Our soon-to-be house!

So this week has been absolutely CRAZY!  Monday night we called our agent and said we really wanted her to see the house and let us know what she thought of the price.  We were pretty convinced that it was over priced.  We were able to set up a time that night and headed over there while my mom stayed home with the little man.  When N and I got there the couple who owns the house were leaving.  We were a little awkward about the while situation because we didn't know if we were supposed to meet the owners or not.  The woman started walking toward our car as she was heading to hers so we got out and talked a little bit.  She told us some things about the house and we told her how cool we think it is that they have lived there for 55 years.  The man walked out shortly after and we talked about BBZ and our love for their beautiful home.  They were very pleasant and seemed like great people.  We toured the house, which reaffirmed how much we really, really loved it.

Monday night we went home and spent about 3 hours cleaning the poo out of our basement (literally as the cat's litter box in down there).  Our current house is almost 100 years old and the basement is pretty much a utility basement.  It was dirty and unorganized and we made it look 10 times better!  It still needs lots of work, but at least we feel less embarrassed about a stranger seeing it.

So Tuesday I went to work and had a meeting which ran late.  This sucked because N got a call from the realtor that someone wanted to see our house!  On one hand it sucked, but on the other it was great because our house had only been on the website since the morning, so we were pumped!  We went to the park and out to eat with my mom during the showing and came home hoping that the family loved it.  Well, they didn't.  They didn't even come inside.  The realtor told ours that it was because they had 2 little girls and our house is on a pretty busy street.  That was disappointing, but we're keeping up hope that someone will buy it.  Even if they don't, we are in a great place for rental homes and will certainly rent the house if it won't sell.

Our agent then came over Tuesday night and we conjoured up our offer.  We did a lot of digging to try and find comps for the area, but the house was just simply overpriced.  We didn't want to insult this amazing couple, but we also didn't want to overpay for their house.  We ended up offering quite a bit less for the house than they were asking and hoped for the best.

Wednesday was a hard and long day!  I completely convinced myself that we were not going to get the house.  I decided that our house is fine and to take it off the market and wait to sell would be ok.  I was being a pessimist and expecting the worst, so I would be prepared for the worse.  N and I also decided how much our absolute maximum would be and refused to change our minds.  They countered with exactly what we said our max would be.  We raised our offer a little and they countered at a little higher.

We accepted their offer tonight!

So on June 23rd we will be the proud owners of a beautiful home in one of the best school districts in the county!  We are so thrilled and couldn't be happier!  I really do hope we sell our house, but at the same time, we are prepared to rent it out if we need to.  We could actually make some money off of it and wait a year or 2 and the value may even go up!  We have no idea what is going to happen and man, does it feel good!

Here are some pictures courtesy of realtor.com

This is the house from the back.  It sits on .8 acres and feels like a cabin in the woods!

The landscaping is absolutely amazing!  The woman who owns it works for the local botanical gardens and has native state plants throughout the property.

I can just see BBZ exploring these woods with his neighborhood friends!

This is the front of the house, which to me hides the beauty of the backyard.

Here's one from the side that shows the shed that sits behind the carport.  I thought I wouldn't like not having a garage, but this 3-space carport is actually pretty cool.

This is a view of the entry way and the foyer and the great room, which was added as an addition on 1970.

This is the upper level of the big addition.  I love all of the wondows and the view of the back yard.  Can't you just picture how beautiful the snow will be!?!

The dining room and the steps that lead to the original roughed-in basement, which has a workshop and washer/dryer hook-ups.  There is a ton of storage space down there.

The kitchen, which is much smaller than ours, but I think I can deal :)

So that's our soon-to-be house!  There are 2 actual bedrooms upstairs and one very large room that they used as an office.  Off of the office is another room that we could turn into a bedroom if we want to throw some 2x4s and drywall up.  We're not sure which room wil be ours because the bedrooms are smaller than the rooms we have now, but once we're in there I'm sure we will figure it out.  This is crazy and exciting and somewhat hard to believe!  We'll keep you guys posted on how the inspection and appraisal goes...please send any renters or buyers our way!