Shhh... Be Vewy Vewy Quiet! We're Hunting Houses!

I was just pre-qualified by my loan officer to go house hunting, and Friday I was going to look at houses with my realtor. I'm a first-time home buyer, and the excited anticipation of Thursday night almost did me in. I'm very lucky my realtor was looking out for me.

I was positively drunk on possibility and sleep deprivation, so while I had driven through the area of the first house before, and noticed it wasn't the best neighborhood, I didn't want to completely knock it down. After all, it had a lot of square footage and it was in my price range! It could be mine!

It was on a hill. The whole back yard slanted. The weirdly shaped addition to the back where the two main bedrooms were had floorboards that creaked so loud you could hear them throughout the house. There were 5 entrances into a house that was located in an area where police raid escapes might be a necessity. There was no obvious place to put a fridge.

I tried to look at its potential. It's quirky! Not a whole lot of through traffic! Look at all the square footage! Firepit! Gazebo! The garage has barn doors! Right next to a mountain park!

Meanwhile, my realtor is all, " I think this building should be condemned. There's serious metal fatigue in all the load-bearing members, the wiring is substandard, it's completely inadequate for our power needs, and the neighborhood is like a demilitarized zone."

Reluctantly, I had to agree with her, and we moved on to the next house on our list for the day. And kept on driving, because of the dicey neighborhood and the fact the house was on the corner of a busy main road (always check the area before scheduling a showing folks, to prevent wasting your time and your realtor's). Dr. Spengler called out a cheerful "Good Luck!" to the real estate agent sign in the yard and we moved on to house #3.

House #3 was in the neighborhood I really fell in love with when I first decided I wanted to buy a house back in April, so I had high hopes. Agent Realist pointed out the bullet holes in the large kitchen window, the missing stove (FHA would not approve it without one), and the weird floor plan. Again, no obvious place to put a fridge... and the backyard was the heart-breaker. The dilapidated, four foot high wood fence was falling down in sections and completely missing in others. I have dogs, so before I could even move in I would need to rebuild the fence (preferably taller, since there was NO privacy), along with buying the missing appliances and replacing a window. I don't really have that kind of money.

All I wanted to do was keep driving, hoping we could find something for sale that wasn't already under contract that maybe just hadn't hit our listings yet. I was approved! I wanted to buy a house that day! We drove around a little bit, but sadly, there was no luck there.

That evening I combed the listings again, hoping to find something else to go look at. I had to work on Saturday, but I was off Sunday and Monday, so I could still look some more this weekend!

To Be Continued...