We started in December and met up with a realtor who actually played college football with Kyle's dad and coached my dad in high school football. Before we went to Japan we went and saw about 7 houses on a saturday morning. Of all of those, we narrowed it down to 2. One of which we absolutely LOVED!
This was our dream home ... and we pursued it, only to have our dreams shattered by news from the sellers that they were not willing to move on the price and were waiting for an offer they'd received over the summer (YES, that would be more than 9 months ago...). The offer was that if this guy sold his condo, he'd buy their house. NO TIME FRAME. It was a rough week but I think we made it through stronger than when we started.
So, back to the beginning we went. Since our offer was rejected, we have seen 7 MORE houses, not to mention the nearly 100 we've looked at online... We thought that by changing our strategy to abandon the dream home idea and embrace a "fixer-upper" house that this hunt would be easier. Wrong!
I can't say for sure, because our minds are constantly changing, but I think we might have found a house that will work for us. It's a Cape Cod style house with a full basement (unfinished) in our target neighborhood of Edgewood. Kyle is really excited about the prospect of mowing and raking this yard... Keep your fingers crossed and we'll let you know how it goes.
We have learned that episodes of House Hunters make this process look entirely TOO easy!