House Hunting Update

You know you've looked at too many houses when you visit your mom's house and immediately start assessing her living room.

We looked at six houses today. Egads.

Abby has positively loved looking at houses with us. It's an adventure for her. If I'd let her, Abby would run through the house lickty split. She delights in the open spaces and touring room after room, turning corners never knowing what she might find. Hidden closets, hallways with no purpose, rooms with five walls. She even likes the dirty houses. Smashed glass, broken mirrors, dirt in the living room, plants growing on the window sills, you name it. What an adventure for a brave explorer!

Me? I see mold, leaking pipes, stained carpets, asbestos filled popcorn ceilings, structural damage, useless kitchens, unusable spaces, horrible locations, scary neighborhoods, 40 year old roofs, and crumbling chimneys. Between us, Lee and I have come up with a couple deal breakers - items that we absolutely won't tolerate in a new house. Most of the houses we've looked at have three to four deal breakers each. Within moments, we're ready to walk out. Nope, no garage. Nope, right next to a school and we can hear the school bell ringing every 15 minutes. No thank you, the chimney is collapsing. No way, there's a liquor store four houses away. Gawd no! - that cat urine smell will never come out of the walls!!! Gag! (We literally walked in and walked right back out. Then we went home and took showers!)

Lee? He has been the hard @ssed business buyer. He's been doing 99% of the communication with the lenders, the realtors, and everyone else. He's also been doing the bulk of the house hunting, paperwork, and research. When we're in the houses, Abby and I break away from Lee and the realtor to do some serious poking around. Lee discusses buying tactics, good faith offers, closing costs, all that yuck. The realtor walks with Lee around the home, pointing out items of the house that she wants to showcase and generally being distracted from what I'm uncovering. Then Lee and I compare notes on our way to the next house.

Like I said, there's usually multiple deal breakers per house though, so we don't need to delve too much. But there have been a few houses of interest.

It's amazing that when we do stumble upon them, Lee and I agree within minutes. We flash each other thumbs up when the realtor isn't looking. We put in offers on them that day.

So far, absolutely no luck. Our timing has been totally off, I think. But what can we do but keep on trying?

Part of my job is to take photos of the homes - for our reference later when we can't remember the exact cabinet color or if it had the water heater in the garage. I can't tell you how many pictures of toilets I have on my phone now!