Would you like a house with your pizza?

I had such an interesting lunch today. I took an office day, which means I didn't dress up today. I have a lot to finish before Christmas. OK, I have one expense report due tonight that I haven't started yet, but whatever.

So I took myself to California Pizza Kitchen for lunch. As I sat there.... wait, I better back up.

Last night Neil and I put together our latest and greatest best offer to Countrywide. We faxed it to our agent Sue this morning. OK, now you're caught up.

So as I sat there, my phone rang. Yes, I carried my Blackberry into lunch. I like to play BrickBreaker and read my emails while I'm waiting.

It was Sue. Apparently Countrywide had received an offer for $100k (yes, that's a K) higher than ours this very same morning, and they flat out rejected it. So Sue wanted to know if we even wanted to submit ours. I said uh...no. We're dumb but we're not that dumb. I turned to my bubbly fountain Pepsi (CPK has the best fountain Pepsi) in dismay. My Blackberry rang again, this time I didn't recognize the number.

You know who it was? An agent for a house Neil and I had looked at last fall that he loved, that was supposedly under contract! He said he had a strong feeling the deal was going to fall through and not close, and are we still interested?! Can you believe the timing?

So I told him yes, we're still interested, as a deal we just tried to do just fell through. I mean, it sounded better than to say "hey, we were just shot down by Countrywide and we'd love to buy a cheaper house, sure." So yay! This house is lovely. It's new construction, about 98% complete. It still needs carpet and paint and landscaping. The builder was foreclosed on when he ran out of time to sell it before his loans were due. It has a five car garage, Neil was in love with that. It's not in a neighborhood so I didn't like that, but the land is beautiful and I could live there for a few years. Ideally, we'd finish it, live there for two years, and then sell it and build it again in a residential area. That's ideally, of course.

So, keep your fingers crossed for us if this is Meant To Be. The agent wanted to know what price we could close at, which makes me suspect that he's fishing for the highest bidder? I don't know, but I will not be hosed by some yahoo. Hah!