Justin was busy with a big project at work, so the kids and I did most of the searching and reserved only our favorites to show him. Our realtor (a good friend of my aunt) showed us every house we wanted to see, and then some. One of the first houses we saw was in a wonderful, family-friendly neighborhood with a great elementary school nearby. We really liked the area, but the lay-out of the house was not at all what we needed. On the way out of the neighborhood, our realtor pointed to a "For Sale By Owner" sign and suggested I look it up online when I got home. I did, and I really liked what I saw. It was a cute little house that needed some cosmetic work, but no major renovations. It was also about $10,000 more than our absolute max. I knew there was no use, so I didn't even call.
The kids and I spent the next several weeks looking at more houses and then showing Justin the ones we liked. He would mark them off the list one-by-one, and then we would start over. I tend to get a bit excited and overlook the negatives. He's pretty good at reeling me back in and making sure I am seeing things for what they really are.
While we were visiting my parents for Thanksgiving, I sat down in front of the computer to show my mom some of the houses we'd seen. While we were online, we checked the For Sale By Owner website. It was still there, that cute little house in one of our favorite areas...but it had a new price! It was now sitting firmly in our price range (the high end of our range, but still there). We called immediately and set up a showing for the day we got back in town.
I just knew it was perfect for us. Justin took a little convincing, but it wasn't hard. Our realtor generously helped us write up an offer a few days later. We were excited! The seller countered, but we couldn't meet her demands so we had to step back and let the house go. By then it was almost Christmas, and we decided to take a break from the search and see what the new year held.
A few days after Christmas we got a phone call from the owner of the house we thought we'd lost. She'd decided that she could live with most of our original counter-offer, if we were still interested. We hashed out the details on the phone that night and came to an agreement. Justin and I put the new offer on paper and brought it to her the next day. She accepted, and the cute little fixer-upper in the great family-friendly neighborhood was ours!!
