House Hunters

Part of the reason I have been so bad to my loyal fans by not updating the blog is that we've spent almost every spare moment looking for a nest house.  I could show you the Excel sheet of houses we've seen, but  then you might think we were crazy (if you don't already...).  Let's just say there are A LOT of houses that we've looked at.  It's not that we haven't found any we've liked...in fact...we've put offers on four different houses.  Now five.

With the first house, we ended up in a "highest and best" blind bid situation and were outbid.  The second house, we got the bid...but after walking through it with a fine-toothed comb...we realized that the "To-Do" list of things that would HAVE TO be done immediately was really beyond our cash flow at this time and exceeded our willingness to do projects.  Tim refers to this house as the "death by a thousand paper cuts".  We actually felt a huge rain cloud was lifted when we decided (after much prayer) to walk away from this house.  The third house was it...I was convinced.  It was in a neighborhood we really liked, and had a very manageable to-do list...but again was a bid situation...and we were outbid.  Many tears were shed over this one (I'm pregnant, I can cry if I want to).  The fourth house was a shot in the dark.  It had a fabulous yard (which is something we've been really wanting), but was really out of our reach price-wise. We put an offer on it anyway, and weren't surprised when the guy turned it down and we realized we weren't going to find middle ground.  

So that brings us to the fifth house.  This was a house we had looked at, really liked the house, but had sort of decided that the yard wasn't what we wanted.  After the fourth house didn't work out, I couldn't stop thinking about this house.  I'm talking...wide awake at 2 am and can't get this house out of my head.  So when we went to our agent's office to meet him to go for yet another Saturday of looking at houses, I told him I wanted to go see this house again.  He looked at me and said, "now... you guys decided that the yard was too small".  (He can say this to me...the man has spent countless hours looking at houses with us, he knows what we're looking for).  I said, "I know, but we need to go see this house again."  So, we added it to the list of houses to see that day, and it just so happened that the owners were out of town that weekend, so it was convenient to stop by.  It was the second house we looked at that day and every house after it just didn't compare in my head.  After seeing it again, we realized the yard was not as small as we (Tim) had it in our (his) head. :)  

We put together an offer that day... they countered...we accepted...and we're currently under contract for this beauty...

We are still in the nitty-gritty of all the stuff you have to do when buying a house, so it's not final 'til the fat lady signs the closing papers, BUT, I'm feeling confident enough to post a picture.  We had our house inspection yesterday and it went ridiculously well.  It was really fun (for me anyway) to have the inspector walk us through the house and tell us about it in detail, some for suggested repairs and maintenance and some just to educate us on the house.  So, if all continues to go well (still continuing to pray this thing through)...we will be closing in June...and Sprout will have a nest house.