And that's that.

Well that didn't go very well.

We bid. The sellers hemmed and hawed. They countered at $10k under asking. We said no dice--we're not budging on the money. Their agent thought she had the husband convinced, and then the wife wanted to hold out. Finally, they said only at their price; we said only at ours = it's done. ::sigh::

It'd be one thing if we were looking at a $10k difference and it wasn't the top of our budget. If we could go back and bid another $10k on the first house we lost, I think we'd do it in a heartbeat, but that house was also $80k less than what we bid on this one. (Yes, I realize that there are places in this country where $80k itself would buy you a house. That's not where we live, and we're not planning to move to Iowa anytime soon.)

I think the sellers just can't get over that it's not 2005 or 2006 anymore. They probably saw some of their neighbors sell for $800k or more, and they think they should be getting that or close to it. It. ain't. gonna. happen. Not from us, and not from any other buyer either (unless the buyer is very, very foolish).

Mr. EBB is despondent. It's odd--neither of us have ever faced much disappointment in our lives up until now. I'm finding that he does not deal with problems like this very well--he withdraws, which is the opposite of how I deal. Obviously we've had arguments before, but this is the first time an outside force has caused a problem for us. I hope I'll be able to help him through this!