We are in the process of buying a house.  Well, “trying to buy” would probably be more accurate.  The house is bank-owned (a foreclosure).  It has been on the market for over a year, been to auction and not been bought, and gone back to the “regular” real estate market.  Several weeks ago, Michael placed an offer on it: x amount “high bid” + 6% closing costs + 5% buyer’s premium (that’s the auction company’s fee), for a total of y amount.  We were told verbally that they accepted our offer, except that they would only give us 3% closing costs, rather than 6% (which wasn’t particularly unexpected).  Over a week later, we finally received the addendum for Michael to sign.  Turns out, they didn’t really accept our offer; they counter-offered (although apparently they don’t think so).  They increased the high bid by 3%, keeping the total (y amount) the same.  This would actually cost us thousands of dollars more, as we would have to pay the same total amount, plus the additional 3%.

So, Michael countered, with (x + $1,000) + 3% closing costs + 5% buyer’s premium.  This would give them an extra $1,000 (over our original offer), but still only cost us an additional $1,000 out of pocket.  The (semi-)immediate response we got from them was, “We already have a contract on this house.”  Well, duh!  It’s ours.  So, after plenty of back-and-forth between our realtor and their people, she (our realtor) was finally told that they had never received our counter-offer.  What in the world?!  If they never received our offer, to what did they respond with, “We already have a contract on this house”?!  It has been over a week.  They still have not been able to figure out what is going on and get back with us.

Is it any wonder we have a banking crisis in this country, if the banks are this inept?

Filed under: Personal and Blog News by Rachel
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"Does responsible citizenship require voting for irresponsible candidates? To ballot in favor of irresponsible candidates
as though it were one's duty is to misconstrue the meaning of duty. To cast a ballot for a trimmer, because no man of integrity is offering himself, does as much as one can with a ballot to encourage other trimmers to run for office. Can anyone conceive of any element of protest in such balloting? To vote for a trimmer goes further: it would seem to urge, as strongly as one can at the polls, that men of integrity not offer themselves as candidates."
-Leonard Read

Filed under: Politics/Current Events by Rachel
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"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last"
-Winston Churchill

"In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock"-Thomas Jefferson

"Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent."Napoleon Bonaparte

"Resolution One: I will live for God.  Resolution Two: If no one else does, I still will."-Jonathan Edwards

"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may treasure the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost."
-John Adams

"It is only the atheist who adopts success as the criterion of right." -Robert Louis Dabney

"There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle."-Alexis de Tocqueville

"The hero is valorous because he stands up to every threat directed against his values. Heroism requires value conflict."-Andrew Bernstein

“Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never – in nothing, great or small, large or petty – never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.”-Winston Churchill, address at Harrow School, October 29, 1941

"If you keep on doing what you've always done, you're gonna keep on getting what you always got." -?

"A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away."
-Barry Goldwater

"That government is best which governs least."
-Thomas Paine

"Democracy is supposed to give you the feeling of choice, like Painkiller X and Painkiller Y.  But they're both just aspirin."-Gore Vidal

"Government cripples you, then hands you a crutch and says, 'See, if it wasn't for us, you couldn't walk.'"
-Harry Browne

"To say that a bad government must be established for fear of anarchy is really saying that we should kill ourselves for fear of dying."
-Richard Henry Lee

"What God put in his hand to do, he must do, however unlikely results might appear." -Michael Phillips and Judith Pella, in Treasure of Stonewycke

Filed under: Politics/Current Events by Rachel
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The internet service was hooked up yesterday (well, it was hooked up Monday, really, but they sent us a bad cord, so it still didn’t work), and we now have DSL!!  High speed!  Yay!! 

Filed under: Personal and Blog News by Rachel
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I hate that I’ve been so scarce around here lately.  I’ve had plenty to say, but internet time has been scarce.  (And when I do have it, it’s dial-up, so keeping email from swamping me has taken up most of it.)  When I do get time, it seems like either the opportunity for saying a particular thing has passed, or it would take so long to catch up (on news, for example) that it just isn’t practical.  It will probably be this way for about another week.  Right now, I’m going to try to give the as-quick-as-possible version of what’s going on with us, so that when I do get back “for good,” the (then-)current stuff makes sense.

I can’t recall if I mentioned that my parents are moving to the same area we are, and they already have a contract on a house.  The plan is for us to live in their basement until we have a house (hopefully not too long in this instance, as their living area is in the basement).  There was a glitch with the closing, which was originally set for last week.  We heard that there was a problem with the loan, and later heard that the VA guy was not going to approve the house until a bunch of stuff (fiddly stuff, like leaky faucets) was fixed.  We got the impression that maybe the seller wasn’t willing to fix it, etc.  Finally, they agreed to fix it, and Dad signed a very specific addendum to the contract.  Meanwhile, no one had been able to reach the VA guy to schedule a time for him to re-inspect.   They got him about three hours after the addendum was signed, and he said, “Why are they fixing all that stuff?”!  Turns out, he had not said that all of those things needed to be fixed (just two particular things) – but at that point, they were all being taken care of!

So…now the closing is at the end of this week,  and meanwhile we’ve put an offer on a house.  It went in verbally on Friday, and “officially” on Tuesday morning.  We haven’t heard anything definitive yet (and it’s driving me crazy! lol).  So we’ll be moved this weekend – sort of.  (But we won’t have internet access there yet.)

That’s the nutshell version.

Filed under: Personal and Blog News by Rachel
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