HouseHouseHouseHouseHouse

My kids were cute today, but I can't even post anything about our fabulous day because we're waiting to hear about a house (THE house), and it's all I can think about.

I was going to ask for good vibes, but then I felt selfish so please, send good vibes to Haiti and the White House and sick children everywhere. But maybe cross your fingers for us. :)

UPDATED: When It Rains It Pours {Alternatively Titled: Down To Three Hours of Sleep For All The Imagining}

If you can't tear yourself away from my updates on the Petoskey real estate market and how it affects my family daily, you're really going to love this. We now have options:

A
B
C
D
E-F
G

We're waiting on homeowners to tell us a thing or two about A and B. Once they do, we will move as fast as humanly possible to make an offer on either. They both need lots of work, but it's work we're willing to do.

We're also waiting for something, we don't know what, to move C into availability, and we hear it might be just around the corner. If C comes around, we have no doubt, and there's no work.

D seems nice and might be perfect, but is about two blocks outside of where we want to be.

E and F are two houses that are being sold under our price range, and we could live in one and rent the other. Might be a smart option. In an OK location. We haven't been inside yet.

G is probably nothing, but we're going in anyway, just in case.

But here's the biggest question: Once we do buy a house, should we name it the letter I've assigned it here? Or should we name it Can You Even Believe We Almost Bought The Yellow House And Missed This One?

UPDATE: A and C are out. Boo.

Moving On

Now that the yellow house mess is over, I thought I should hop on and officially note that we are moving on, and happy to do so. We're finding that we're relieved to just have something answered, be progressing somehow and not waiting for this. We feel like we're waiting for lots of things -- houses to come on the market, people to get back with us, our own closing -- and this one is done. So we're positive, and we're sleepless wondering which house we might like, which one we might obsess over next, when the Right One will appear, which is all good stuff.

I just didn't want my most recent post to be so needy and negative. :)

It's also Trevor's birthday today, and we spent the day doing a scavenger hunt for his gifts downtown (gotta love a small town that gets into a joke-telling, gift-finding party) and... talking about houses. His parents took the girls all day, and we imagined and dreamed and then ate and drank and walked and shopped. And it was so fun to hear which people were shocked that he's 32 (average guess = 27) and which people were shocked that he's only 32. Interestingly, the people we tend to hang out with and love being around most were those who thought he was older. So the lesson, boys and girls, is to act older than your age. Or, grow a gnarly beard for your "Guys' Cabin Weekend" and look like you're fresh out of the mountains on your way to the processing center to pick up your jerky. Wives love that.

Deadline + UPDATE

Last week we put an offer in on the yellow house. It was low, but very fair; in fact, it was just about what we are ultimately willing to pay -- not much riff-raff with counters and such -- because we did our research and we know what the home is worth. It's actually worth a bit less, but at $99,000 less than asking, we didn't want to be insulting.

Anyway, we put it in, along with our research, along with the actual bids for what it will cost to make the house safe.

We gave the sellers a deadline to get back to us with their thoughts on our offer. That deadline is... today.

So now we're waiting, waiting, waiting, constantly checking the phone (did I miss a call? Would we get an e-mail about it instead? Better check again, again, again).

Trevor called to tell me that he drove around to eyeball the homes our Realtor suggested we go through next week, assuming they go on the market. He was enthused, but cautious. Because we could get a good answer today. We may not. We have butterflies over this.

Last night while we were folding clothes together, we talked about what we'd do if we got the house. Just after closing we'd go to the house with our kids' big roll of white paper, a Sharpie and painter's tape. We'd go into each room and make giant list of what needs to be done and tape it on the wall, so if either of us has an extra half-hour in our day we could stop by and rip out the built-ins or paint some trim, or whatever. We decided that, if they accept our offer or something close to it, we will in fact put an addition on the back. Will we be house poor? What if we can't afford it? Is it worth it?

Playing a minor role here is the closing of our Cedar Creek house, which has been occupied by the buyers for two months now but is still not technically theirs, because of all the new and ever-changing bank requirements that are holding up our closing by simply existing; causing everyone involved to go get this, now this, nope, need this now, sorry, now we want this document. Our buyers are good, capable people. They are not sketchy buyers; they do not have a random history. They have great jobs and are a super family. How frustrating that our banking system has done this to them, to us, so that we cannot all just move on and become better-contributing people in this touch economy. We want to! We can! Let us!

So I will be here all day, aside from a few requirements keeping me out of the house, during which I'll hold my phone tightly and keep it on vibrate so I know, I KNOW I won't miss a call.

UPDATE: Well, we heard. A resounding NO, followed by a few jabs at our brother-in-law (an attorney, who helped us put together and send out an offer) intended for us, claiming that they were insulted by our offer and that under no circumstances would they ever sell us their house, ever, because we thought so little of it. Way to take it personally. Anyway, while I am a little bit heartbroken, at least our answer was definitive. There will be no negotiations, no wondering if we should stretch our budget more, no wishing we could have done it. It's just over, in kind of a mean way, so we're closing the book on it.

I'm Confused and Obsessed, And I'm Taking You Down With Me

Go on, take it... Everything will be perrrfectly fineeee...

We are officially house hunting. Our big plan, once we sold our house, was to build on some land downtown that Trevor's parents own, that we want to buy from them. But as we plotted our house, we realized that we could do better financially by buying something at these crazy low rates.

How hard could that be? (Cue eye-rolling from any reader who's house-hunted in his or her lifetime.)

Our main request is that the house be in downtown Petoskey. We would like it to be on the northeast side of downtown Petoskey if possible. We would like for it to be incredibly charming. We would like it to cost zero dollars.

We are learning that looking in the winter, specifically around Christmas or New Years, is a poor choice. Apparently most sellers list in the spring (ahem, like we did), and aren't overly concerned about people who need to be out of their rental in May.

We have great Realtors. Our forever Realtor is a family friend, and another friend recently became a Realtor, and they are both actively suggesting and re-suggesting houses for us. Which is helpful, except we aren't loving the houses and that probably doesn't make their day. And they are our friends, and we sometimes feel badly for shooting them down and being picky. But, you know, our house.

We have fallen completely in love with a yellow house on the main drag in downtown Petoskey, surrounded by lots of lovely, large, historic homes that people love and take care of. It needs A LOT OF WORK. But we're oddly excited by this, probably because it means we can make it into something even more fabulous, in our own little nerdy ways. Built-ins! Hidden staircase! Tiled entry reminiscent of 1895 grandeur! It really is calling us, making us absolutely sick with wanting to own it. We are being 16-year-olds about it, and it is being the newest style of Guess jeans.

It's a for sale by owner property, and we've dragged the poor owner over there more times than she'd care to go, we think, but we can't. stop. There are only two things holding us back from making an offer on it tomorrow:

1. It's pretty pricey, considering what needs to be done inside, and since it's FSBO, no Realtor is telling the owner that the price is too high. We are armed with a stack of comparables and bids for what it will take to bring the home up to working order, but each time we visit it we're told how it's such a gem, that nothing needs to be touched, they lived there for 40 years and never lifted a finger because it's perfect.

2. Our Realtors keep telling us there's something better just around the next turn. While the street that the yellow house is on is fine -- the main drag, yes, traffic, yes, PARADE ROUTE, YES -- we don't mind so much. One of our Realtors in particular thinks it's a bad pick, claiming that no one will want to buy it from us if they have a family or a dog, but... we have a family and a dog, and we love it. But now we're wondering, are we just so infatuated with it that we can't see that it's a bad spot?

Also, there are three streets we'd prefer, anyway, and our Realtors believe there are a couple of options coming up on them. Problem is, we need a new home soon, and they're not listed yet. While it's nice to think our Realtors might push these people along just for us, it's not very realistic. And what if, while we're waiting for these mystery houses to pop up, the yellow house sells?

So, what to do? What would you do? I'll tell you what we do. We scour the MLS almost obsessively (which does not change, ever), talk about the yellow house constantly, drive those three gilded streets every other day, wondering if that house could be one going on the market? Eeew, what if it's that house? OMG, it could just as easily be that house!

Tonight I sent an ad over to the local newspaper, with a HOUSE WANTED headline and a DOWNTOWN PETOSKEY address. Will we get anything interesting? I kind of think so. We've already had three people call us with homes they'd like to sell but haven't listed, because they've heard from a friend we're in the market. And we don't even know these people. Small town, indeed.

I think we mostly want a reading of our future. "There will be a house you love on the perfect street. You will be able to afford it. It will make you happy. Just freaking relax."