Delays and Declines

I had another post ready to go, announcing the sale of our home.  But we have had to make the hard, impossible decision to decline.  Get ready for a lot of details.

The original house offer was $30,000 (that's not a typo, folks) less than our asking price.  We are already listed at or below current market value, so we felt it was a horrible insult.  On top of that, this buying couple asked for the moon in the direction of us including all appliances, us paying for all closing costs (because they can't afford them), us paying $600 for a home warranty, etc.  They offered very little earnest money and we know they had secured an FHA loan, so we know money is an issue with them.

After negotiating, they did come up $20,000 and that gave us hope!  We tried to get them to come up just a tiny bit more but they wouldn't budge.  So, their final offer was still low.  It would bring property values in our neighborhood down and our realtor believes we can get a better price.  Furthermore, this offer just didn't sit well with our realtor.  But we honestly were ready to give in and accept it if our agency thought it best.

But some latest adoption developments have helped us make the horrible decision to decline the house offer.  Ever since our February 14th pink notice from USCIS we have been scrambling to update what is required of us.  At one point, we were told a full home study "update" is necessary, requiring new finger prints at the state and FBI level, plus child abuse clearances in NE and CA.  Then upon reading the USCIS pink slip again, our agency believed just an addendum is in order, eliminating the need for time consuming FBI checks.  So we went ahead with the checks at the State level.  Easy enough, right?  Not so much.

Now that those state level checks are in and complete, our social worker is insisting on a home study "update" once again.  Our once promised "addendum" is now out and we have to take more time to get FBI checks done.  I'm so frustrated.  Basically, our home study has expired and our social worker doesn't feel it acceptable to send an addendum to an expired home study.  Rather, she wants the whole thing updated.  She claims that NE law requires her to have us run our FBI checks in order to perform the home study update.  All states are different.  USCIS doesn't require new FBI checks, the state of NE does.

So, all that drama summed up our decision to decline the bad offer on our house.  Adoption delay = not a good time to sell the house.  Instead, wait for a fair offer.

But now we trust again and that's hard.  We have to come up with money for a home study update.  That's hard.  We have to wait again for our house to sell.  That's hard.  And we have to wait even longer for our daughter to come home.  That's hard.

And that's all I have to say about that.