Housing update

We set out on a what we thought would be a fun house search in February. Our lease ends at the end of July. Our goal was to be moving into a new place the last weekend in July. No such luck.

My husband has physically been in over 100 houses and is exhausted not to mention that I am sure our Realtor is super annoyed with us.  But to be fair, we've made offers, we've even had a signed contract but the inspection has failed us.

When we went into the house hunt, we were told it was a buyers market. We totally got our hopes up. Now this may be true for some parts of the country but this is not the case in Chicago. First problem, people are so upside down on their mortgages that even though their house is one price, they will not sell it unless they get what they owe. This makes the house cost more money, not less. How does that make this a buyers market? Second problem, we find houses we like that are pre-forclosure, when we go back to look at it, it's clear the occupants have been forced to leave. How do we know? Well, floors have been removed, things have been pulled out of the walls and ceilings leaving very little to be desired. And guess what? The banks won't lower the costs of the house at this point. Again, how is this a buyers market?

So if you're a seller in the west suburban area of Chicago and your reading this, please check out where I blogged about our wants/needs and email me if you have a house that you REALLY want to sell. And by REALLY I mean you aren't going to list it as the price you actually want for it, because I am not going to lie, when I see the list price, I think there's room to negotiate. This listing your house for exactly what you want to get paid is getting a little out of hand and it's wasting every one's time - PS maybe that's why your house has been on the market for 200+ days, just a thought.

And as a note to any home buyer, if the seller doesn't send you a disclosure for mold and takes awhile to sign the contract it probably mean there is 20% moisture in the walls with lots of mold and other issues in the roof. The hubs and I learned this the hard way which also wasted 3+ weeks of our house hunting.

OK enough complaining and moping, so now here's where I come in and be super positive (it's the Leo in me, I can't help it), are you ready for it? Summer is almost over in my books and the hubs and I have done very little to enjoy it outside of house hunting. So we're going to take a week and weekend off and enjoy ourselves (partly because our Realtor has decided to take a week's vacation to try to get away from us, not really but the thought does cross my mind) We are super greatful and truly blessed for a healthy family, jobs we enjoy going to (well heck just for even having jobs) and for our fabulous friends. We are greatful to even be in a position of looking at houses especially after only having our wedding a year ago.

Cheers to a fun summer activity filled weekend!