House Hunting

Last weekend we finally decided to pull the trigger and call a realtor. We have been discussing our need to move from this place we're in for quite some time. We love our apartment, but our floors are polished concrete and with Cecelia starting to move it won't work for much longer for us. We decided that it was time for us to look at buying our own home. So on Saturday night we had a realtor come by and meet with us. We chose the criteria most important to us - location and budget - and started to see what was available in that area. We were looking mostly at townhouses and condos close to the LRT stations.
Over the course of the week, we somehow started to take a look at single family homes. We have heard so much about what a waste of money it is to pay condo fees, and so on and so forth, and so we decided to branch out and get pre-approved for dollar number not including condo fees. With that number in mind I started to look at homes. I found one that seemed really wonderful. It was 6 bedrooms total (altthough the basement was basically unfinished, and 3 of them were down there), two bathrooms, an updates kitchen, plenty of space, in our current neighbourhood, and close to the LRT. It seemed perfect, so I went and took a look at it, and it really was. I got so excited about it, it was all I could talk about for a couple of days. I convinced Eric to go and take a look at it too, and then we were both in love. We came home though and started to work on the numbers...This was at the top of the number that we'd been approved for, and working on the figure, we just could not be comfortable with that number. It was too tight.
The rest of the week I just had this nagging feeling that this was our house though, and I couldn't shake it. I thought about it over and over, all day long. I tried and tried to come up with ways to make the numbers work in my mind. I finally called my mom and tried to talk it over with her. Being married to an accountant sometimes makes me feel that he has the final say in all our financial decisions. It makes me kind of feel like I don't carry much weight, but I just could not shake the feeling I had - something I knew would be hard for Eric to understand and take seriously. So I chatted with my mom for quite some time, and we finally developped a solid plan - we would put in an offer at a lower price, use the rest of the amount we'd been approved for to renovate, and create a second suite in the basement of the house. The house was perfect for it, and it was a great plan. I was so excited about it - I worked all afternoon that day on a sales pitch to my husband. (I even practiced it on my brother-in-law and his girlfriend.) When I got home (it was a Friday night) Cecelia was asleep and so I put her in bed and said to Eric "I really need to talk to you about something". Then I just laid it on him - all about how this was a risk, but I think it was worth it; this could be our chance to get ahead, when he's a bit afraid we'll always be behind; this was something that would be exciting and teach us so much and we really good for us and our family. He was actually sold. He had to mull it over in his mind for the evening and into Saturday morning (which was killing me), but he was pretty much convinced. I felt so good about the whole experience and was so ready to proceed - so excited about my new found courage and determination.
We took the idea over to Eric's dad - who is very logical and thorough in the planning stage of things - and asked for his advice. I said to Eric on the way over "can we please just take your dad's advice as advice, and not as absolute truth. We'll talk it over with him, but then the decision is ours to make." He agreed. Well, Trevor was just as sold as Eric - probably more. We chatted for a little while, and he said "let's go - you guys should put an offer in". We called our realtor to go see it one more time. We brought the whole family this time. Verona even did cart wheels in the living room - which is what I did in the first house my parents bought when I was little. I was so excited, and so at peace. This was our home.
We went home for Thanksgiving dinner with the family and decided we would write up the offer that night after dinner. That was a fun experience - writing up an offer on our first home. There was so much to go over, and so many details to consider. It was a good thing we had a realtor who understood it all there with us. It was very nerve wracking.
Then we got the call...an hour after he left we got the call that someone else had put an offer in right before us and it had been accepted. My heart sank - I was so upset and disappointed. How could that be? It felt so right. The house sat on the market for a couple of months, and was at the new price for 25 days before we got to it. Then all of a sudden someone decided on the same day as us that it was their house - and it couldn't be ours anymore.
We decided to negotiate a back-up offer in case that one fell through at the conditions stage. We went back and forth for a little while, bu the seller just wouldn't budge on her numbers. We wouldn't have been able to afford it at that price anyway, so I guess it just wasn't going to happen for us.
I spent that night and the next day feeling like this was still our house - something was going to happen - some miracle. But it didn't - and it probably won't - and that's okay. We were fasting for this, and so was our family, but this was someone else's turn to find their dream home instead. We will just have to keep looking for ours.
This was not a wasted pursuit though - I learned a lot about myself and about my feelings and about trying to communicate and share those with my husband. This little adventure brought us closer together and strengthened our relationship - and that is nothing to be disappointed about.