Holy Crap! I this what it's supposed to feel like?

Posted Monday, August 25, 2008 9:47 AM
On Saturday we found the perfect house. Good size, huge yard for being in town, all the specs we wanted, awesome area, decorated nicely etc. However, it's about 10k above the max we are willing (and able) to spend and it's going to need a new roof in the next couple of years. But, we instantly fell in love with this house. It's the only one I have walked into and said "yes... this is it." It's also the only one that I don't really have any complaints about or that I see us living in long-term. All the other properties are either not in a great location or there is something rather major I don't like about them so I find myself saying "it's ok... we can make it work for a few years". With this one, we were saying "I want to live there and it could be long-term".
Here's what we considered when talking price for our first offer
-The house is 18 years old and therefore, although they look like they are in great condition now, windows are going to have to start being replaced and the furnace is original so we have to think about that too.
-These people didn't landscape. It's not totally horrible, but the yard needs to be cut, weeded, trimmed, edged, seeded and the back yard will probably need a couple of loads of earth to make it level.
-It will need shingle, probably within the next year
-Pricing of similar housing sold in the last 3 months
We put an offer in yesterday at about 12k below asking. We knew the wouldn't accept it, but we wanted to get the ball rolling to negotiate. They responding with an counter-offer later last night of 1K below asking! Our agent said there is a lot of interest in the house and therefore they aren't budging much on their asking price yet because they want to see what other offers they get.
I was so excited to get the offer in yesterday, but once we were in the process of drafting it etc. I started to panic. I kept thinking that it was out of our price range and we were really going to struggle, that we probably can't buy any house, never mind this one and that I am nuts to be doing this. I kept thinking of ways to get out of it and was relieved when we added the conditional on inspection clause thinking "that's it, that's our out". Everyone keeps saying, its worth the extra money if you love it and see yourself there long-term. "You don't want to lose it for the sake of a couple grand". But what if we can't afford the extra money? PANIC PANIC PANIC We also had to sign a bunch of other paperwork with our agent that I am now thinking we were stupid to sign without asking more questions... but that's a whole other story.
I immediately got a headache and felt extremely nauseous and instead of going to the bbq for my BIL's b-day, I went home and tried to sleep. On the way, I ran over a snake on a back country road and in the rear-view mirror I saw it coil up and then flail into the air in pain and it totally gave me the creeps. I literally shivered. P.S. I'm absolutely 100% terrified of snakes. When I got home I cried and panicked some more and I didn't know what to do. When the seller responded to our offer, I was disappointed (by the low amount they were willling to drop) and relieved at the same time. Everyone says this is a normal way of feeling once you've put in a offer on a house, but I don't like it. I never want to feel like this again. I called Brad and he wanted to respond right away with our own counter-offer, but I told him I needed to sleep on it. He agreed that was ok since they hadn't received any other offers yet. I fought a headache all night and had to force myself to eat. I fell asleep surprisingly easily. I woke up this morning at 5am and took Brad to work. Then I came back home and tried to go back to sleep for a couple hours but my mind was running overtime. I don't know what to do. We have to respond soon and all Brad can say is "what are we going to do?" or "have you decided if/how we're going to respond yet?". I'm gonna punch him pretty soon. Does he have any idea the kind of pressure that puts me under? He's half of this too and I need his input. It pisses me off more than I can explain and it's only getting worse.
Oh, on that note, tomorrow is our 2nd anniversary. Hopefully it's a happy one but with the way I feel right now, I don't know how I'll be able to pull off a romantic dinner when I feel like I could vomit at any second and am furious with the person sitting across from me. I'll guess we'll see how the rest of today day plays out.