Hurry Up and Wait

So the bank finally responded with a counter to our offer just prior to Christmas. It's bizarre to me that they can take a month or more to do this and then demand a response within a week, especially right at Christmas. Makes me want to walk away just on principle. But whatever. Their offer was substantially higher than I'd be willing to go, but we did counter with something several thousand dollars above our initial offer. We told them it was our "final" offer, for whatever that's worth. The realtor thought that would be a good idea, so we don't have to continue to go back and forth as there is still a substantial gap between our two figures. So we'll see what happens. It's time for them to make a choice between letting it go into foreclosure or getting out from under it now. If they can't meet our price I will be disappointed, but ready to resume the search in earnest in the spring.