The house saga...

So... I have house news, but I have no happy ending. I was hoping to blog all about everything when I had an end but alas that is not happening and people are asking. So here goes.

We put the house back on the market at the beginning of May. We were on the market for two weeks when we got two offers. They were both contingent on the sales of their houses. One offer was for almost full price and one was for full price and they included a love letter to our house. We accepted the love letter option- BUT they asked us to take our house off the market for 2 weeks while they tried to sell their house and we agreed.

Unfortunately the contract between the lawyers took 2 weeks to get back to us and the 2 weeks off the market officially started then- so in the end we were off for 4 weeks which was very irritating. They did receive an offer in that time but negotiations fell through. We saw a house we FELL IN LOVE WITH but since we had no real offer we did not bid and that house sold in 5 days- grrr. We went back on the market on a Monday and on Friday July 3rd a family came through at 10:30 and by noon we had a full price non-contingent offer. They wanted us out by July 30th- ha! We agreed on a closing date of August 17th. We gave the contingent offer people the 48hour notice and they withdrew their offer.

Now on to buy a house for us. When we accepted this offer there were 2 or 3 houses we would be have been happy to buy. As we went to make offers on these house they were all sold just before they got our offer. So.... here we are. We have no home as of August 17th. Now let's be clear, in this age of internet house shopping I am aware of EVERY SINGLE house in my town that is on the market (it is a small town). I have seen the inside of most of them in the areas in which I am interested in living. Here is the thing. We don't hate our current house, we actually like it a lot. We are not moving because we just want anything different. We really wanted the "right" house. Now we are in a quandry. a) buy a not perfect house that is a little above our price range and then not be able to buy furniture or fix it up in any way since we maxed out or b) buy a not perfect house that is well below what we are looking for- fix it up and sell again in 2 or 3 years or c) rent a house and then jump on the "perfect" house as soon as it comes on the market.

We are leaning towards option C at this time. Here is the problem, there are not a lot of houses for rent in our town. What is for rent has a list of people interested and they are willing to sign a 6month or year long lease- we are not that interested in that option. Although since most of the houses come on in the Spring we will consider a 6 month lease. Here is the other issue- in our town there are 3 elementary schools that serve grades 2-6. Jessica has already attended one of them. The majority of the houses we like are in a different district. She knows this and is aware that she is most likely changing schools. We REALLY wanted to know where our new house was before school started and truly that makes me so sad that we might be pulling her out of one school after it has already started. So we can try to rent in the district we think we will most likely be ending up in- if we can find a house. The other option is that my elderly neighbor was moved out of is house a few months ago and they have not put it on the market yet. I contacted his son and he said that we should keep looking for a place to live but that if come the closing day we still have no where to go we are welcome to move into Ted's house. They are going to be putting Ted's house on the market come the fall so it is not a long term solution and living next to my current house would be a little weird to say the least. Keeping the kids out of the back yard would be hard, and how many times will I be pulling into that driveway by mistake??

Yes, I know "it is all going to work out" and don't forget "everything happens for a reason" oh and "it wasn't meant to be". But for now it just stinks! So that is the House Saga so far....