I was in the middle of writing a post about the past week when I extremely cleverly quit my web browser application on a whim. Don't ask, suddenly the [command] [Q] called to me.

On Saturday we met with a realtor and were given a list of places to drive by and check out the areas.

Sunday (after 5 hours of whale-watching) we met the realtor at a condo in La Mesa and looked at the inside.

Monday we drafted and sent an offer to the seller.

Tuesday we twiddled our thumbs with much excitement and applied for financing.

Wednesday we got a counter-offer, looked at the condo a second time to be sure, drafted a response and sent it off.

Thursday noon I found out we don't qualify for the 100% loan with closing costs rolled in we'd been hoping for. Or the 100% loan where we pay closing. We qualified for a 3% down loan, which meant help would be needed.

Thursday 2pm I left for the conference in LA, after leaving a voicemail for Matt saying we didn't get the mortgage we'd hoped for so we couldn't buy unless we got a couple of grand from my parents asap.

Thursday 3pm Matt called me back, not a happy bunny, and told me that the seller would accept our offer if we could promise (in writing of course) to show him an approval letter from the bank on Monday, and show that we had the funds for down payment and closing costs in our possession by Thursday...

We had until 3pm Friday to respond.

If we responded "yes" and then were unable to show funds by the required day, the seller could kick us out of escrow and keep our $3000 deposit as a souvenir. If we failed to respond the condo would stay on the market and might sell before we had our financing all lined up and ready to go.

Noon Friday Matt and I both told our realtor we had to back off on this one and we all started breathing again.

As soon as we figured out it was a choice between risking our deposit and risking someone else buying the place before us, it was an easy decision. You'd be surprised how much there was ricocheting about in my head before I came to that realization. For a while it felt like no matter what we did we'd be risking our money, but that's exactly what the seller wanted. They wanted to lay on the pressure to hurry up the deal.

Right now, as I type, we're waiting to hear on a different place, this one in El Cajon. We've qualified with their lender (which means a nice big credit to help with closing costs), but nothing has been signed or put in writing yet and we're not in escrow, so chickens are not to be counted as yet.

By the way, Matt and I are trying to become homeowners, it's been in the works for a while, but last week it all of a sudden became an active search, last week we stopped looking and running numbers and started chasing around East County trying to make decisions and find something that works for us.