Reverse psychology amidst a roller coaster of a story

The inspection for the house got done of Saturday and Chris and I (and little "Gweta", too) went over for the walk-through.  The inspector said that overall the house was in great shape.  He pointed out a few minor things to keep up on and watch out for.  The biggest thing on the ol' inspection report being the need for fire doors covering the furnace and water heater--right now they are just hanging out in one of the bedrooms in the basement (which technically isn't counted as a bedroom if they are just hanging out there). Over the weekend we thought about it and decided that was something we could ask the seller to handle, or at least finance US handling since it would be about $500 to frame and put doors in.  Our realtor decided it would be best to come up with a short list of things from the inspection report that we would like to get fixed so that hopefully he will fix something.   This is where I call out "reverse psychology!"  And then Chris says, "Jules, that's not really reverse psychology."  In this instance, I think it is--but I also name a lot of things "reverse psychology" without them really being it.  Moving on.

We didn't hear from our realtor ALL day on Sunday or Monday.  We were getting a little worried.  When you are buying a house with a three week deadline until closing date, you pretty much hear from your realtor multiple times a day.  So NOT hearing from her, made us antsy.  Finally (!) on Monday night, we got an email basically saying that "there is an issue and we'll need to talk tomorrow."  What!?  What?!  What does it mean!?  We waited and waited.  Monday morning came and we waited some more.  Chris left for work and called me and said that Kristen called and the seller isn't sure he wants to sell anymore.

What?!  This house is not being lived in.  Everything is moved out.  There is still some stuff in the garage and some dogs in a kennel out back (they better take those!), but other than that, the house was cleaned out.  There is a FOR SALE sign in the front yard!!  Furthermore, they reduced the price by $10K recently to sell if faster.  I was so heartbroken and confused.  The seller made this decision before we even presented the inspection issues we wanted him to potentially fix, so we know that didn't scare him off.  The whole thing was a mystery.  Later that evening, our realtor, Kristen, called back and after some coaxing said that he will sell it to us and she is going to present the "inspection fixes" list.  Okay, I'm calling reverse psychology again!  Did he just try to scare us so that we wouldn't ask him to fix anything?  It totally worked on our part--but our fearless Kristen pushed forward.  He picked, like, two of the smallest things on the list to fix and denied everything else.  But as of last night he still is selling us his house and we are still moving in a couple weeks.  Talk about a roller coaster of a story, huh?

We still haven't packed anything, mainly because our landlord is refinancing his house and the appraisal was this morning, so I wanted it to look nice for that.  And we are going to have people coming to look at the apartment and I want it to look nice for that.  AND I haven't got any boxes yet.  AND packing is. the. worst.

Psst... remember that wardrobe we JUST bought at Ikea in January.  No need for it anymore.  Go figure.  Anyone interested, we're selling if for half of what we bought it for.  $150 and it is yours.  Other items we're selling....the 37" plasma in our bedroom and most definitely at least one set of dishes (why in the world do we have 3 sets of dishes?!). .... maybe we should have a yard sale this weekend.  Chris?  Are ya listening?