two times.  I think this gives you a basic idea about things that we've gone through.  I feel awful that our amazing neighbor's have to deal with these absolutely horrendous people, but there's not much I can do at this point.