COMING FALL 2008: OLIVE/LEIGHTON LE!

It's true! The reason behind the launch of this new blog is because our family is growing. In September '08, Olive or Leighton Le will join the Le Unit and rather than creating a new blog that mirrors Fayte's, we've decided to document both of our little monsters' growth and development all on this one corner of the Web. We are truly blessed and very excited to share this new chapter in our lives with you. Bookmark us and visit frequently. With two little Le's running around, there ought to be plenty to blog about.

Olive/Leighton, the size of a grape, at 9 weeks (Click for a close up)

So far the pregnancy has been going smoothly despite morning sickness and dizziness, probably on account of the fact that Olive/Leighton is a very active swimmer who likes to flail his/her newfound limbs about. As for cravings, unlike Fayte, who was a healthy eater, Olive/Leighton is a burger and TexMex lovin' fool! No complaints from Dad (the original Big Mac).

Update: We were able to transfer the video onto our Macs though YouTube makes the grainy ultrasound even grainier. You can see some dancing going on toward the end of the clip.

NOT SO CLEAN BILL OF HEALTH

So we had the home inspected today and its bill of health, much like Pam's, turned out to be not so great. In fact, we are fairly certain that this will kill the deal. Due to a little bit of settlement in the home, it will take some more money to get it back on its feet and there is no way in Hell we are paying it.

We're going to ask the seller to take care of it and if you've been following our deflating home search and our dealings with this guy, the odds of him saying yes are pretty bleak. So, after thinking about what color to paint each room the past week, we are now trying to prepare ourselves for the disappointment of going back to square one. It's a tough pill to swallow with a contract in place and being this far in a hard-fought game, but I guess that's what these inspection contingencies are for. Looks like we just gave the seller a free inspection.

By the way, who are these happy couples on HGTV that are smiling throughout their problem-free experiences of buying a first home? You would think that in a buyers' market teetering on the brink of a recession, we wouldn't have any problems! The saga continues...

ICED!

Icing the seller over the weekend worked! And that audible our agent called turned out to be Peyton-esque. We just heard back from the selling agent and they are now willing to concede over half of our closing costs. We are so relieved to put these negotiations behind us and are ecstatic to begin our transition into long-term debt. Leave it to us to find the only unmotivated seller in town in a buyers' market. Two cheers for long-term debt! Here! Here!

CAT'S OUT OF THE BAG

Well, so much for icing the kicker. We don't know if our agent was just tired from working so hard for us, or if she just saw something in the defense that we didn't see that made her call an audible, but the cat's out of the bag.

The original gameplan was to wait a full week to make the seller sweat. Unfortunately, with the recklessness of a young Maverick in Top Gun, our agent put in a call to see if the seller had changed his mind about our offer now. Doh!

If we were playing poker, she's the buddy behind us exclaiming, "Alright! Two Jacks. I think we can win this!"

If you were playing hard-to-get with a certain someone special, she's the girlfriend running up to the guy and telling him "Guess who likes you!"

We don't know why she audibled, but let's hope it was a Peyton Manning audible that will lead to great rewards, and not an Eli Manning audible (though to poor Eli's defense, he is playing in the Super Bowl in a couple of weeks). We are now waiting on the seller's response again and with the track record that the selling agent's established thus far, we anticipate a late non-committal e-mail telling us that the seller is considering our offer and that we'd hear back soon around tomorrow afternoon. Then we'll probably get the "Okay, we'll meet you halfway by asking for full listing price and we don't want to pay closing," email a few days after that. Stay tuned. Good times ahead!

MAKE 'EM SWEAT

Like the final scene from the Sylvester Stallone Oscar snubbed film Over The Top, we are locked in the arm wrestling match of all arm wrestling matches for the livelihood of our family's best interests.

After discussing the situation with our agent and with our families, we've decided to back away from the table, sit off to the side, and flex our giant collective veiny Asian-Latina bicep (with a dollar sign tattoo) to make them sweat like Patrick Ewing, aka The Human Shower. Seriously, dude should've locked in an endorsement deal with Kohler during his playing days. An opportunity lost.

Speaking of opportunities lost, we've decided that if we were to lose this home to an offer that is better than 100% with 3% seller concessions, then good for the seller. One side is going to crack and right now, it's no sweat off our back to wait.

WE'VE CONSIDERED YOUR OFFER...NOT!

Update: So our REALTOR called us back tonight and as we suspected, the news was negative. After stringing us along with the idea that a deal with the Devil was imminent pending a couple formalities with his bank (The National Bank of Hades of course), the ever-so-professional selling agent responded to our REALTOR through e-mail saying they'd like full asking price and no closing. Time Burglars!!!

While this still falls under our budget, we really can't envision ourselves going into the closing meeting without scowling the whole time and that's just not how buying a first home should feel. Plus, after being treated so unprofessionally throughout this whole process, we don't feel like rewarding the selling agent. We absolutely love the house, and maybe we'll have a change of heart after we recover from the anger of being kicked in the teeth, but as of right now we are back to touring open houses.

Did we mention that the selling agent is in the process of taking real estate classes right now? We never would have guessed! She better get her learn on quickly. We'd hate to know what happens to someone who costs Satan a good deal. Wonder how they would take it if we now submitted a counter offer consisting of a loaf of bread and a firm handshake?

CHECK YES OR NO

Update: We're still in a stand-off with the negotiations. Another day, another e-mail from the Prince of Darkness's real estate agent (after ignoring numerous calls and messages) claiming, "My client is seriously considering your offer. We just need to hear back from so-and-so about some information." We're getting close to moving on and our REALTOR has expressed that to them. Our offer (100% asking, minus 3% for closing) has got to be the highest. Is this normal? We're first time home-buyers so we don't know. Our lender says this behavior is bizarre.

As we were about to give up, we received an ominous e-mail from our real estate agent tonight curtly saying "Please call me." She usually calls us before she sends an e-mail so this has got to be big news that can only be delivered verbally. Because we didn't see any missed calls, we're assuming it's bad news.

So we call back and reach voicemail. That's also something that never happens, but because it's Saturday night, maybe our hardworking agent is actually enjoying some time off for a change. Looks like another night of pondering what the future holds for the Le Unit.

We pawned Fayte off on her Aunt Kristi and went out to get our minds off of this ordeal and celebrated our 3-year anniversary early at Pietro's in Dallas. If you enjoy eating cute little baby cows swimming in parmesan and red gravy like we do, we highly recommend it! Mmmmmm veal.

WHERE'S HENRY CLAY WHEN YOU NEED HIM?

After a long time saving and preparing, we made our first offer on our very first home this week. While we thought we would be giddy and excited like the couples we see on HGTV, the experience has been quite the opposite. After tearing through mountains of paperwork we decided to offer the seller 97% of the asking price and asked for 3% for closing costs. In this buyer's market, it was more than fair. We gave him 48 hours to respond.

Day 1: Spent the whole day staring at the clock, refreshing our e-mail inboxes and checking our phones for missed calls. Our wonderful REALTOR e-mailed us a couple of times today just to keep us posted. Unfortunately, there was no news to report. Went to bed pissed off that night.

Day 2: Woke up even more pissed and full of anxiety. We spent the whole morning again trying to coerce our phones into ringing through Jedi mind tricks. Finally just before deadline, our REALTOR forwards us an e-mail from the seller's agent saying they would like to chat about some concerns with our offer. In Texas, it is certainly acceptable for them to just flat out reject our offer or simply ignore it, so this was good in that it meant they were willing to negotiate. A few more hours pass and then we hear back. We learn that they have received other offers during the 80 days its been listed and are demanding full listing price with no seller concessions; take it or leave it, even amidst this housing crisis!

The key insights learned from this exchange:
A) The seller is either Scott Boras or the Spawn of Satan (wait, that's redundant).
B) He's not in a hurry to sell. What are first-time home buyers to do with someone who wants to play hardball?

Not wanting to give in just yet, we try to continue negotiations by offering full listing price, but also asking for 3% from Lucifer for closing. He'll probably come back demanding Fayte's soul.

Day 3: El Diablo's agent has resorted to giving our REALTOR the cold shoulder. She won't return any calls about our counter offer and won't reply to e-mails. Guess we shouldn't have sprinkled holy water on to the offer sheet. We've started looking at other home listings on the Web, though we've got our hearts set on the one at hand. Ironically, paying full price AND closing would fall under budget, but the lack of etiquette the seller and his agent have shown us has really turned us off, especially Desiree. We LOVE the home and we know that we should keep emotions out of the negotiations, but let's face it; buying and selling a home is an emotionally-charged process. There's got to be some compromise on both sides. Where's Henry "The Great Compromiser" Clay when you need him?