I talked with Dad a little bit the other day about the current situation (our bid was rejected for a different house earlier this month). He told me not to be disappointed and assured me that something better would come along, and of course I rolled my eyes and thought, Not likely.
So of course the universe would decide to go and prove Dad right. Not two days after I spoke with him, a new house was listed on the market. The price was a few grand less than our previous bid. I got permission to take a walk around the property and peek into the windows and I ended up doing that twice before Roy and I actually went inside to see it this morning.
It's small, just a few square feet larger than our apartment, but the house sits on about a half acre lot, so there's a large fenced off yard with plenty of room for adding on. Plenty of mature trees, and it's on a short dead-end road so traffic is very light, and just a few blocks away from the elementary school and park. The best bit is that you can't even see the house from the road; it's tucked into a private little corner.
The carpet is horribly stained, the fridge is from 1970 and needs replacing right away, and I'm pretty sure whoever painted the house was on something at the time (and by "on something", I don't mean linoleum... alternating pastel purple, blue, yellow, and green walls on the inside and denim [yes, denim] curtains) but those are all things that won't take too long to rectify now that we have a bit of money saved.
The only downside is that, to be pre-approved for a mortgage, we have to make several repairs to the house out-of-pocket (new gutters, new windows, creating a runoff around the edge of the entire house, getting a new electrical box outside, etc.). For me, this is terrifying, because there's still the possibility that we put weeks of hard work into this place and spend lots of money out-of-pocket, and then don't get the loan (and we've already been told that, if that happens, we won't be reimbursed for any of the labor or costs). It's a huge leap of faith, but we're not going to drop the idea just yet.
Tomorrow we're meeting with our real estate agent and making an offer on the house. I know I've already asked, but if you guys could keep your fingers crossed for us again, we'd appreciate it!
