An update on the house situation

First of all, thank you to all of the commenters yesterday: I put out a call for help and you responded in droves. It meant a lot to me, and it really helped firm my resolve to know that other people didn't find our distress unreasonable, our demands outlandish. I managed to only have a wee little cry today, and got a lot of strength from your support.

Second, we got an offer from them. What they did was pull together a list of ten 'comparable properties' roughly in this area that sold over the last year, and then circle the highest-priced one, directly across the street from us, and offer us at that much money. Yeahhhh, I went to their open house when it was on the market? And it's nice, but our house is bigger, better equipped, on a larger lot, has a garage ... When our real estate agent looked at the list, he actually laughed out loud: the list was cherry-picked for only the very cheapest properties, not actually taking into account, um, the actual houses being sold as actually compared to our location and amenities. Our lawyer also kind of chuckled, and suggested we firmly reject, changing all their ridiculous terms ($500 deposit, two months to just drop the offer completely, with no penalty, closing date six months away, ludicrous low price, etc, etc, etc.) to ones we feel are more reasonable and then dropping it all back in their laps for them to ponder over the holidays.

Third, our real estate agent seems to be warming to our cause. He's had a look at the aerial survey of the block in question, and it seems our property is so located as to quite likely make it impossible for them to even build a chicken coop without buying us out. Basically, they have an awkward, wedge-shaped property and to all intents and purposes, we totally cut off a good chunk of it. Pynchon and our agent are going to the City planning department tomorrow to investigate setback and parking bylaws. We begin to suspect that the reason these people haven't filed any formal development plans with the City is that they don't want us to be able to find out they can't do it without us. We imagine that this is how they intend to drive down our price. Our agent also loved Pynchon's idea of telling the condo developers that if they don't meet our price, we will simply move anyway, but keep our current house, converting it to a student rental to subsidize our new home. He thought that was a great card to play.

And so it dawns on us, slowly and magnificently, that we might be in the best position of all: we ask for the compensation we need to stay in the neighbourhood in a comparable house, and if they meet our price, then we happily move; if they don't meet our price, they can't actually develop the property, and we continue on here in our home as though nothing at all was ever amiss, building our equity month by month, paying down our debts, growing our salaries, watching Munchkin move from the toddler room, to the pre-school room, and finally out of that pricey pricey daycare. We would, that is, actually have a choice, actually be able to sell or to stay, on our terms and in our timeline and at our budget.

None of this is certain. But Pynchon says today, when he received their offer and told them our lawyer and agent would look it over and we would get back to them in due time, they looked ... a little nervous. We need to go to the City again, to try to find out how much they actually need our property. We're really not sure. But we feel a lot more confident today than yesterday, and it seems like our lawyer and our agent think we might come out of this better than we might have expected before.

Keep us in your thoughts, would you?

I promise, as soon as all this nonsense starts to settle one way or another, and as soon as I can relax enough to get my grading done, I will lavish all my attention on my neglected Bloglines: it's not you. It's totally, totally me. Sorry to have been so lax. I'll be back soon.

But for now:

I'm a 'Krimpas' elf! Cheer up!