And the winner is...

After 3 months of searching, we FINALLY have a contract on a house. Andrew likes to emphasize that this is still not a done deal, but our offer has been accepted, we've had the house inspected, and the loan is approved. Unless some unforeseen intervention occurs we should be settling on this house in 12 days. Its been an exhausting journey with too many houses, compromises, and details to remember, but here are the highlights of our house hunting process-

House #1: The Handy Man Special

This little gem was located in Sherwood Forest, right off of Locksley Lane, just a couple of blocks away from the Robin Hood swim club...need I say more? Seriously, this neighborhood was amazing. It also had great schools and was extremely close to the metro, which were two of our highest priorities. The average home in this neighborhood was about $200,000 over our price range, so when this foreclosure popped up, we jumped all over it. To say that this was a fixer-upper would be a severe understatement. This home boasted roof damage, water damage, mold in the basement, an 800 year old water heater, and lacked ALL major appliances. In the end we were outbid, and I think Andrew and I let out a sigh of relief once we got over our initial disappointment.

House #2: The Change of Heart

Despite it's rough exterior, this was a great house. Like the previous one, it was located in a very nice neighborhood with fantastic schools. It was also on a 1/2 acre lot, had 4 large bedrooms on the main floor, and one of the nicest basements we saw during our entire search. The downside? It was further out from the city then we would have liked. We made an offer, but after a couple of days we withdrew based off of Andrew's work commute.

House #3: The Stalemate

We never actually made an offer on this home, but I wanted to include it just because Andrew hated it so much. I saw this home first and told our Realtor that I was sure "Andrew would love it". It was cheap, and had most of the other criteria we wanted. Andrew, however, HATED it the moment he walked though the door. I'm still not completely sure why. Maybe this house wronged him in some other life.

House #4: The Heartbreaker

Like a bad break up we've tried to block this one out of our minds. The bottom line is that this was an estate sale which was extremely underpriced. It was a great house, in a great neighborhood, with great schools, at a great price. There were multiple offers and everyone (including us) kept upping their bids while the sellers kept dragging their feet. At one point we were told that they accepted our bid, and while I was faxing back a document to our Realtor, a higher offer came in. It was a sad day when we learned we were outbid.

House #5: The Standup

We initially (naively) thought that a short sale meant that the seller was short on time and wanted to sell their home quickly. That notion could not have been further from the truth. In reality, a short sale means that the owner has to sell at a price lower than what they currently owe on their home- meaning they are short on funds. The tricky part is that with a short sale your offer has to be accepted by both the owner and the owner's bank. On average, this process takes about 60-90 days. Our offer was accepted by the owners, but we waited 2 months (while putting offers on other houses) to hear back from the bank. We never did hear back, because on day 60 we withdrew our offer. This is what leads us to...

House #6: The Winner

And here we have it, our soon to be (fingers crossed) home. While we were waiting for house #5 to go through, house #6 came onto the market. Located in Andrew's brother and parent's neighborhood, this was a neighborhood we loved, but never thought we would be able to afford. When we found this house (a foreclosure), barely within our price range, we told our Realtor we wanted to check it out. The problem? The listing agent did not want this house shown until the next Monday and we were leaving the Sunday before to go to Cape May for a week. Our solution was to sign a contract before we left, and have Andrew's mother and sister-in-law go look at the house for us. If they liked it, then our Realtor would submit our pre-drawn contract. As it turned out, they did like it, and our offer was submitted. About one week later we found out that our offer was accepted on the house we had never seen.

Crazy? Yes, but I'm glad it happened this way. I can't even begin to describe how terrible it is to put an offer on a house and then wait, and wait and WAIT to hear back. It is all you think about. Every time the phone rings your heart stops. You lose sleep thinking about neighbors and projects that need to be done on one particular house. All of this stress, only to find out that your offer was not accepted. It is horrible. Since my mother-in-law and sister-in-law were the ones who saw this house, they were the ones stressing and losing sleep over it. It was a very welcome break for us!

We've since seen the house, and all I can say is that we love it. We're still losing sleep thinking about neighbors and house projects, but at least we know this will be our home.