In my annual goals post back in January, I wrote for one of my 2015 objectives:

“Start looking into what it takes to purchase a house or condo.”

I’ve made progress on all of my goals so far this year, but little did I know that I would go far and beyond exceeding this goal.

Well, sort of.

Not only have we’ve started to look into the house buying process, we dived head-first into the adventure back at the end of May. In the past four five months, we’ve 1) found a realtor, 2) found a bank, 3) walked through approximately 40 60 80 or more homes, and 4) conducted an estimate on a fixer-upper listing and pre-inspections on two others, and 5) put in an offer on three four different properties.

FOUR offers. You would think that after four very strong offers (alright, maybe only 2 or 3 were really strong), I would be the proud co-owner of my first home. But that is not true. The Seattle housing market is so fierce that I’ve heard multiple stories of people placing over a dozen offers and still not finding their dream home.

Thankfully, I’ve at least gotten something out of it: I’m learning the Seattle market. I know (relatively) where I want to live. I know my likes and dislikes, and I understand important things to consider when touring a house. Going through so many different scenarios has allowed me to see various aspects of the business, like submitting an offer with a renovation loan vs. traditional loan.

One Week.

If the house is priced correctly, that’s all the time you have to tour the home and assemble an offer.

The typical week looks something like this… Continue reading →