The Process Thus Far

I was thinking about it today, and I estimate that Mr. EBB and I have visited about sixty open houses. Sometimes we've gone to seven or eight on one Sunday. We've also driven by probably another 30-40 homes that we decided wouldn't even make it to the open house stage, and we've looked at hundreds and hundreds of listings online. In that time, we've expanded our awareness of different neighborhoods and also increased our price range. Maybe if we had started out looking at more neighborhoods and with the bigger budget we'd be in a home by now!

The home that convinced us to move from "we're looking" to "we're seriously looking" was located less than 3/4 mile from our apartment. So many things about it were perfect--the location and neighborhood both could not have been better, the yard was a great size for us (small), there were lots of cute details, and it had amazing closet space. It also had a new roof and the foundation work had been completed. It also had things that were not perfect--the layout was kind of odd, it needed about $15k from deferred maintenance (new furnace, new chimney, some minor pest/dry rot work), and the fireplace looked like a giant pregnant woman's ass from most angles (for real--it jutted out with big birthing hips and once the image entered my mind I couldn't escape it). But the price--the price was perfect. It would have been a steal at $50k more, even.

We decided to bid. We were planning to bid right around asking, maybe a bit more. And then Mr. EBB decided we needed more advice. So he talked to a co-worker who lived near the neighborhood where the house was located, and she convinced him that the house was overpriced and we should bid $20k under asking. Both our agent and I thought she was insane. Her main issue was that the elementary school for the neighborhood wasn't that great and the yard was small. My reminders to Mr. EBB that 1. we don't have children, 2. we aren't planning to have children for another 4-5 years, 3. any children we did have wouldn't be entering kindergarten for another 9-10 years, and 4. he was excited about a small yard b/c it meant less yard work--all fell on deaf ears. In his eyes, he didn't want his co-worker laughing at him for overpaying.

We ended up bidding $9k under asking. We knew there was another bidder. We received a counter for $5k over asking. We accepted it (there was a lot of agonizing from Mr. EBB). After work that day, Mr. EBB went for a run by the house. He came back super excited about it. And then we got the phone call that the seller had entered a contract with the other bidder. It was over.

Mr. EBB was devastated. He beat himself up pretty badly for listening to his co-worker; if we'd gone with our instincts and our agent's advice and bid $10k over asking to start, we'd probably have the house. That weekend and the next week were pretty miserable. Knowing that we could be DONE by now. Yet here we are.