Property Virgins

Except we're not. But I sure felt like one today.

The house hunt hasn't been going that well, but a few weeks ago when I was out looking at houses I noticed a house that looked vacant & since the neighbor was outside I talked to him for a minute & he said that he thought it had been foreclosed on so I got a number from a flyer on the door & called & they said they were processing it & it probably wouldn't be on the market for about a month. I kind of thought that even foreclosed on it would be out of our range so I have only thought about it once or twice since then. So yesterday my realtor called and said there was a new property & when she emailed me the listing & I saw it was that house (w/an affordable price) I just got goosebumps & I called Jeremiah to see if he could go look at it with me because what was the point of me going alone since I knew this could very well be the one and I'd want him to see it anyway.

So this is an aside - we showed up at the house & there was another realtor there & it happens to be a guy that Jeremiah & my dad have used for some commercial real estate & Jeremiah was just thinking oh no, he's going to be so mad we're not using him. I figured he must be the listing agent since we'd got to the property before our realtor & since this guy was at the door he let us in. Turns out it was a big mix-up because he'd called my dad that very morning to tell him about this same house! (Why, I don't know since my parents aren't even looking. My dad has a disease. A good-deal disease!) So he's thinking maybe that's why we're checking it out. When our realtor pulls up a minute later it was really awkward & I think this guy was pretty upset, thinking that my dad called us & we're looking at it with our realtor & not him, because he is actually not the listing agent. We told him that we'd already known about it but I'm sure he didn't believe us because he looked really mad. And I called one of my sisters today & talked to her about the house & she said, "Oh yeah, the house that dad found for you guys." No! For the record he didn't.

Anyway, so today we made an offer on the house. But the plot thickens! I called our realtor to tell her we wanted to make an offer & we talked numbers for a minute & she said she would call the listing agent to find out about any activity on the property & it turns out somebody else has put in an offer this morning already! I was afraid of this because I know it's a hot property since it's a foreclosure & in a great neighborhood! But the first offer was missing some paperwork so we hurried to get our offer (with completed paperwork) in. But there was all this stress about numbers because in a normal situation who comes in at full asking price? Nobody in this market! But when you know there's already an offer! And then what if the first party ups their offer because they know there's a second party making an offer? And then the stinking listing realtor decided that she'd submit both offers to the bank at the same time which I don't think is exactly fair since we got our paperwork & completed offer in first. And since it's a bank owned property you can't do the traditional response time frames. They have SEVEN days to get back to us! So we're trying to not get too excited or emotional about this house cause there's a very real chance we won't get it. Especially if more parties next week submit offers & they know there are already 2! So this stinks & I totally feel like those people on all the house shows. When we bought our current home it was such a different experience. It was for sale by owner & had been on the market for a few months. But anyway, hopefully we have enough going for us with our offer that the bank will accept it. We haven't asked for any concessions & there are no contingencies & our loan is all lined up. So anyway, that's the scoop. Wish us luck!