Purchasing a house in the best of times is stressful…but add to that the volatility of the housing market in 2020 and you’re just asking to torture yourself. Which is apparently exactly what I’m doing, of course! I have grown tired of the apartment lifestyle, plus it’s getting pretty cramped for the five of us and I have always dreamed of giving the fur babies a yard to run in, so Garrett and I have begun house hunting. The market is insane. Houses are up for less than 24 hours before being sniped, some even by people in California or New York buying them sight unseen for well over the asking price…When in years past it was common to offer a little under asking price and negotiate your way to the middle ground, now it is expected to offer $20,000+ over with no negotiation at all! Not to mention the prices skyrocketed, so what is in our budget doesn’t exactly offer what we were looking for. Safe to say, it didn’t look promising and our hope was starting to fall…until everything changed.

We finally came across this beautiful, blue, colonial style home with a stunning, lush yard sitting on just over an acre. It even has a natural creek and wooded backyard! Could our dreams be coming true? Garrett, unfortunately, had to fly out prior to the tour of the home, so I had to make this call on my own. Our realtor, Kelly (whom I can’t say enough wonderful things about…seriously, if you need a realtor, I’ll hook you up!), met me at the house and we walked through. From the Brazilian Cherry hardwood floors to the fairly open floor plan, I couldn’t believe this house was in our budget! My favorite part: Literally every window overlooked greenery. There was only one window that looked towards another house, but there was about half the property between that window and house, so it basically wasn’t even there…That’s how that works, right?

After our initial walkthrough, Kelly offered to have me run through one more time, but taking a video for Garrett this time. Brilliant! I was in love with this home, so I was hoping he would be too. My hope panned out! We agreed, I put my offer in, and we crossed our fingers, held our breath, and knocked on wood. Only thing we were missing was the rabbit’s foot…Whatever it takes in that market man, don’t judge us! Before long, Kelly’s name flashed across my phone screen and my stomach immediately did more backflips than I have ever done personally in my life (I used to do gymnastics). Deep breath. With our current streak of luck, she was calling to tell us the owners had declined our offer. Fortunately, I couldn’t have been more wrong! They accepted! After some childish squealing, jumping around, hugs, and the happiest of tears, Garrett and I called our family, texted some friends, and basked in the feeling of bliss. The hunt was over. No more tours (which, admittedly, I still miss because that part is the fun part), no more number crunching, no more decisions, and no more declined offers. Or so we thought.

Mere minutes later, Kelly’s name flashed across my phone screen again, but not with good news this time. Promptly after verbally accepting our offer, the owners had received another offer that was “significantly” more than ours. Of course, we couldn’t know by how much, but our offer was at the ceiling of our budget anyway so it’s not like we could compete. My high from the first call came crashing down. My happiest of tears were replaced by tears of frustration and sorrow. Nothing had been signed, but it still didn’t seem fair. However, we had an absolute rockstar in our corner! Kelly told us to hang tight and she was going to see what she could do while we played a little more number crunching to see what else we could manage to offer. The passing hours were filled with anxiety over losing this house. It wasn’t even mine yet, but it was already so sentimental to me! It had everything I had ever wanted in a house, and it would have made Grandma Jerri so proud. She would have adored it! Isn’t it strange how attached you can get to a house before it’s even yours? I told Garrett that we weren’t to say anything to anyone about this until we knew the outcome. We’d already made that mistake once…there was no use in taking everyone else on this rollercoaster we were on!

Well, call me Cinderella because Kelly wove whatever magic wand she possessed and became our fairy god-realtor! She had reached out to the owners’ realtor and managed to work out a deal that laid in our favor, and the house was now under contract with us! All that stands between us and our new home is a septic tank inspection, home inspection, final loan approval, term agreements, and lots and lots of signatures.