Holy Poo!!!

We put an offer on a house!!

Yeah...let me back up a minute. Shawn and I decided that once we got back from our travels this summer, we'd start looking into the idea of buying a home. We met with a realtor that some friends highly recommended, and then we talked with a couple mortgage brokers that she recommended. It took us about two weeks to discuss things with each other (and with Shawn's mom, who's a realtor in Denver) before we decided to let the realtor know that we'd like to work with her and that we were ready to start looking at houses.

On Wednesday, our realtor, Grace, emailed us a couple listings that were in our price range, and we decided to go look at one of them. That evening, Shawn and I drove over to the one that really intrigued us, and we confirmed that it's in a pretty ideal location for us. (Basically, it's close enough to where we live now that Shawn could still ride his bike to work.) When we did our drive-by, we noticed that there were 3 or 4 other people/couples looking at the house. This made me wonder...if we end up liking this house, how quickly will we need to move on it? It seems like a really great deal on paper, and there is obviously a pretty decent amount of interest being shown on this house.

On Thursday, Shawn emailed Grace to ask her that question...and she called him back pretty quickly. She said that she found out that there were already multiple offers on the house, and that the bank had decided to only accept offers until 9:00 that night (it's a bank-owned house). So about an hour later, we met her at the house to take a look around! After looking through it and asking Grace lots of questions, Shawn and I went to a restaurant to get a snack and talk it over. And we decided to go for it! So we called Grace, and she met us at the restaurant with all the paperwork, and we put in what Grace thought was a "strong offer." Wow!

On Friday afternoon, Grace let us know that our offer was definitely in on time, and the listing agent said that at this point, it's up to the bank to decide which offer has terms that they like best...but we're definitely contenders! Unfortunately, they won't let us know anything until sometime on Monday.

So yeah.......we literally have put an offer on the first house we looked at! When we were talking about, we basically decided that it is a pretty darn good financial deal, and although we're offering more than what we had originally intended to spend, we can make it work. There's also LOTS of work that will need to be done on this house...so if we get it, feel free to come visit and help us out! :-) But overall, our main thought is this......if it's God's will for us to get this house, then the bank will accept our offer. If God has something else in mind for us, then we won't get this one. Not a really big deal.

So that's the latest news on our end! We spent the afternoon today wandering through Lowe's, just getting an idea of how much certain things cost (like flooring, kitchen cabinets, countertops, bathroom vanities, tub surrounds, overhead lighting, paint...you know, the basics). I'll let you know when we find something out!