Two days later, we received our first offer on the house. It was a low ball offer, especially since we had already lowered our price twice and for a considerable amount. But the worst part was that they wanted us out in four weeks. The family had relocated for business and the woman in the black SUV was living in a hotel for $5,000 per month with two kids, while her husband was out of town on business.
Four weeks is an extremely tight turn around in normal times. It was an impossibility in our case, because we didn't have a house that we wanted. In fact, we had only really looked at four houses so far. Our agent hadn't shown us houses, because she didn't think our house would sell. I had spent hours every day looking at houses online, but not actual, real houses.
So, now we had an offer on the table. The thought of selling the house and having no place to go -- homeless with two children -- made me vomit. The agent played hardball with the buyer. We went back and forth on the price and went up to a reasonable number. The move-in date was pushed back by two weeks. The new date was August 26th.
We signed a contract, after the agent assured us that the contract wasn't legally binding until after attorney review. (It took hours for the agent to convince Steve that this was kosher.) We would stall on the attorney review for three days to give us time to find a house. She said that we would spend all day Saturday looking at houses, until we found something suitable to move into.
After she left the house with the contracts in hand, Steve and I privately agreed that Saturday was D Day. If we found a house, then we would move. If we didn't find a house, then the Era of Prolonged Misery would end; we would take the house off the market.
I estimated that there was a 5 percent chance that we would find a house in one day.