Thanks so much for all the advice, Thomas, Keith, and Stan, and if
I've left anyone out, I deeply apologize. Just wanted to tell you all
what we've decided. As everyone said, we've decided to pass on this
house. If someday they come back with a better price, maybe we'll
consider this house again. We were sort of leaning toward walking away
anyway; your kind, thoughtful and wise advice confirmed what we were
already thinking, and gave us confidence to move on.

BTW, to answer krw's question, the buyer's agent put in the bid WITH
our authorization. He just put it in too slow and lost the deal for us.
Also, the foreclosures and the buyer's agent are 2 different issues.
We were thinking of looking at foreclosures, but there are a lot of
problems with them, including with the lien and title. We're searching
on the Net to find houses; no realtor would want to work with us to do
that, because we just have too many G-D requirements. We have worked
with a couple of different buyer's agents (both recommended by National
Assoc of Exclusive Buyer's Agents); the first put in the bid too slow,
and the second named a bid that was too high for us. And, I understand
about the seller paying. We wanted the first buyer's agent to kick back
(to us) 1.5% of his 3% commission (because all we needed him for was to
submit the bid and help us with the contract at closing). Sorry, I
just got a little lazy there.

To answer Thomas' earlier question as to who Pulte has a good rep with,
they've won the J.D. Power Home Builders' survey for 6 - 7 years
running. Also, the second buyer's agent once told us that during the
last recession, every builder skimped on materials. We wonder if it's
happening again.

If any other questions are left unanswered, or if anyone can answer my
question in the previous paragraph, please feel free to post.

Tony