We found a nice house last week, and it was well within our price range, and we thought about it over the weekend, and decided to meet with our agent last night to put in an offer. At which point we found out it had 10 offers already (figure on adding 1 percent of the price for every offer you know about), plus a "sharp" offer, meaning someone was willing to pay x number of dollars over the highest bid no matter what it was. We declined to make an offer. I don't mind going up against others, but I'm not insane.
The thing that kills me is our agent happened to mention one of the houses we looked at, one I wanted quite strongly, sold at the asking price. She hadn't told us about it originally, thinking the area wouldn't suit us, because we live in Palo Alto, a wealthy community. We have since made it very clear we don't object in the least to working class neighborhoods, or partially industrial areas. Unfortunately, by the time we found it via the newspaper it already had an offer pending. It's a shame, but at least we now know it is possible to buy a house in this area for less than an arm and a leg.
I think I feel better. Maybe if I stop beating my head against this wall....
Moving from future domestic bliss to current domestic bliss, I have planted the 85 bulbs I got from Park Seed. It was quite a process, let me tell you. The actual planting only took a half an hour or so, but working out which plants flowered when, in what color, and at what depth they had to be planted was a major piece of logistics. I had at least six pieces of notepaper scattered around the desk with various diagrams, arrows, schematics, circumferences, and cross-sections of the containers before I so much as opened the bags of bulbs.
85 bulbs, four containers, no clue. Next spring ought to be interesting.
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