Rainy Friday

The weather today is totally affecting my mood. Another thing affecting it is the housing market and searching for a home. It really sucks. I was super excited when we started the process, but now it just plain sucks. We have looked at well over 50 houses. They are all just not cutting it. And I'm not just saying "wow, that's an outdated kitchen". We're talking complete and total renovations needed on most of the houses we've seen. We saw one with no kitchen. We saw another with about 20 holes in the ceiling. We saw another one with mold covering the entire basement. The list goes on...

We do not have a long list of requirements for the house we buy. We realize we're just starting out and we don't even want a big house. It doesn't even have to be updated at all. It just needs to be livable and in a good area. We don't mind putting some work into it, but we need to be able to live there while we do the work and alot of these houses are too bad to even live in right away. I don't think our budget is super low, but pretty much everything in our price range is a foreclosure or in a super sketchy area. We did look at one really nice house in our price range...beautiful stainless appliances, huge finished basement, nice yard. And it was about 1/2 block off of one of the sketchiest roads in my town, behind a gas station and a liquor store. While we were touring, I swear we saw a drug deal in the parking lot of the liquor store...right there in the middle of the afternoon on a Sunday.

I think partially I'm just still so upset we didn't get the house we put the offer in on. Totally bummed. It doesn't help that the house is in the same neighborhood we live in now, so I have to walk and drive by it every day. We're not giving up complete hope that they won't change their mind and be a little bit more willing to negotiate with us. We crunched some numbers and we can get within $5,000 of their lowest price, but they still aren't interested in that. J calls their realtor every week and just reminds her we're still here if they want to talk. I guess they are still holding out for a higher offer. I mean, I suppose I can't blame them, but it's frustrating that here we are, ready to go, ready to move in, and they don't like our offer. I think our offer is very strong and we have no contingencies. Blah!

I feel like I know every single house on the market in our area right now. I stalk MLS daily. I immediately know when a house has dropped it's price or a new one comes on...that's how often I check the website. It's pretty sad...maybe I should just get my real estate lisence too!

Sorry for the negative post...I'll be back soon with a happier attitude and more fun stuff to talk about! Happy Friday...enjoy the weekend!

(this is really all we want - a small cute little house to call our own! why is it so hard to find??)