Thursday this and that

Just continuing to work on things towards selling/buying. Our agent first contacted the sellers to let them know there is an offer and since they aren't listing through an agent would they be agreeable to his 2.5% fee. They were and had to go through the day of getting them the paperwork  to sign and agree. Then yesterday our offer was worked up and was submitted this morning. The seller (it's owned by 2 ladies) got back to our realtor and said they would discuss it together this evening and get back to him tonight or tomorrow morning.

I talked with a mortgage lender in the area, recommended by our builder. She said builder is wrong (as I had a feeling LOL) and it takes them 45 days to close, also. Apparently it's a federally mandated thing or something. Plus, they require 20% down, which the bank I've already gotten pre-approved with, only requires 10% down. I'm estimating we'll end up with about 15-16% to put down, but most likely (unless our home value has gone up a lot in the last 6 months) won't have 20%. In the end it might end up appraising for more than our costs into it, but who knows.

A third realtor is coming to take a look and give us her estimate this afternoon. The snooty realtor that came on Tuesday is coming back by tomorrow to give us her analysis. I want the comparison, even if I probably won't use her. Who knows, maybe we'll get a different feeling from her at the second meeting. I've basically still got the first realtor on hold. I thought I was being nice calling her up on Monday to let her know we'd be ready in two weeks. Just give her a heads up, etc. The pushy attitude of listing next week and the price might change in 5 days, etc. just really put me off. I guess I should have just waited and called her when we were totally ready.

DH spent 5 hours yesterday pressure washing our sidewalks and in front of the garage. It looks so nice and clean. Of course he is feeling miserable now and in a totally crabby mood. This morning he is trying (again) to fix the squeaks in our living room floor. I bought this kit at Home Depot that has special screws you screw into the floor joists...it's not helping at all, so not sure what we are going to do there. I say just hire someone to come fix it, but of course DH isn't agreeable (is that a man thing?).

We have some dead patches of lawn, leftover from that terrible drought from last summer. Everything else filled back in nicely but these spots. We've weed and feeded a couple of weeks ago and the lawn looks really great, but those spots.  A few days ago I sent DH a link and a video of this spray on grass seed for bare spots and asked him if maybe we need to try something like this. He said yes and I had even mentioned that when I watched the video it said raking up the spots before to loosen the soil helps. So, I get the stuff for him and he's reading the package just now and bitching that if he knew he had to loosen up the soil he could have just planted seed himself. Oh good grief! That's why I sent him the info to look at and see if it was something he wanted, not complain to me about it after he said ok and I went and bought it.

The builder has been good about calling and emailing DH this week, so that is good. He met with his guy that does up the building plans yesterday and that guy is working on it now and said it would take about a week. He will call DH if he has any questions. It's working out good to let DH be the one doing the design of the floor plan (though of course I have input) and I'll handle the interior design and interior finish decisions. I'm good with the overall floor plan and little tweaks here and there that DH has thought of don't really make a huge difference to me, though I think his ideas are good ones. I even had a good idea on the guest bathroom with the 2 upstairs bedrooms, that he changed it to. With the open layout floor plan the kitchen is pretty large and we tweaked it a bit where we don't have to put in so much cabinets (expensive they are!) and can leave a blank wall/corner in one area for a small 2 person table and chairs and put a hutch (I'm thinking farmhouse style hutch) along the wall. Hopefully find something second cheap hand that I can fix up. It would be much cheaper than adding cabinets and countertop there, I'm sure, plus give me the more personal touches I am looking for.