Reverse Culture Shock

We put in an offer on a house, and it was accepted– then countered.

Had this happened two days ago, we would have been beside ourselves. We would have spent hours talking about the house, whether we wanted to up the offer, how much we liked the neighborhood, how long our drive to preschool would be….and yet, because our realtor’s call came during our lice attack, we didn’t bother calling her back until the next day.

My daughter had been sent home from school that morning with a case of lice. By the afternoon, I was in a fog of laundry, lice spray, fine tooth combs, and toxic shampoo. I could only think about what to wash, comb and spray next. Unless someone called with information about lice, I had no interest in it.

But the good news is, we got the all clear today. My daughter’s lice is gone. The hours I spent combing her hair paid off. Now we just have to make sure it doesn’t come back, with the help of our array of toxic sprays and gels.

Now, on to the house. We are shocked by how quickly things are moving. We put in an offer on Monday. The fact that we had to read and sign a 10 page document to even make an offer was alien to us.

In London, you just make a verbal offer. You haggle back and forth through the agents, agree on a price, then wait for something to go wrong.

And it almost always did: someone might accept a higher offer, even if they already gave yours the green light.

Or, if someone needs to sell their place before buying yours, the process can go on for weeks, or months, if it even completes at all.

When we bought our flat in London, the sale took six weeks to complete. And that was considered quick.

We weren’t in a chain (i.e. we didn’t have to sell anything in order to buy it) and the flat was vacant. So I couldn’t figure out what was taking so long.

Here in Georgia, you can buy a property in three to four weeks, according to our realtor. That seems almost too quick. If you’re distracted for a few weeks (by something like, say, lice, and its itchy aftermath) you might not focus on what you’re doing. The next thing you know, you’ll be living in a house, saying, “We paid WHAT for this?!”