Are we seriously doing this again?

Apparently.

But I really think it might work this time (they always say third time's a charm, right?).

Yes, we're house hunting again.

Yes, we tried this before. Twice. And it was not pleasant. It was stressful and confusing and hectic and it did not work. At all.

Yes, we love it here at our apartment. But when we got our paperwork about renewing our lease (which runs out next month - we signed a short-term lease to start with because we weren't expecting to stay), all of the prices were way higher than we anticipated. Which had me concerned. And who knows how high the prices will have risen a year from now when we'd have to renew again?

We talked, and we felt like, yes, there was a reason we felt so comfortable here...if we hadn't, we would've kept looking at houses that were 30 minutes from the school and way bigger than we actually needed (or even would want). Living in this apartment has taught us what we really need in a house, and given us time to 'sort out our priorities,' if you will.

So we did a little online looking over the weekend, found several houses we were interested in, and found a realtor. We went looking on Tuesday, found a house that was completely perfect for us, and decided we wanted to make an offer.

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(This break is to inform you that there was an actual break while I was writing this entry)
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Our realtor just called. Like, JUST called. We've got the offer in and, thanks to some research into the comps, we're at an even lower price than we were expecting. And the listing agent has said that he should be able to let us know by tomorrow afternoon.

WHAT?!

This is so crazy. We started housing hunting originally way back in March. That was almost eight months ago!

When we were in Iowa over the summer we would watch all of these house hunting shows and be jealous that people would seem to get their houses so quickly...why didn't it work that way for us?? We came down to Arizona and searched in April. We did more searching online over the summer when that didn't work out. When we were still getting nowhere, we moved to Phoenix early so we could do more hunting. Half of the houses we were interested in disappeared before we could even go look at them, and then the ones we did get to see and wanted to pursue took months to, eventually, just blow us off.

And now, it looks like in less than a week's time, we're going from finding a house online to having an accepted offer.

I don't know for sure what's going to happen. But I do know this feels really good. And exciting. And if, after all this, we really do get our offer accepted tomorrow, this is without a doubt how things are really supposed to be.