Home Sweet Home...finally!

Well, we finally did it. Just when we thought we wouldn't get "the perfect house", it fell into our laps.
It was listed on the MLS site around 2 pm on 4/21, and in less than 32 hours it was ours.
Granted, we had three other offers on three other houses over the past month, but none of those can hold a candle to this one; it is the perfect home for us. I know people say that all the time, but it really is perfect.

The first house we put an offer on is beautiful. It is big, it is updated, the basement is great, the appliances are nice... The yard was small, but it was great. The problem was, it is "owned" by an investment company who never registered themselves as owners of the house. If you don't own the house for 90 days, you can't sell it. At least, you'll never find a bank to loan someone the money to buy it. Because the sellers made a big mistake in selling it to an investor who won't register ownership (no one knows why not), that house will never sell. At least, not anytime soon.

The second house was really nice too. It was a two-story house with a nice yard, perfect location and only a basement that needed some work. We really liked it, but there were some projects to do as far as fixing things up, and the neighbors across the back yard had a hideous above-ground pool. We would've wanted to build a fence.
At any rate, we really liked it and wanted to try to make it ours, and work on the updating over the 10-30 years that we'd live there. Unfortunately, there was another offer being negotiated when we made our offer. Our agent said that the ethical thing to do would be to give us and the other buyer a deadline for our best offer. What actually happened was that the seller used us as leverage to get a better offer from the original buyer. We got used. It feels dirty.

The third house is one that we've looked at for weeks. It has the worst bathroom I've seen in a nice home. To make a long story short, someone took a full bath, split it in two and put a closet 1/2 bath in the master bedroom. This ruined both bathrooms and created a $10-15K project for anyone who wants a normal bathroom on the main floor of their house. The rest of the house is beautiful, large and in a great neighboorhood-with a great yard. Aside from a few touch-ups (and the disaster bathroom), it's a great house. Jenne and I convinced ourselves that we could take on the huge project of the bathroom and made an offer.
The house is listed at $199,900. Due to the huge project, we went very low and offered $179,900 and seller paying 3% for closing costs. We expected a counter-offer in the middle. Our counter offer was $199,900 and seller paying 3% closing costs.
We countered with $185,000, minus $3,100 for closing (which is what our lender assured it would cost). The seller countered that with $197,000, minus $3,100 for closing.
We walked and wished that basket-case luck in selling her house.

Just like in Goldilocks, this house is just right. There is almost 0 work to do on this house. There is a functional bathroom in the basement that needs new walls, but otherwise...ZERO WORK to be done! It's the right price, it's under a mile to Jenne's school, it's a great neighborhood, it has a great yard, great patio, new everything, cool basement...
It's perfect and we are so happy it's ours!

(You are all welcome to come see it after we move in at the end of June).

We'll announce the house-warming party in the months to come.