Guess I ought to note that we bid on another house and lost it. It's getting depressing, and I'm starting to get pretty worried that competition for those houses is stiffening, and we're going to have an even harder time of finding a place. Plus, I'm scared that we won't be able to make the monthly payments and continue to save cash. But I think that last part is wrong. I'm a worrier.

Also, the seller of the house that we lost before this one called our realtor back and said they wanted to "meet us halfway" -- but arbitrarily upped their previous offer by $5K (from $395K to $400K) thus upping the halfway point $2.5K (from $387.5 to $390). That amount of money is basically meaningless in this context, which is why the move is so infuriating. Why bother trying to "outsmart" us like that for a .7% increase in your payday?

I know I'm not supposed to let my feelings get involved, and I wouldn't if I really wanted this place anymore. But we went back and looked at it again -- after making our "final" offer, when we were reconsidering -- and it's really not that great of a place. It's been rehabbed, but the style is truly tacky, and the workmanship is questionable at best. There's this ugly granite tile on the kitchen floor, and it's not flat. That's the main example.

Our realtor advised us that we could make our offer contingent on the seller's fixing the things we don't like. But W and I talked about it, and, having dealt with this idiot, we have absolutely zero faith that he'd make any effort to do a good job. He'd no doubt try to fool with us. A better option would be to tell him we've figured out how much the changes we want would cost, and we'd like the price reduced by that amount. Of course, I'm certain he wouldn't go for that, since he's so unwilling to budge on the price as it is.

Anyway, all that's going on. When we found out we lost this last place, I had a sort of private, quiet freakout. I couldn't handle reality, and got pretty drunk every day for a few days. I'm sort of still in that mode, but handling it a little differently -- I've just kind of stopped thinking about the house-buying thing. But now that I'm doing this post, I'm all upset again, and I think I'm going to get a drink after work.