18??? But I thought the sky was falling

Sales of foreclosures in the San Fernando Valley are going up, not down. They are being snapped up like crazy. The last house my wife and I wanted to put an offer on had 20 offers and the bank wouldn't even take our offer.

This house has 18 offers in less than a week of being on the market.

I think you meant to use only one of those negatives...unless, of course, you are saying that husbands don't want to keep their jewels at the insistence that their wives believe they will need them or something. ;)

I wasn't aware concrete cracked when it was dry. And if rain water was gathering, wouldn't that keep it from drying and cracking?

I'm not a fan of "skeeters", but my wife might feel at home with 'em. My wife doesn't wear her wedding ring. Neither do I. She doesn't wear it because she works with harsh chemicals doing nails, and I got too damned fat for mine.

Our house had 5 offers on it, and someone bid over us by $25k, so we backed out.

The market changed dramatically about 2 weeks ago. New properties are coming on the market priced very competitively, there are a flood of new buyers coming with cash saved up and at 5% loans, they can be aggressive.

Good properties that are priced well go quickly, in any market.

That's good advice about the pool cracking if it's left empty for too long. The pressure of the water is what stops the soil movement from cracking the concrete moreso than the actual concrete cracking as in deteriorating although it's my understanding that concrete being a porus(sp?) material would change if it were all of a sudden dried out.

That's bad luck smooth. Good luck finding another one you like mate. Sounds like you might still have a few good options though.

I'm sorry to hear that. I was really pulling for you.

Funny, because I would love to have that house too.

Apparently, so would everyone in frickin LA. Sheesh!

Well, the realtor said that if the high offer falls out, the buyer really wants to sell to us. We're not holding our breath, but there's a slim chance it might still happen.

Ach damn smooth, bad luck mate. Fingers crossed for that slim chance eh.

Or he is bullshitting you to get you to put in a higher offer, I wouldn't put it past an agent in this poor market. Becareful.

Good point, he is working for the seller, and him/herself, after all.

We have a Realtor that we really trust, and have a long-term relationship with. I don't think he's pitching us turds to see if we'll swing.

In any case, we have a strong sense of what things are worth to us, and aren't willing to jump price just because of the adrenalin rush of a bidding war.

Ah, got it - you meant the selling realtor. Yeah, he might be full of crap, but our guy doesn't think so, his read is that this really is a valuable property that happens to be priced about 100k (or more) below market value, a bunch of people recognize that fact, and one of them just happens to have more room to negotiate than we do.