The Wait...

Wow. Nothing since August?? I must have fallen off the face of the earth! Or decided to sell our house, pack everything up, put an offer on a "short sale house" (HAHAHA if anyone is familiar with the term "short" sale), move into my in-laws house while we house hunt/wait for our dream house, have no idea where any of my stuff is b/c its in boxes somewhere at the storage unit. Yep...it was the latter.

So yes. We did decide to put our cute lil house out there on the market. We were worried about getting any offers. Well, that was just silly. One would think in the current real estate market that houses would sit for a while. Well, not ours. Nope. That was not the case.

We sporadically decided at the end of September that we would put our house on the market in a month (end of October). We were super busy with life and needed that time. I think part of it was to mentally prepare for a move. What prompted this sudden decision?? A house we saw. It is our dream house. It is a house that has a yard for the kids. It has 4 bedrooms (you know, just in case we decide to have one more). It has a cute neighborhood. It has space - 3000 sq ft of space!! It has 2 garages. It is perfect. We put our offer in at the same time we put ours on the market, in October. Alas, the problem. It is a "short sale."

Once we got our house ready to invite complete strangers to come over, walk through our house looking at our personal effects and allowing them to analyze our life from the furnishings and decorations of our taste, we had a quick ride. I was out of town with the 2 kids for a wedding and the house just exploded! Exploded with interest! I was getting call after call while I was in Chicago. To our amazement, we had a full price offer before I even left Chicago! I was having documents faxed to me and faxing them back. It was crazy.

I get back to PDX and suddenly we have to start packing. But WAIT!! It was only on the market for a few days. It wasnt suppose to go that quickly! We ended up being out of the house just before Thanksgiving. Where to?? Well...this family of four is shackin up with the in-laws! For how long?? Well, either until we get a YES from the bank (not our bank) or find a different house.

Ok...so about short sales. For those who dont know, the bank has to eat a portion of money on the loan. Basically its one step above having a foreclosed house. Once an offer is made, it sits on some pencil-pusher desk in a stack that obviously has no importance. Eventually, they go through the stack and decide if they can take that much of a loss...basically, they decide if they could get more for forclosing the house and having it go to auction.

Our recent hurdle? We were in a bidding war over this house. Why?? Because it is worth it. The good news?? The other people just recently pulled out. The bad news?? We could have sat at our original offer.

So, we are still waiting. Patiently waiting. Waiting....