House Hunting

We finally went house-hunting last Saturday. We left the three older kids (including a feverish and vomiting Joe) at home with Grandma and took the baby with us. The search began with a rocky start when we arrived at the first house and our agent realized he left his master key at home. The last thing I wanted was an hour round-trip to retrieve the key, but thanks to my quick-thinking husband, who asked our agent to drop us off at IHOP, we enjoyed an unexpected leisurely breakfast together.

After a year of looking at houses online, to be able to actually go inside them was pretty exciting. We felt like we were on one of those house hunters shows, "Oh, this is nice. A walk-in closet." "Oh look, a double vanity. That's nice." "Hmmm, this house needs some work." "Oh, look a dead roach."

We fell in love with the perfect home that amazingly was the lowest-priced house on our list. But the next day when we were all set to make an offer we found out it was a short sale, which meant we might have to wait months before the bank lets us know if our offer was accepted. We didn't have months. We had 28 days.

So Wednesday evening we headed back out to look at several more houses. (Despite the fact that the clock was ticking and it's incredibly stressful to have no place to live, these house-hunting trips have been fun because they've been the closest thing to a date Billy and I have had in a long time. Of course it's a date with a real estate agent and two-month-old baby tagging along, but I'll take what I can get.) This time around we found a house we loved even more than the first. The house was incredibly beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that I didn't want to keep looking at it because it seemed too good to be true. It was only two years old, the exact size we wanted (4 bedrooms + game room/loft), less than 5 minutes from Billy's school, and it even had a fenced-off vegetable garden in the back! I knew the price had just been reduced on the house and I knew it couldn't last long. We decided to make an offer, and while waiting to hear back from our agent yesterday, I kept searching for the house online but I couldn't find it. I was convinced it had already been sold. But around noon we heard back from our agent that the house was indeed available and the owners were ready to make something happen. There have been two previous buyers for the house but both deals fell through.

We're making an offer on the house tonight, and obviously a lot has to happen before it's ours (including finalizing the sale on our current house.) But we're excited at the possibility that after months and months of work on our house and getting it ready for showings and all of the headaches involved (and lots and lots of prayer), the end may be in sight and within a few weeks we will be moved into our new home!