House-hunting sucks.

Such a chaotic weekend it was!...first the wreck, and then on Saturday my friend Cheryl called me all a-bubble about a house that had just come back on the market.

The house belongs to friends of Cheryl's boss, and the buyer's financing fell through, so the house was re-listed on Saturday.

As chance would have it, we were right in the neighborhood when Cheryl called, so we headed off to look at it, and it's wonderful--nice neighborhood, lots of amenities--a real "apple-pie" house. down to the maple tree by the front porch. But at the very tip-top end of our price range. A squeak beyond the tip-top end, actually.

And although we've been talking about calling another realtor and starting another house-hunt (we pursued it briefly in February-March), we hadn't gotten around to doing it yet. So Saturday was spent tracking down an agent, running mortgage/house payment numbers, and bringing our checking account up-to-date. We were balancing statements from November forward--how sad is that? We're slackers, what can I say.

Sunday while I was at work, Todd got the scoop on the house and talked to a banker about getting us pre-approved, which was no problem. The house situation, on the other hand, is complicated...apparently the current buyer has until October 9 to come up with the cash shortfall that prevented her from being able to close.

We met with our new real estate agents on Monday, and Todd went over to look at the house with them after work--however, five or six other agents and clients decended on the house while they were there. So much for the inside scoop.

This disheartened me greatly...we can afford to offer the list price, but not a cent more, which doesn't make us very strong against so much competition. I felt that writing an offer was a waste of time, but we sat down and did it anyway. In our favor, we can close on the house right away, and our financial situation is excellent--good credit scores, good pre-approval, etc. But if anyone offers them five, six, seven thousand more than the list price (not uncommon in this market) then we can't compete.

Without telling the story of our past few years, I'll just say--we have terrible house karma. The house gods hate us. St Joseph has us at the top of his shit list. So I am not expecting much from this venture, even though Cheryl tells me that she and her boss are calling the house "Janelle's house." LOL. Our agent dropped off the offer last night and 24 hours later we still haven't heard anything. But if nothing else--this has pushed us into finding agents, getting pre-approved, seeing a new neighborhood, and starting the process. I wish I didn't dread it so much!