quickly

late yesterday afternoon, we got buff's place! there is so much more to the story, which i will share when i have some time to sit down and write this weekend. but we are both excited, nervous, and exhausted.

and for those of you that think this is now the "shortest blog ever" because we found our home...well, you really don't know me very well then. :)

happy icy road wednesday,
doreen

early morning thoughts

i realized last night that one of my favorite things about blogging back when i was doing this for my wedding was having my webmaster/editor call me and laugh at me whenever i sent her my current update. anita also served as my filter in many cases -- like right now...if anita were still my webmaster, i would think twice before send this to her to post, probably would have chosen not to waste every ones time. but i am on my own now (evil smile), and here i am at 4:21am writing a random blog for a couple of reasons:

1. i got up extra early to write an article for work...that isn't going so well because
2. i think that the local international airport was using a different runway last night and we had planes and possibly helicopters flying over our apartment complex starting at 2am (or it could have been the ambien i took that was making me hallucinate...or maybe it was aliens...either way, they were loud!)...and
3. we have new neighbors that just moved in upstairs that have no clue how to live in a shared community (like an apartment) because they were planning guitar hero loudly until after midnight...and now i think they are vacuuming again (it is 4:24am people!!!).
4. and of course there is still the fact that we are waiting for our agent to get back to us about buff's place.

quick update on that (because that is why i am here, to vent about house hunting...not the fact that i am over renting with college students or stupid people).

so friday we put in our offer on buff's place. we didn't hear back from the seller's agent until sunday morning with a "non-counteroffer" -- my definition of a non-counter offer is when the seller comes back with the asking price and no help towards closing or the very generous offer of upping the asking price and offering some pennies towards closing. we countered their non-counteroffer by slightly increasing our original offer.

buff's place held an open house on sunday, and afterwards the selling agent came back with a counter-counteroffer, with which we waited until yesterday to counter back to them with "we are not going any higher than we already have".

we gave them until today (tuesday) around noon to get back to us.

probably not getting this house. bummed but just want to move on already. this process sucks and i can't imagine another three months of looking for homes.

wait...it is silent in the apartment...kind of spooky. i think i am going to go play wii bowling at top volume and see how the kids upstairs like it (or maybe i should start writing that article for work...hmmm...).

happy hunting,

doreen

there is more to the story, but here is where we are at

i started to write back blogs explaining how we got to today -- which i promise i will do -- but today has been pretty crazy for us. actually this week has been such a roller coaster.

here is a quick summary and update on where we are at:

• total houses we have seen since january 3rd: 15
• number of offers made: 2
• number of homes we own: 0

we sit here on the couch after spending part of our day going to open houses in the area, trying to keep our mind off our current situation. on thursday evening after touring buff's place for a second time, we went back to our real estate agents office to put together an offer. the price had dropped since our initial tour and we felt that our offer was strong enough to at the very least start a conversation.

after leaving her office after 10:30pm, we got cold feet because we were still hopeful that something would change regarding area 51, a home that we made an offer on a week earlier and really loved. we asked our agent to let us sleep on things, and on friday afternoon after many conversations and analyzing everything (and hearing back from area 51's listing agent that the deal was done and we were out) we decided that we were ready to make an offer on buff's place.

friday night was miserable. we both just kind of sat around and over thought everything. saturday morning when we woke up we were even more stressed, waiting to hear from our agent and see where we stood. at this time we also noticed that buff's place was planning on having an open house this weekend (today - sunday) and realized that they may make us wait until after the open house to see what offers they might get.

saturday evening our agent called to let us know that the buyers wanted a couple more hours to think about the offer, and that we should expect to hear something on sunday morning. so after another sleepless night, we wake to just waiting around to see what happens. we were planning on spending today out with our agent looking at listings (before we decided to make an offer on buff's place) but of course, we canceled our outing while we waited. dave and i didn't want to get distracted while we waited to see if this amazing home would be ours.

a little information about buff's place:

• brick front interior unit townhome in a small community in a great school district
• 3 bedrooms with ceiling fans and vaulted ceilings
• 2 1/2 bathrooms (master bathroom, guest full bathroom, 1/2 bathroom in the basement)
• eat in kitchen
• separate dining room
• wood floors throughout the main level
• finished walkout basement family room with new carpet

sunday early afternoon dave got a call from our agent, marge (i had decided to make a coffee run for myself and drive around to just clear my head). the listing agent had presented our offer and the owners would only accept the listing price on the house, and no assistance with closing...or they would take a higher offer and minimal assistance with closing. basically, they weren't willing to negotiate. and, the seller was unwilling to make any updates if the inspection came back with "red flags", specifically radon (something that evidently is pretty common...scary).

about 10 minutes ago we spoke to our agent and made a counter-offer. we split the difference which is as high we are willing to go. this past week has been so frustrating...buyers market my butt!

that's it for now! i will work to update the back story to all this later, but right now i really need a bourbon & coke...double.

happy hunting,

doreen

intro to house hunting with doreen and dave

i have spent the day trying to figure out how to start this. so much pressure to make this as much fun as the wedding blog (seriously, i am losing it). i can only hope that this "adventure" ends as well as the wedding adventure did.

so here we are. i know one person is reading this (what's up kenzie!), so i guess i will get started with how we got to this point in our lives.

dave and i spent our one year anniversary meeting our new real estate agent - marge. we loved her as soon as we met her, and we started our adventure that same day. we have been following the real estate market online (realtor.com & zillow.com have become addictive), and we were ready to put all that we had learned to practice with finally looking at homes. we were so naive.

this is our house hunting story...good and bad...funny and depressing...crazy and boring. take it or leave it. i am not making you read this, you choose to waste your time reading my run on sentences and listening to me freak out about the process that hgtv and tlc make look like such a happy experience. they are crazy. i have yet to see people on house hunters, my first home, property virgins, etc. break down in tear or scream at their husbands because of something as trivial as counter tops in a kitchen or the age of a roof.

it is also important to note the following:

• i will not be talking about work or my employer. i love what i do and who i work for. yes, everyone has bad days and i am sure that i am a little more stressed out because of the career i have chosen. oh well.
• i will control my language. promise. it will be hard and it will allow me to break out my thesaurus for creative ways to express myself, but maybe i will learn something in the process.
• please leave my grammar alone. i write as i speak. this isn't for a grade, soliciting a donor or trying to win the pulitzer prize. just pretend that we are having a phone conversation or chatting online, ok?
• dave will not be posting on this site. yes, the site is named "the adventures of doreen and dave" but dave has no interest in this blog or any blog. proof is that i am still waiting for him to write our honeymoon blog -- waiting for 375 days to be exact.
• in place of addresses, names and other items that could hurt me or others, dave and i have created nicknames for things. you will see us talk about homes with names like "yellow ghetto", "area 51" or "old marianne". we want to protect the innocent from my insanity and my need to vent online to others.

now i can get started. sorry for my bitter tone, but this post is coming on the eve of...well...i don't want to ruin the surprise....i am a little late in getting this story started, we are actually already deep in the process of our search, but i will get you caught up quickly so you can be here with us real-time when everything either falls apart or we find our first home...

happy hunting,

doreen

coming soon

hello friends and others!
i am working on my first post for this site...all about our adventure of purchasing our first home.
happy weekend!
doreen