all is fair in love and house hunting?

The new digs...

A few days after we got the paperwork from DR Horton officially terminating our contract we were able to meet up with our Realtor, John. He got us in to see five of the seven houses we wanted although one already had a contract in on it. The two we originally thought we were going to love, we hated, yet we couldn't stop gushing over one. You guessed it. The one that already had a contract. Turns out the sellers were in the processing of countering an offer thy had received. As the title suggests, we pulled a little Swiper action and snuck our offer on the table in the middle of their negotiations. Later that night we found out that the sellers would be meeting at 11am the next day to make a decision. So we waited. And waited. At 12:30pm we were sure that they went with the other offer.... it had just been too long. But, SURPRISE (insert sarcasm), our real estate agent called around 12:45pm and WE GOT IT!!

There are few more steps like the home inspection and appraisal before closing. Since we know all too well how wrong things can go we are trying not to get too excited before the keys are in our hands... but its hard ya'll! This one just feels right.

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Speaking of our real estate agent(s) if anyone is looking for a house in the Northern Virginia we HIGHLY recommend Century 21 New Millennium specifically John Queeney and Bob Scherbarth. Bob showed us over forty house and wrote 5+ offers in two months. John fought for us throughout the whole DR Horton debacle for over six months and got us this pad. If you want more info about our experiences with Century 21 New Millennium, John, or Bob feel free to message me!

dust yourself off and try again...

I've been holding off on posting for some time about the house because, well, things just haven been a bit of a mess. After we got our permits in mid/late June we thought it would be smooth sailing but we were very wrong. The builder did not begin to pour the foundation for almost another month putting us even further behind on time AND when the foundation was poured it was poured wrong.

See that large window in the middle? Yeah, its not supposed to be there. Not only that but the foundation is missing two smaller windows and the walkout basement. Whoops?!?! The builder assured us it was an easy fix. Several weeks later it still hadn't been corrected and in fact, they and had continued to frame in the wrong window and installed a window well.

Our concerns about the house were growing exponentially. Getting in contact with the sales agent took an act of Congress and when we were able to reach her we heard the same things over and over "I'm not sure. I'll have to get back you", "I will have to discuss that with ______", "I've been really busy so I'm not sure about _____" or "I've been out of the office so I'll have to check with ______". We tried to get contact information for her superiors with no luck and felt totally out of the loop with the plan for moving forward. The straw that broke the camel's back was when we heard about the lumber delays. The lumber wouldn't be arriving until August 15th at the earliest and it would take ninety days from the start of framing for the finished project. Then we would have to wait for the appraisal and closing before being able to move.

All this was quickly adding up to my worst nightmare... having to move with a newborn baby.... while still recovering from the delivery.... in the middle of winter. Thanks, no thanks. I may or may not have cried for the better part of a day while we tortured ourselves over whether to walk away. I'm just going to blame pregnancy hormones.  In the end we felt the best thing for our growing family was to start looking for a new house as soon as possible.

When we tell most people that we walked they want to know if we lost our earnest money, or deposit, and the answer is.... unfortunately, yes. Parts of the contract supported DR Horton's position that they should keep the earnest money and we felt parts supported us. In the result of dispute like this our contract stated we would have to go to arbitration to settle it. But if we went to arbitration we wouldn't be released from the contract to start looking at other houses until the issue was settled. And well, ain't nobody got time for that.

We officially forfeited our money and withdrew the offer on the house this week. Instead of viewing it as six months and thousands of dollars wasted we've decided to view it as divine intervention and an opportunity to find the home we are supposed to be in. Not going to lie, I'm kind of excited to start looking again. 

then we ate ice cream...

...and drank wine in the dark while listening to Taylor Swift and crying into our pillows. I was talking to a friend I hadn't seen in a few months yesterday and mentioned how we were looking at houses. She said her friends just got done with the same process. I asked where in NOVA they ended up moving, to which she replied, "Oh nowhere. They gave up and our just renting for a while". Whomp whomp.

We lost a third house on Monday. A THIRD house. I know, I know I'm moving too fast... let me catch you up. The first house we found was spectacular and we knew it. We made an offer within twenty four hours of it being on the market hoping if we moved fast we might be able to snatch it up. SEVEN OTHER OFFERS.

As perfect as house one was house two was even more so. It was in the IDEAL location (for what we can afford), completely renovated, and even had Ryan squealing like a little school girl. We toured the house the first day on the market, well us and six other couples, all AT THE SAME TIME! We took second in that race.... to a cash offer with no appraisal contingencies.

This third house had the most amazing backyard and was in a neighborhood we liked. We really thought we were going to get this one seeing as we offered  WELL over the asking price. Other people had the same idea only they offered cash and again no appraisal contingencies.

Although we're not ready to throw the towel in yet we are drowning our sorrows in steins of craft beer, eating pad Thai take out, and watching Homeland on demand.

What is your go to sad food/booze? I feel like we're going to have to expand our horizons in order to make it out of this process.





PS. I promise to start being a better blogger and take pictures of these places we see.