I just faxed back my acceptance of the counter-offer. The seller accepted my price, but wants to maintain mineral rights and, I think I mentioned, wants to retrieve some things from the backyard (that I was going to get rid of anyway, so win win).

fingers crossed we can get an inspector in there quickly. grabby hands!

wants to maintain mineral rights

That's going to come back and bite you when oil is discovered on your property.

Yes, well Natural gas is really the thing at the moment, but there is no drilling going on in that neighborhood and my plot is smallish. Also I retain surface rights, so they would not be able to drill on my property without my permission, they would have to come in via an adjacent lot.

Meara, when DH and I were househunting we went with a mortgage broker who was able to get us pre-qualified at a few different banks and also got us a really good interest rate (saved us the trouble of checking the market every day to see when we should lock in a rate). Her fee was around $500 IIRC and I felt it was worth it to have someone else doing that work so we could look at apartments.

Happy birthday, Laura!

I call shenanigans on the blackface. I know Russia has a very different relationship to racial minorities than North America does, but they're on foreign territory. Do your homework. It's not like the aversion to blackface falls into "Oh, Mammy" territory--it's something different, but part and parcel in hand with the aversion to yellowface too.

It might be okay in Russia, but they must have noticed the stamps in their passports.

Happy Birthday Laura!

Sort of catching up...

In general, the Northeast Corridor trains are reasonably on time

My train to NYC on Thursday was perfectly on time. My train back last night was two hours late. That sucked. And by the time it occured to me to see if I could trade my ticket in for an Acela ticket, it was too late.

I think sex addiction has less tangible downsides than a gambling addiction, but they do exist

I can't believe none of you watched Dr. Drew's Sex Rehab! Half of those people were literally not getting out of bed for days. Some of them were dealing with more emotional problems.

The seller has accepted the offer! The only conditions they placed were that they want to keep possession of a few items from the backyard that we were going to remove anyway. WIN!

Woo hoo!

Thanks, all.

A good mortgage broker is very valuable. The localistas may know someone.

Happy happy birthday, Laura, with cake and big hugs!

I went with a mortgage broker that my buyer-broker recommended and was approved for way more than I ended up spending -- so that when I went looking, I knew exactly how much I could spend and only was going to look at houses that were at low-to-middle of that price range.

And then, yeah, the first house we visited in person... it can happen!