Yeah.
That beautiful house from my previous post (here) is not going to be ours. It was just a handshake and verbal agreement, so no harm, no foul.
The landlord's wife wasn't 100% on board with renting it out. Her parents live in the little cottage next door, and I guess she got used to being there so much. Now that the house is almost done, she decided she just can't part with it.
Poor guy, he was SO apologetic. But I have to hand it to him for the way he dealt with this. Monday night we got a message asking when we'd visit the house again, so we said we could come by Wednesday (this morning). We met our agent before going there, and she clued us in a little to her conversation with him but was encouraging about the prospect.
We all sat down together and he told us straight up what happened. He didn't say, flat out, "you can't have the house" but he said that his wife was not happy about it and they were arguing and she loves to be by her parents. I added that it seems like she wants to live there, which I think helped him open up about that. We all understood very clearly. I give him credit for
- a) telling us face to face and not through text
- b) standing with his wife - next time he will hopefully discuss things like this with her first
- c) not beating around the bush and wasting our time.
SO DIFFERENT FROM CHINA! In China, no one likes to tell you "no" so they tell you all kinds of yesses until you find out that it's an actual no. Such a waste of time.
Today has been a good day! We didn't get the house we thought we were getting, but we learned a lot about the process from our agent, and we have a new friend in this landlord. He was SO apologetic, I honestly feel worse for him than for us.
Back to the drawing board. But as I told Brett, we started this process early enough that we were ahead of the game, now it's like we're just "on time" to begin the search.
And now you have an architect in reserve, as well.
ReplyDeleteThat could come in handy...!
Oh, and he offered that if we need something he will help us at no charge. He was SO very apologetic.
DeleteEven though it's a shame I like how nicely the situation was resolved with no hard feelings on any side. It really is a lovely house and I hope you can find something similar. You live a wonderfully nomadic life anyway.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it was almost too good to be true! But in the meantime, we looked at 2 other places, and have a better idea of what we're willing to accept and what we will not take.
DeleteOh, so sorry this fell through. But I bet you find something even better. Good luck.
ReplyDeleteI firmly believe in God's plan. The right place is still waiting for us.
DeleteAh I am so sorry. But your attitude is great! This just wasn't meant to be. On with the search!
ReplyDeleteWe learned a lot about the process we need to follow, and hopefully he did too.
DeleteOh that's so sad - but at the same time it was all done so nicely that at least you can look at it as a learning curve. Now you know what you want and you'll go into the next part of the search with open eyes and who knows what awaits you?!
ReplyDeleteYes, we learned to move quickly when we like a place. We signed a lease and paid a deposit this morning, on a house we saw yesterday!
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