Well That Was Fast

House, la-di-da!  La-di-da house!  La-di-da-di-da-da!!!

Well, it's official.  We're officially under contract.  I never thought in all my dreams that the process would go this fast.  Honestly, it's been less than a month.

Towards the end of December, but really after the new year, Hans and I secretly started looking at houses.  We spent a bit of time on realtor.com trying to get a good range of prices and basic ideas of areas.  Then we found a house we liked.

I called the realtor for that house January 4th (I remember because it was Mom's birthday), and he arranged a meeting with Diana Morgan (a fellow realtor) so we could see the house.  The house we saw was a short-sale, and while lovely, we decided to keep it on our list of possibilities and to keep looking.  Really, who buys the first house they look at??

Diana Morgan, realtor to the gods, was absolutely fantastic.  She set us up with a personalized website to show listings that had everything we were looking for, and she was there to answer any questions we could possibly have.  By January 9th we had a list of favorites and were going on a few showings.

Out of the seven houses we looked at that day, one stuck in our minds.  It was b-e-a-utiful.  However, by the next week it was sale pending.  Oh well, we said, we'll keep looking and hope that sale falls through.  We gathered another list of 7 houses and decided to go see them.

January 21st, two days before we were set to view houses again, I got an email from Diana saying that the wonderful house was no longer sale pending.  The sale had fallen through.  Yay!  There was a strong possibility we would get that house with the perfect bathroom and the great kitchen.  We added it to our list of houses to see, but decided to see it last so we wouldn't compare every other house to it.

January 23rd (yesterday) we set out to look at houses again.  All were lovely, and it was much harder to scratch houses off the list than it was last time.  We saw a variety of houses, from a poorly renovated farm house to a city house with a stripper pole (that was quite a shocker).  Again, however, there was a house that stood out...and it wasn't the one we'd seen before.

Yes, we still loved that one, but there was another nearby that was larger and cost less.  We figured it wouldn't last long, so we called Diana last night (who was available even late on a Saturday) and said, "Let's do it!"  She met us at the theatre (Hans had to work) today, a Sunday, to write up an offer.  Hans was under a time crunch, so Diana was great by being thorough but quick.  We signed the papers and she sent them in.

Then around 8:30 this evening, Diana called me.  We already had a counter-offer and it was close to our original offer.  We countered again and got it!!  Now we have to worry about loans, inspections, and other paperwork, and that will be a fairly lengthy process.  Still, though, assuming everything goes as planned, we should be closing on our first home by the end of February.  So, I must ask, "How did that happen so fast?"  The answer?  Diana Morgan is freakin' fantastic!