That’s an email we got from our realtor (who rules, in case you couldn’t tell) on Monday night about Brown House. I guess the other deal they canceled us for fell through, and now they want us to buy the house again. TOO BAD, suckers. We’ve moved on.

We close on Green House at the end of the month. I’m starting to get excited. I’m flying up to Seattle tonight for an interview, and plan to swing by the house tomorrow afternoon to take measurements and pictures and etc. I want to figure out where to put our couch, which room to use for guests, can we fence off a portion of the basement for the cats?

I can’t believe we’re only seven weeks away.

I was exhausted after the ordeal with Brown House, especially after they came back to us last week and declined our best and highest offer.

(It makes me wonder if there was truly a better offer than ours, or if they simply didn’t want to work with us. My guess is it’s the latter.)

In better news, our third choice in our house hunt (after Pink House and Brown House) was still available. So we put in an offer. And they said yes.

The Green House, as we’re calling it, is right around the corner from Pink House. In fact, they share a portion of their back fences. It has southern exposure in the living area, which will be fantastic given Seattle’s cloudy climate, and a wonderful open layout with a totally redone kitchen and hardwood floors.

I’m not excited. I’m happy, but not excited. I feel like it takes energy to be excited, and I used all of that being mad at the Big Bad Bank over the Brown House debacle.

But what I am experiencing is relief. We’re under contract. We had the inspection done, and there are no major issues. And we’re prepared to close at the end of January.

This will be a very happy twenty-eighth birthday to me, indeed.

We’ve been home from Seattle for a week. In that week, our lives have been turned upside down by the real estate market and all the bullshit that goes along with it.

Here’s how the story goes: We put offers in on both the Brown House and the Pink House. Pink House came back and said they would accept our offer (which was, at that point, in contention with another offer) if we’d bump it up to full price (fifteen thousand dollars more than what we offered) and paid our own closing costs (which we can’t afford). So we walked. Meanwhile, Brown House came back and said they wanted full price. So we countered, and they countered, and we eventually settled at just under the original asking price, with the Brown House seller (a bank) paying our closing costs.

We’re excited. We have an accepted offer on a house we like and we’re ready to move forward and sign some paperwork to lock this baby down. But then the bank comes back and says, “We need you to pre-qualify for a loan with us in order to purchase this home.” Um, excuse me? We’re already pre-qualified with a reputable local lender, and doing another pre-qual might ding our credit to the point where we would lose the mortgage rate we’re currently approved for. So we tell them, “No, we’re not going to pre-qual with you, we’re happy where we are.” And that’s when they come back and say, “Then we’re not going to sell you this house.”

This blew my mind – that they would give up a sale because we were pre-qualified elsewhere. Our realtor informed me that while they can, in fact, legally require us to pre-qualify with them (and even use them as our lender) in order to move forward with the sale, that stipulation needs to be in the MLS listing. And it wasn’t. So technically, they’re in violation of the law. And we could sue them, but it’s expensive, and they know we won’t bother. So basically, the Big Bad Bank can do whatever the fuck they want.

We go back and forth with Big Bad Bank for a few days. Our realtor explains to everyone and their mother over there that the requirement wasn’t in the listing, we have an accepted offer, and they can’t just spring requirements on us after the fact. No one at Big Bad Bank cares. And so finally, we give in. We agree to pre-qualify with them. We even agree to use them as our lender, which will now apparently be necessary in order to get those closing costs they originally agreed to pay for. We’re not happy, but we’re complying. We want this house.

And then late last night, our realtor called. Big Bad Bank cancelled our offer. THEY CANCELLED IT. The offer that they accepted, that we were ready to move forward with, was suddenly null and void.

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!

Several other offers came in while we were fighting with them about the pre-qual we didn’t want to (and legally didn’t have to) do, and they’re willing to consider a best and final offer from us in competition with those other offers.

Dan and I were livid. We contemplated sending in a “best and final offer” that consisted simply of a piece of paper on which “FUCK YOU” was written. But the reality is, we need a place to live. We want this house. And even offering ten percent over asking (which is what our realtor recommended in order to be competitive in a bidding war) is still within our budget. So, against our better judgment, we went for it – we put a best and final offer on a house we already had in our grasp and subsequently lost, for what seemed to us to be no good reason.

And now it’s a waiting game. We wait for the deadline for offers (coming up in a matter of hours) to pass, we wait for Big Bad Bank to review the bids, we wait for them to choose one, we wait for them to notify our realtor. And then we wait for the phone call – the phone call that will tell us if we’ll have a place to live in three months, or if we’ll have to keep searching for the place that we’ll call “home.”

We’re on our way home from Seattle after a wonderful and very productive weekend. Honestly, I’m sorry we had to leave. This area is so vibrant and beautiful, and I can’t wait to call it my new home.

But which house we’ll call our new home is another story entirely. Before we came up here, I made a list of almost fifty houses I wanted to look at. Many of them were vetoed by our realtor before we even saw them, usually because they needed more work than we were willing to put in. But we saw a good twenty-five houses, two of which are very strong contenders.

The first, Brown House, is the logical choice. It’s currently set up as an illegal duplex, but a set of stairs would turn it into a five bedroom, four bathroom home. The yard is huge, and comes with a deck and a play structure. It’s a house that would give us ample room to grow. With that said, it’s also on a somewhat busier street, which makes me extremely uncomfortable. I worry about the dogs – and someday, kids – running into the street and getting hit by a car. When I picture a forever home – which is what this house, with all it’s growth potential, would be – this location is not what I think of, or what I want.

The Pink House, by contrast, is a great starter home. It has four bedrooms, but two are small and quirky, with vaulted ceilings and random nooks and crannies. We could probably put in a shower in the bathroom upstairs, but for now, the house only has one full bathroom and a powder room. It’s definitely not as spacious or built for long-term living as Brown House. But the location is to die for – across from county lands and on a dead end street, you don’t hear anything but birds chirping when you step outside. The backyard is smaller and mostly paved with a brick patio, but has plenty of room for the dogs to run and truly feels like a private outdoor sanctuary when you’re out there. But in six to eight years, after a couple of kids, we’ll probably outgrow Pink House and have to move.

It’s a classic scenario of head vs. heart. Logically, I know that Brown House is probably a smarter choice. It gives us more options and is something we can really make our own. But something about it just feels … off. I don’t know if it’s the busy street or the work that needs to be done or what, but it just doesn’t feel like it could be my home. Pink House, on the other hand, feels so much more welcoming. I walked in there and immediately felt a connection to the property and the house, with all it’s quirky northwestern charm. I know Pink House won’t have the same longevity for us that Brown House would, but it feels more like home NOW. And as someone relocating a thousand miles, away from family and friends and my job, I need that sense of home more than I need a sense of permanence.

We’re putting offers in on both homes and will see what happens. With any luck, the sellers (and the money) will help make the decision for us.