What could we have done with our down payment?

So, I started thinking about what John and I could have done with our down payment if things had gone south... Here are some of our ideas:

• We could have flown round trip from Chicago to Dublin in business class 7 times.
• We could have stayed at Hotel Meurice in the Belle Etoile Suite in Paris for 6 nights.
• We could have flown to South Africa to see the World Cup Quarter Finals with 5 nights of 5 star accommodation plus airfare 4 times.
• We could have bought a 55" Sony Bravia 3-D ready tv 15 times.
• We could have flow around the world 7 times.
• We could have bought our sofa, loveseat, chair set 16 times.

Instead.. we bought a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom condo in Wrigleyville. While, I'm completely happy and excited about our choice - there could have been a LOT of fun had with our downpayment money... ha. There are quite a few other things we could have done I'm sure - this is but the beginning of what could be a large list if I had another 9.5 months of salary to just play around with.

I plan on posting pictures soon - but we have a lot going on right now. We are still unpacking (we .. errr.. I ... have so much stuff it's ridiculous), we have friends staying in town for the weekend (I think 3, but it could be as many as 5), and we have the 3rd Annual Beer Olympics this weekend!! This means that I will be very limited in my posting abilities for a while, as we try to get ourselves set up in our new home. :)

Hopefully we didn't speak too soon....

Some aggravating news on the home buying front... For those of you keeping score at home we have been waiting on this condo since the end of March when we put in our offer. It is now the start of the second week of June (aka 10-11 weeks later) and we are still waiting.

We thought we had good news yesterday... Everyone agreed to close early (original date was June 18) to close this next Monday or Tuesday (June 14 or 15)... and then the bomb dropped...

The 2nd lien holder - which we have been told was essentially a non-factor this whole time - became a factor. They decided that they didn't want to take less than 20% - $13,000. The 1st bank is willing to contribute $3,000 but that would leave us on the hook for the remainder. Well, that was a little bit of a SHOCK. Apparently they decided we must be desperate enough at this point that we wouldn't want to lose the condo and we would just randomly throw in an extra $10,000. Even if we HAD the money I don't want to play this game....

The most frustrating part of all of this is that the seller's agent has been saying that it wasn't a problem this entire time. She has essentially told us that the 2nd lien holder was a non-issue and that they were fine. I feel as this shows they are the opposite of a non-issue. They could break the entire deal because they want 20%. Annoying.

A month ago when they finally looked at our offer they could have countered for $10,000 more, and truth be told.. we most likely would have accepted.. It would have been at our high end, but it would have worked. Now we are down to the wire, we weren't anticipating needing that kind of extra, and it's just not going to work out. Hopefully the bank realizes that it's either $3,000 or $0, and they choose some over none... but I feel like banks are a little too greedy to see that side of it.

So while we thought we were in the home-stretch, it seems like we somehow bounced back to square one... Please everyone (all 2 of your who read this..haha) keep your fingers crossed for the rest of the week and pray that the bank will see the light on this one!!! We would really like to be moving into a condo on June 28th instead of a storage space and/or a new apartment and/or the in-laws (no offense to Pat and Martha.. ha)... We would really like to have a place to call our own!!!!

To wrap it all up.... banks suck. :)