The House Game

With our house under contract, we had to get serious about finding a new place. After many days of house tours, we came up with a grand plan.

First was House A, which was Jon's perfect house. Close to work, HUGE yard, cul-de-sac, lots of bedrooms. But expensive. But it had been sitting on the market for almost 9 months, so we thought we could convince them to drop their price.

Then House B, which we stumbled across by accident while waiting for another showing. It was absolutely gorgeous inside, plus immaculate. It was surrounded by woods, but had a large fenced yard. It was a far drive from work, though, plus pretty isolated from potential neighbor friends.  But it was otherwise perfect, and the price was definitely low for what we would be getting.

We put in an offer to House A, offering $30,000 less than their asking price. It was a gamble, but we figured we'd try it. They said no, so we went to House B. We offered them their full asking price, so we figured it would be easily accepted (this house had also been sitting for a long time).

Ha. First the sellers were out of town and apparently incapable of doing anything via email. Then they needed more time to talk things over. Then they needed paperwork from us and from our buyer.  Then they needed to wait for one more showing to happen. It was a never-ending game of delays. I spent a lot of time being really angry or trying not to cry.

Finally, after all the waiting, they turned us down. Never asked us to raise the price or remove the contingency, just a flat out no. We still have no idea what happened. Our best guess is that it was sold to a friend, since they ended up taking an offer that was less than what we offered, but still contingent.

The same day we got the no from House B, we got a phone call from House A asking if we were still interested. We said yes, but not at the price they were asking. Their agent didn't seem too keen on a compromise, so we just let that one simmer.

As it turned out, the housing market in our area went absolutely insane. Houses would go up and be under contract the next day, with 4 or more offers. We'd have homes we wanted to see go under contract before we had a chance to look. Things were starting to get a little stressful as we watched all our "potential" houses (yes, we had an Excel spreadsheet) disappear.

Finally we were down to nothing. And then it appeared, like a miracle! House C! It was super close to work, plus would have kept us in our ward. It just seemed so perfect. Like it was meant to be.

We immediately went to check it out, It was a nice house, but not as nice as A or B. Plus there were some really weird things in the basement ("You think that's a linen closet in the bathroom? Nope. Breaker box.") But the price was great. We dragged our handyman friend along with us to give an opinion on the weirdnesses. He gave the all-clear, and we started the process of submitting an offer.

And then we woke up the next morning and both knew it just wasn't right. I was frustrated because it just seemed so perfect, but we were getting a clear "no". We had our realtor stop the process, knowing that we now had literally no options left. As much as we like to have a plan in place (and five or six back-up plans), we both felt pretty peaceful about our decision. Something was going to work out.

Once again, we got a phone call from House A. We agreed to go up in price, they agreed to go down. While we couldn't quite meet in the middle (we were literally as high as we could go), their realtor offered to pay the difference. We were finally under contract. I never thought we would get this house, but miracles really do happen!

Also, I never, ever want to buy or sell a house again. Ever.

Soon to be ours!