Saturday, April 22, 2006

A roof over my head

Hello all (or... er... whoever happens by...)

I had many great thoughts for blog topics while I was falling asleep last night. And we all know what happens to those thoughts from the edge of sleep.

So, since I can't remember my brilliant topic, I thought I would share something from my real life. Not that the rest of this blog isn't real life, but you know what I mean. While I understand how caution is always in order when discussing life details over the internet, nevertheless I feel the need to share.

The Boy and I lost a house on Thursday (yes, we've decided to take the plunge into (non student loan) debt and property ownership). For some of you losing a house might sound strange - it feels strange to us. You see, we're now living in a very robust sellers market. Robust might be the wrong word to use because it connotes that something is happening which is not the case. The case is that NOTHING is coming on the market in our price range in the neighborhoods we're looking at.

Thursday we scrambled to look at a house in primo neighborhood #1 and the agent said "hey, let's check out house in neighborhood B." Sure, we thought. So we head over. Standing in the mud room, peering into the back-yard, The Boy and I get nervously excited. This might be the one!

So we decide to make an offer. This house has been on the market all of a few hours at this point. Our agent calls their agent - they have an offer in hand and two on the way. After work we make an offer - the fourth and last of the day. We offer $5k over asking price, no contingencies.

And. We. Lose.

This is the third house we've put an offer on. The first one was a back up offer; we'd just started looking and just missed the ball. The second was a for sale by owner that sold same day at auction and again we were the backup offer.

But this one... we thought this one was ours. Turns out someone else thought it was theirs and they were correct. They were at least $10k over asking.

I know the right one will come along for us, yadda yadda. Right now The Boy and I console ourselves with thoughts of the chimney collapsing on the new owners. And I like to think of the couple that just sold their house for not just asking price, but for $10k over asking price. Now that deserves some celebration on their part. I'd buy them champagne, but, well, I didn't win their house...

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