Practically Homeless

Well, this is a pretty long story but I'll try to keep it as short as possible.  Back in November (2011) we started talking about selling our house.  I mentioned on facebook that we were looking to move into town and one of my friends asked me for more information.  I gave it to her but didn't hear anything for a couple of weeks.  Daren and I decided to get serious and start preparing the house to sell.  We made a list of projects that needed to be done and decided to spend Thanksgiving break giving the house a fresh coat of paint.  The second or third day of painting I got a message from my friend on facebook saying she knew someone who wanted to see our house.  We got into contact and showed them the house the very next week.
     They really liked the house and came back again to see it a couple of days later and we started the negotiation process.  We finally came to an agreement on the price.  They had thought about buying the land next door as well but with the price they said they could afford, we said we couldn't sell them James' land.  They said okay, and we went into escrow.  We also finally transferred the land next door into James' name.  And escrow finally closed on February 13!  Only 11 days late.  Before escrow closed (actually even before escrow was supposed to close), we moved out of our house and into Grandma Poetschlag's house.  Most of our stuff is in storage.  We are so grateful to Grandma for letting us crash here while we figure things out.
    Now, for the story of the next house.  We put an offer on a short sale in Heritage Village.  But it's been going really strange and now we're thinking of rescinding our offer.  Unfortunately, the owners of the house live in the house next door.  The bank says we have to pay 90% of the back association dues which have sky-rocketed to about $3300 since Heritage sent it to their attorneys to get it collected.  Not only that, we think the owners have been renting the place out under the table.  Admittedly, we are jumping to conclusions about people we don't really know.  But all the same, we're concerned about moving next door.  There is another house we really like.  It's a For Sale By Owner and it's a fabulous house.  However, it is quite a bit more expensive than the Heritage house.  But it's definitely a lot nicer so we're thinking that it's worth the extra money.
     So here's where we're currently at.  We made an offer on the house not in Heritage (we call it the Sydnor house).  It was $14,000 less than their asking price and we still haven't heard back from them about whether they'll take it or not.  We pretty much worded it as a take it or leave it kind of thing.  So we'll see if they take it.  In the meantime, we haven't rescinded the offer on the Heritage house yet but I'm thinking we'll probably do that tomorrow.  If we don't get the Sydnor house, we'll probably rent for awhile and see if prices come down at all.  And who knows, if we're ever supposed to leave Ridgecrest, not being tied to a house would be a good thing.  In the meantime, it's nice to be living in town for now.