I went out with the two younger boys and my niece on Thursday morning and we went hunting for houses. We were escorted by a very helpful and very patient real estate agent. She was armed with a list of approximately 8 houses. Of those 7 were go ahead for visiting as one had to cancel because they had a sick child.
As of this morning, 2 of those are most likely off the list. They have gone into “active option contract” status. This means that they have accepted an offer on the house but it is in the option or contingency period of the contract. It is possible that it may not go to completion, however, until it gets past this inspections we will not know otherwise. In most cases, it will go to completion unless there is something horribly wrong with the house or someone is incapable of getting financing. Fortunately, the 1 that we did not see was one of those “active options contracts.” Maybe I should not say that it is fortunate, but at least I will not know what I am missing out on.
That leaves the list with 6 active houses that we actually saw. Of those, 2 of them were automatically ruled out because they were too small. They would have worked at the size they were if they had what we needed in rooms, but they did not. The one was missing the formal dining room or study downstairs and the other was missing the game room upstairs. They were immediately removed from the list and we moved on. They just were not going to work.
So we are down to the remaining 4 houses. This is fairly decent odds I think. Do not get too excited, however, 1 was removed from the list because it was a little on the small side and it did not get me excited much. It was not a horrible house overall, it just did not shake me up as being something that would fit our needs. Oh and it had clear evidence of having a pet of some sort, namely a cat, so it was removed and we moved on. I did not mention it to the real estate agent that it was for evidence of a cat as it was the last thing I saw in the house, but it was the deciding factor. I was not in love with the house and it was not going to meet all of our needs as well as some of the other houses so off the list it went. Why spend time and effort detoxing a house when you can get another one for cheaper that fits more of the needs better?
So we were left with 3 houses on the list. Of those 3 houses, how do I feel about them?
Well 1 of them, is just an okay house. It does not turn me on much, but I do not hate it. There is nothing spectacular about it.
Of the 2 remaining houses, they come in 1st and 2nd of the houses we looked at. It is a tough call but I will have to make a considerable list of pros and cons for both houses and compare them side by side and weigh them to see which I like best from that. I can honestly say that after I slept on it and went back and just drove back by each of those 2 houses and drove around the neighborhoods, by each of the elementary schools again, and just around the area again…I think I pretty much know which one I would choose hands down. It is not the one that you would think in most circumstances. It just is not. It is even the smaller house of the 2, by a lot. It is the house with less fun features, by a lot. It is just the house that has MORE of the features we want in configurations that are probably the most workable up front.
I do not know which one will win in the end. I just know that right now they are both viable options for right now. One will definitely have my preference, but it does not mean that I cannot be swayed the to the other. It just means that I am leaning in favor of one more than the other. It is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. It just has workable room. Maybe room to change things in the future.
Now we just need to get our house here sold.
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