House Hunters

My favorite Shelly is looking for a house, and she's blogging about it.
We were pretty seriously house hunting last year and then broke it off.
For a lot of reasons I haven't really blogged much about our house hunting adventures; but Shelly inspires me to share.

Anyway, we're back at it. The recent drop in blog postings is directly proportional to my obsessive focus on house hunting.

HGTV's house hunters would never pick us; we don't just look at 3 and choose one. We're cheap and somewhat choosy.

February 1st I started searching online listings, making spreadsheets, looking up tax records, researching schools, and visualizing massive remodels for potential homes.
Our family has been out looking at houses with our agent until well past dark several times.

We're looking for the inexpensive houses because that's our budget. We're not afraid of renovations, provided the house is right and the price is right and the neighborhood too. Thus, for us, the short sale and foreclosure market is great. Foreclosures have the advantage of moving a bit quicker.

We're looking for detatched single-family homes with at least 3 beds. We're hoping for 4-5 bedrooms and 2-3 baths. We would like a garage; but we will probably not get one. We would like a basement, which is fairly common in the area we're choosing.

The property taxes in this county are very high, the schools are not great, and we can't figure out why there are so many people willing to live here; but we feel like this is where we are supposed to be; so here we are.

In six weeks we've seen more than 50 houses and prepared to make offers on 7. We showed up too late on 5, got outbid on one, and we're crossing our fingers on another.

Yesterday we submitted our offer. We're the first to offer on this Short Sale - and we're offering exactly at the asking price. The house has been on the market since December, and they have dropped the price about every other week.

It's classified as a rambler with 3 beds and a bath upstairs and another bed and bath in the basement. Built in the 50s, the Kitchen is pretty old, as are the bathrooms; but seem to be in decent shape.

Wish us luck. I'll share some of our experiences with you as we continue with our quest for a home of our very own. And anybody in need of a great realtor in the DC metro area, [MD DC or VA] I can recommend a terrific agent.