We found a house we like. Wait- we found a house *I* liked. Yannick thought there was too much work to be done. You see, when we bought our current house, we did 3 months of renovations before moving in. And now Yannick does renos for a living. So…the thought of moving in and starting all over with the renos is NOT appealing to him. Me- I’ll be too busy with a newborn to care if the kitchen or bathroom is original…

In any case, during a slew of visits we came across one that I loved. I’ll call it the “C” house because that’s the initial of the street it was on. Well, the C house had good things and bad things about it.

The good: 3 bedrooms, really nice eat-in kitchen and separate dining room, large, open living room, sunny, 2.5 bathrooms (including an ensuite!), 2-car garage with a room in the back for Yannick’s tools, and a very, very large corner lot. It was on a quiet street, and to me the best part was the location. It was a 4 minute walk to a) a top-rated elementary school, b) 2 large kiddie parks, c) a swimming pool, d) football field, e) tennis courts, f) my parents’ house.

The bad: we saw some shingles lifting on the roof and knew that it was already about 17 years old, so depending on if it was a 20 or 25 year warranty…it would be up soon. There was no central air conditioning- instead they had cut holes in 2 walls and installed wall-mounted a/c units (not in the windows, actually through the house and brick and everything). There were some foundation issues as it was “bowing” out on one side. The ensuite bathroom was illegally built- there was a bare lightbulb in a non-waterproof socket INSIDE (overhead) the shower. Oh, and depending on how you look at it…it was a 4 minute walk from my parents’ house. ;p

I loved it but Yannick saw only the work. We kept visiting more houses, and after seeing another 20 or so crappy houses that were asking much more than they deserved we kept coming back to the C house and should we make an offer. In the end we decided (read: I convinced him) to make an offer. The original asking price was rediculous, but right as we were about to offer on it the price came down a bit. That wasn’t so much of a good thing, as that meant they would be less flexible, because in their heads they already lost money. Also, they were divorcing, and while the hubby wanted to sell ASAP, the wife was angry and taking it out by being a really big stickler on the price. They had already had, and refused, 6 offers.

So we made a conditional offer (we hadn’t sold our house yet). I think the last time I had been so nervous while waiting was on my honeymoon when I peed on a stick. When we finally got the word from our agent there was good news and bad news. They had refused our offer…but we were the first people they had actually given a counter-offer. This was promising, even though their counter was much more than we were willing to pay. We prepared a counter-counter-offer and marked it as “firm and final”. They refused it. However, their agent did tell our agent that they were willing to settle on a price that was $4000 above our “firm and final” offer.

Yannick said no. Knowing we’d have to redo the roof at some point, and add a thermopump, and fix the walls with the holes from the a/c, and possibly have foundation damage…he couldn’t justify spending more on that house.

I got really upset. I had already gotten mentally attached to the possibility of living there, was mentally picturing packing up my kid in the stroller and going to the park, playing outside, walking to school, etc… and couldn’t believe that Yannick was willing to walk away from my dream house for $4000. What is $4000 over 25 years? Nothing.

I’ll admit I got a little crazy at that point. I’ll blame it on pregnancy hormones. I begged, I cried, I sulked. I got friends to explain to him how “prime” that area of town was.

Then we sold our house. Now, it wasn’t official yet, as they had to do the inspection and give us proof of financing. But I reasoned that if the people from the C house were worried about accepting our offer because it had been conditional, maybe we could remake our offer but remove the condition because we knew we had buyers? Would that be enough to get them to ignore the $4000? We had our agent call their agent.

It had sold.

I was miserable! I cried. I sulked. I couldn’t believe I had sold my house and the only house I wanted to move into had sold.

We kept looking, but every few days I asked my agent for an update on the C house…just to know what was happening. At this point Yannick was fed up with all the dreck out there and was really considering the C house, so we figured if their inspection fell through but due to renos that Yannick could take care of…or because of financial issues…well maybe we could sneak back into play. When their buyers did their inspection sure enough it failed. We got word from our agent that they had found a problem with the roof that meant it had to be redone right away, not in 2-5 years, and because of that the potential buyers were trying to renegotiate the price.

Yes!

You see, the minute they tried to change the price, they VOIDED the contract of sale. Which meant that WE were free to make an offer. We had already expected roofing problems and Yannick had calculated what it would cost, which would be less for him than anyone else because of his line of work. We had an emergency meeting with our agent and quickly drew up some papers. We removed the condition (our house had sold by then), added $1000 to our original offer (only $3000 short of their desired “sale” price) AND stated that we’d accept any and all problems with the roof. How could we lose?

They refused. They absolutely wanted their extra money and weren’t willing to come down.

So that was it for the C house. There was no way we’d pay any more for that house with all the problems. So we kept looking.

In the end it sold at their desired price. I guess they lucked out in being firm on their price, but man, did someone over pay for a house with that much work. Good luck to them!

In the next house installment…the saga of the W house.

…or, “It’s all Yannick’s fault”.

We didn’t want to move. We weren’t looking for a new house. Sure, we’d always talked about how nice it would be to have a garage, but we weren’t serious about moving. It was one of those “one day” things you just talk about.

Then my cousin Robyn had her son Sean, and they had a bris. The bris was called for around 1pm, if memory serves. Yannick and I left our house at around 11:00am with the intention of stopping for some breakfast, then picking up my sister and her boyfriend and driving down to the bris.

When we got to the breakfast place I realized that instead of a quick eggs-toast-coffee meal, he’d brought us to Chez Cora- a slow, sit-down breakfast restaurant with a long wait and big meals. Plus he wanted us to use gift certificates we’d received. This was not a good plan for me. Why should we fill up on a big breakfast when we were about to go to a bris with a lunch buffet? It didn’t make sense. (I’m not being greedy as in “let’s fill up on the free food instead”, I just didn’t think it made sense to eat such a big meal and then not be hungry for a buffet at a restaurant I’ve never been to and I’ve heard has good food). So instead we went to Tim Horton’s, grabbed a quick bite and then realized we had over an hour to kill before having to pick up Laura and Mike.

So we drove around. While driving around we just happened to stumble upon a cute little bungalow for sale. For kicks I took down the number and called the agent to find out the price. It was remarkably affordable, and we both kinda thought “hmm…that’s cool.” We kept driving around, and kept writing down addresses and agent phone numbers. Next thing you know we’re on our way home from the bris and are driving Laura and Mike by the cute little bungalow to get their opinion.

Suddenly we were “kinda looking”.

Then the following Sunday rolls around and we magically have visits arranged for about 5 different houses. Maybe we were “kinda actively looking”?

One of the houses we’d wanted to visit had sold, but the agent invited us to come to his office the next night and go through the computer with him. We went and found a bunch of listings that we liked. But the big question remained- did we really want to move?

We invited the agent to come to our house the following Monday evening and take a look around and give us a quote on what he thinks the house could sell for. Maybe that will give us a better idea of what we want to do- after all, if we can’t get much for our home then we certainly can’t afford something with more space, a separate dining room and a garage, right?

He came over Monday night and was really impressed with all the work Yannick and his parents did on our house (I helped too!). From the outside it is a 3 storey townhouse that looks tiny. From the inside it is a 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath with fireplace, very roomy and spaceous, completely updated and renovated and lacking a single iota of work to be done unless you feel like repainting. He was very optimistic.

Wednesday night he came back and gave us a quote, and we decided to list the house. We still hadn’t decided if we really wanted to move…but there was no harm in testing the waters, right?

Then it hit us- if we sell our house, we need somewhere to go! No more of this “browsing”, it was time to get serious! We started spending every evening on MLS and emailing our agent (how official- we were “on the market” and “had an agent”) with listing numbers and requesting the full PDF listings and scheduling visits.

Suddenly we were “actively looking”.

So that’s how we went from killing time on a Sunday afternoon to placing our house for sale, all in a matter of weeks. And while pregnant.

Coming up- house sagas parts 2 and 3!