We put in an offer yesterday. Our broker is clearly ticked off with us for all the extra work. Now he is having to put in a whole lot more work for his money. This makes me more determined than ever to get a Real Estate License. If you can't beat them, join them.

Our sellers have until 3 PM to respond. I would have thought we would have heard back by now. I guess they are not that desperate. We do have reservations about the house being so close to the school. We will see.

Yesterday, we went driving around looking at the location of houses that looked promising. One was way too close to a high school, but the price was right and the house was open. It was fantastic! At $20k less than the one we offered on, this one had many of the same features plus a lot more. It had the required 4 bedrooms plus hardwood floors, quality fixtures and lots of space. The lot was almost a third of an acre. That is a lot of yard in the city. I actually prefer it to the one we offered on.

We wrote to the Realtor that handled our buying of the last debacle and said we want to see it again. We'll see if he gets back to us. If not, we'll contact the seller. We feel we have enough expertise now to know what to expect.

This time we will buy As Is with a clause that we can back off if it is too expensive to repair. Expecting the seller to repair just results in a shoddy job. Also, I am convinced that we wasted $160 on the radon test. It is so easy to manipulate the results that I'm sure the seller did just that. The average came out at 3.5. At 4 he would have had to repair. It was so suspicious that the levels climbed all day (he works all day) and then dropped dramatically in the evening until about 8 next morning when they climbed again. It seems these tests rely a lot on seller honesty. I'm afraid I don't.

Starting Over

We have had such a frustrating year, first as renters and now as buyers.

Our rental experience is a whole other story. I think you will get the picture if I tell you that my husband and I refer to the landlady as The Witch! We rented her home while she is overseas. She really has no idea what she is doing and refuses to do anything that is going to cost a penny. The result is that the place is a dump. I will post some pictures as I get time. All the promised repairs have never been done. However, after 13 months and 1 week after living this nightmare, we have nearly reached the end of our 15 month lease. Hooray. Or maybe not. Now we have to buy a house.

I do believe that Realtors are overpaid. That is a given. I guess Realtors will argue the point, but ... Anyhow, the first thing we did was use the Internet to search for houses. Then we contacted 6 Realtors to view them. Only 3 responded. All asked me to call them. I called one at 5:30 PM to get a voicemail. She wanted me to contact her between 9 and 5, Mon - Fri. Heck, wouldn't it be nice if we could all get a job like that!

We saw a few houses, but it always seemed such hard work to get a Realtor to show them. As soon as they heard we were serious buyers they wanted to lock us into contracts to use them as buying agents. Have you read those contracts?

• We will use them and only them.
  
• We will pay a fee of $350.00 over and above their commission.
• We will be responsible for any part of their commission that the seller does not pay.

We declined.

Finally, a broker showed us around. We found a house in one afternoon and signed an offer. The so-called buyers agent then did his best to try and persuade us to offer $354,000 for a house with an asking price of $360,000. In this market, that is ridiculous. There are hundreds (literally) of houses for sale in our area and only 25 were sold in the first quarter. I understand it is in their best interests to inflate the prices, but seriously... We offered $330,000. The counter offer came back at $339,500. We accepted with the usual conditions.

Then came the flurry of emails and phone calls. We had to sign this and that immediately. Everything was always an emergency. Forms got lost and had to be signed again. Things were forgotten. Organization was not their strong suit.

We arranged for the inspection. That was a really professional job. However, the inspector found a very big problem. The wiring was aluminum and wired before 1972 and so was a potential hazard. To compound the problem, the new owner was a DIYer who had not hired an electrician for electrical work. There were a number of obvious code violations. We went ahead and hired an electrician with expertise in aluminum wiring. His estimate to fix the hazard was $10K.

Seller said no. We said no. Brokers suggested hiring a third electrician paid for by both seller and buyer to arbitrate. Well, that may suit the seller, but why the heck would we want to arbitrate? We have our choice of houses that will pass an inspection with no problems. We already have two opinions that the electrics are a hazard.

So we begin again.

What I have decided is that it pays to get your own Realtor license if you are going to buy a house.