House hunting

It's been a whirlwind week. I don't even know what day it is. It started last Saturday.

We went and looked at a few houses with our realtor. Didn't really find anything we loved. We left with instructions to call if there was anything that popped up that we wanted to see, but we were in no hurry.

We went and picked up the kids and dog from my mom's (they had all been over there because our house was being shown while we were out). About an hour after we got home, our realtor called and said she had an offer and could she bring it by about 45 minutes later. So my mom came over to entertain the kids and we met with our realtor. The offer was asking price with a few other things. We countered. They countered back. We countered again. They accepted. Closing is set for July 13. That's 5 weeks from today, y'all.

Sunday afternoon, we went back out and looked at around 10 more houses. Didn't love any of them. So Monday morning, I went and met with our realtor and we looked through every listing that remotely met our criteria. We came up with a list of about 10 more to look at. We went and looked at 2, then I had to go relieve the baby-sitter (thanks, Aunt Julia!). I got the kids, and our realtor and I drug (dragged?) them around to look at 5 more houses. You haven't really lived until you drag a 3 year old and a 1 year old in and out of the car repeatedly and into houses where they can't touch anything. Ha! But we survived.

There was one I wanted Ryan to see, so that evening, we took the kids and went to 4 or 5 other houses, plus the one we'd already been to that day. By the end of that night, we had 3 houses we were interested in, although there were things we didn't like about each of them.

Tuesday morning, one of those houses dropped in price (it was the most expensive of all of them). We decided to go back to that one and one other one that evening. After looking at them again, we decided to make an offer on the one with a pool. That was the main drawback to this particular house. We really liked pretty much everything else.

Our realtor got the contract done and we signed it Wednesday. She sent it to the other realtor that afternoon. We had put an expiration on the offer for today at 5 pm. If this one doesn't work out, we've got to move on something else very VERY soon to be able to do a closing on July 13.

Today at 4:30, we heard back finally. They countered. Not a great counter, but they had come down a little. Within 30 minutes, Ryan and I had decided what to counter back, and let our realtor know. She was going to give them until 10 pm tonight. So here we are. At 9:15. And we still haven't heard. So we're waiting...

Stay tuned...