The art of the deal

I suck at this.

Negotiations, I mean. I can read people pretty well, I just have a dangerous habit of empathizing with the other side.

I sell myself out.

So, here we are. House negotiations, week two. The Big House has many, many sins.

We are asking the seller to come to Jesus. We're just not sure that's going to happen. Understandably, people resent begin told that they have been living in a place that is unsafe. They do not appreciate having to pay for all their deferred maintenance in one fell swoop.

Yet they must.

There is the yankback quality of accepting an offer and thinking you are in the clear – and then the inspection lands on you like a ton of bricks.

In this case, perhaps two tons. I empathize. I truly do. This would not be fun for anyone. The market is kicking seller's butts (lord knows, my butt is still smarting from what happened to us) and to add a stack of cures into an offer that is already down from the market is – well, depressing.

It's not even that we're doing the hardball thing. The items we have listed are items that our creditors and insurance company will insist on. They will make us escrow funds for them. 150% of the estimates to fix them will get hoovered up into non-interest earning accounts. We will pay to finance them.

This will suck.

And still, we persist in our offer. Bow down before the Big House. It commands you. You must submit.

Am I totally insane?

If all goes well, the seller will agree. Then the real pain begins.

There will be timelines. We must correct these items in 30 days or we will be dropped by our insurance.

The bank is drawing up a list. Our all-too-thorough inspection is in their hands and they have demands. Oh yes, many, many demands….

What if the estimates are off? What if we need the extra funds in escrow? What if the market tanks and eats our mutual funds?

Easy. We'll be living under an overpass.

Even with that, the back of my mind is trying to figure out the nicest way to ask the seller to gut their expectations so that we can keep moving forward.

Our buyer's agent has been a star – keeping us (keeping me) from doing foolish things like "here's the most I can pay" ("Okay, then pay that." *Doh!*).

At the back of all this is the notion that if this falls through, we are out of our home in less than a month. If we thought our current setup was cramped and stressful, apartments will make our current house seem spacious.

We have had two years of unrelenting stress. If this goes deal goes through, we'll have sixty days of unrelenting logistical hell. Movers, contractors, estimates, bankers…All the while, money is flying out the window.

If this happens, I'm never moving again.

Waiter? Normal life, please.