What a wild ride

This time last month, we were just beginning to pack up the townhouse. Just beginning to to feel the stress this life choice was bringing to our lives. We were just starting to think about what things we needed to bring with us to live in someone else's home for six weeks, what things just needed to be sent to storage. We were beginning to daydream about what our forever home might look like, what features were important for us to have. And by this time next month, we will be settled into that forever home.

After the speedy sale of our townhouse, our agents immediately lit a fire under our house shopping expedition, and sent us through 15 different places. That's a massive number considering the state of Seattle's housing market, but just a tiny fraction of the houses we looked at before buying the townhouse. This weekend, we went and revisited two, finally deciding on one. We made an offer, she accepted with minimal haggling, and we are having our inspection next week. If all goes well, we will close 4 days before we are set to move out of our borrowed home. Bananas.

None of my crazy fears were realized. We found quite a few nice places in our price range.  We didn't end up in a bidding war resulting in an inflated price. And we won't be homeless when our time runs out at the borrowed house. I cannot express how relieved I feel. In the middle of last week, I was very down about the entire process. Our agents kept telling us that all the homes we'd seen the previous weekend had sold with multiple offers and for more than asking (a lot more), and that we needed to be looking at homes with a lower list price. To say those houses were less than desirable would be an understatement.

But none of that happened, and in a few weeks, this will be our new, forever home. Phinney here we come!

The race is on

The inspection is over, we agreed to their terms, and now we can finally put in an offer on a new house, a forever house. Unfortunately, we haven't found said house. EEK! If we get an offer in and accepted this weekend, we still have a chance to close in time to move in before we need to move out of our temporary home. To say I'm worried would be an understatement. I've been looking for rental units, just in case we can't find something, but that market seems to be just as difficult as the for sale market. What is going on in Seattle!! Well, if worse comes to worse, we can still move in, temporarily, with family. If so, I hope we don't drive each other bananas! =-)

I'm in shock

Our first home.

I haven't had a chance over the past week to update on how the move went or about the crazy cleaning spree after the move that required us to shuttle two grumpy, though fairly cooperative, boys back and forth between playdates and grandparents while trying to get a billion and one errands done. It's just been too hectic. But here we are, not even 24 hours after our house listing went live, and we have one offer in (above asking) and another possible offer coming. This is all happening so fast. Maybe too fast? I don't think I'd emotionally gotten to the point of saying goodbye to this house. I expected it to be on the market at least until the open house on Sunday, so when I went to take the garbage out yesterday and there were already two agent's cards on the counter, I was really surprised. When our agent let us know last night that she had received a call from someone looking to put together an offer, we were dumbstruck. Now that there is an offer (which expires at 5pm) and D hasn't even gotten home from preschool, I'm pretty sure my brain is going to explode. Guess we shall see what comes to pass.