Today is usually therapy day but….. one therapist told us last week that she’d be out of the office today.  Fast forward to this morning when the other therapist called in sick.  Result:  AG and I get to play hookie today.    Drawback: It’s raining.

Yes, our delightful Washington summer has not worked out as planned this year.  Our deightful weather patterns, currents, etc have resulted in us having either 100 degree heat of multiple days of cold rain.  Today was one of the rain days.  As was yesterday.  (You see where this is goin’ don’t ya?).

Anyway, we decided instead of sitting inside all day we’d go on a little adventure.  It turned into more of an adventure than I had planned.  Once again, just because a book etc says that a trail is only  a 1/2 mile long doesn’t mean that’s actually the truth.

Anna Grace and I went to Twin Falls State Park and hiked to see Twin Falls.  In the rain.  The hike was much longer and much more strenuous than we had planned.  It isn’t that strenuous but if you’re by yourself with a three year old then…. well you get the idea.

Here’s some photos:

The top

The bottom

The very wet and hungry 3 year old who wants to go home.

So to sum up….the falls were beautiful, the weather was not and I wouldn’t go there again if I was by myself with AG.

Now the 2 Offers.

So to bring everyone up to speed lets give our "potential" buyers an identification system.

Buyer A: This is the couple from Anderson Island who had an offer on our house and then backed out because their buyer backed out.  They still want the house but they apparently have accepted another offer on their house and it is a contingent offer.  So they’re spinnin’ their wheels.

Buyer B: These are the folks that came here on the 4th of July.  They made an offer on our house last week and for the first time in our marriage I made a major financial decision without talking with Dana.  I rejected the offer.  It was that bad.  They offered 20 grand off the price of the house and wanted a contingency on the sale of their house.  Their house that isn’t on the market yet. And they don’t know when they might "get around"  to listing it.

Moving on…..

Buyer C:  These folks have been around for a while and we keep being told of the fantastic offer that is in the works from them.  The other day I was thinking about this and I had a thought.  These folks haven’t sold their house.  They are acting like they have all the time in the world to find a house so….. they either haven’t sold their house or they don’t own a house.  And since this home is not a starter home, I told Dana that I guaranttee they haven’t sold their house.  BINGO!

This morning we received 2 offers: One from B and one from C. Both are contingent on the sale of their houses.  Neither has their house on the market.  B’s offer is still low but much closer than before and we thought if they didn’t have that contingency we’d actually think about it.  C’s offer was full price.  And we almost went for it until one more little piece of information was provided. 

Ya see… Buyer C thinks and claims and swears that they can sell their house in 30 days, no problemo.  But there’s a great big problemo…. they live in a little podunk town called Graham.  They are moving to the big city by moving to Enumclaw (Enumclaw…. a big city of 11 thousand people.  Oh boy.)  So, we almost took their offer but when we realized where their house was we realized that it will take them years to sell that thing.  So, we counter offered that we’d take their price but not their contingency.

We are not against taking any contingency.  In this market we will likely have to take one at some point.  But to take one from a buyer who hasn’t even taken step one to get their house listed.  Nope.  Not that interested.  Especially when the house you want to sell does not exactly have what we’ll call location, location, location.

In Florida I turned down an offer from a couple that wanted me to give them a full contingency, take the house off of the market, no right of first refusal and wait until they sold their 850K house.  Their neighbor had just listed his house and they were certain that their house would sell in an instant (because people have been intersed in the neighbor’s house) but they would not put their house on the market until I gave them a sure thing contract and sat and waited with them for their house to sell.  I said no.

Everyone said I was being a fool.  The neighbors house is smaller than theirs but priced higher than they were pricing their house, etc.  Blah Blah Blah.  The neighbor’s house….. in this sure thing neighborhood…. is still on the market and it has been 2 years.  So, pardon me if I think I made the right decision .

We’ll see what Buyer C has to say but we said we’d accept the price, not the contingency.  We almost did accept the contingency.  If their house has been in Seattle, Tacoma, any where that might actually get somebody looking at it, we probably woulda gone for it.  But not for a house in Graham.

Moving on…..

Tonight ( if all this house stuff settles down) we’re going to spend the night in a wee little town called Gold Bar.  Why?  Because we’ve now made 2 attempts to get up and drive to that area to see Wallace Falls and to hike to Barclay Lake.  I told Dana we oughta just find a cheap place to stay and drive up on a Friday night.  It’s just too easy to sleep in and get delayed…. so lets do our sleepin’ in a bit closer to our destination.  He agreed.

We’ll be back tomorrow afternoon.

Toodles.