Oh, the fun we've had!

ZooCrewMom · March 2012

I thought I'd share the fun we've had over the past few months.

My husband and I started looking at homes 8 months ago ourselves and 3 months ago with our realtor. On our first trip out we fell in love with a home. Not wanting to jump the gun we scheduled homes to look at the next weekend in addition to a 2nd viewing of the home we loved. We decided we would make an offer on Saturday if we still felt the same way. On Thursday of that week it changed from a traditional sale to a short sale. Our realtor talked to the sellers realtor and she said it was a single loan with a local bank. We thought, wow, as far as short sales go we've hit the jackpot - so we put in an offer. It was accepted! In the coming weeks we learned there were actually 3 loans, 2 banks, the sellers started asking to keep things, the sellers agent wasn't returning calls. After 6 weeks of this we were able to get out of this because at that point they sellers attorney still hadn't submitted any paperwork.

So, we started over! In a subdivision across the street we found two houses we liked. One was very large and very basic, but it had a lot of potential. The other a bit smaller, but totally finished. We toured them both 3 times, unable to decide. On the day of third tour we also viewed a new home in the area - we fell in love! It had listed a day earlier, so we felt fairly confident when we placed a bid at full asking price. Less than an hour after we submitted we learned they had accepted an offer on the home its first day on the market.

We were set to be out of town for my husbands job for a week so we decided to wait until them to make any move. The day before we left we had an email forwarded to us by our realtor. It was the realtor of the higher priced, finished home. He said he noticed that she had shown the home several times lately and he wanted to know how interested her buyers were. The home that went under contract in a day down the street (the one we lost) had gotten his attention and he was ready to negotiate.

So, across the country, while my husband was teaching at a conference all day we negotiated a price. We ended up getting 20k off the asking price bringing it in line with our goal price. Over the next day or two we printed, signed, overnighted and faxed documents from kinkos across the southwest. I really learned just how much my iphone could pull off!

It all worked out, we returned home on Tuesday of this week and had a home inspection on Wednesday night. It went well and it sounds like the issues that were found the seller is more that happy to address.

After the inspection, late at night we received an email from our realtor. Remember the house that went under contract fast, that allowed us to get a great price on ours? Well, their financing fell through! Their realtor wanted to know if we were interested. We let them know we weren't - we had found our home in the most unlikely of ways!