We started looking for a house in August of 2002, when it came to our attention that our lease would be running out in December, because of how this community operates we would need to tell them if we intended to stay or sign another year-long lease by mid october. The race was on to find the perfect home.

Over those couple of months we dealt with a number of realtors, but kept being discouraged by not finding what we wanted in the areas we wanted for the price we wanted to pay. We went through a couple realtors because they just failed to listen when we told them what we wanted. Come on, if there is nothing just tell us there is nothing, don’t keep sending us to places we’ll hate, it’s just a waste of time! Eventually we found a realtor who was trying hard to find us what we wanted, that’s when we decided we could “settle for” a house in Telford. So we went through all the paperwork and decided to place a bid.

If you read my journal last year you know this story, we ended up being outbid. It was disappointing, and it was mid-october by then and we decided to sign another year long lease here and stay. Throughout this year we would scan through home listings every few weeks, usually not finding anything, or finding that they were sold/under contract before we even saw the online listing.

What we needed was a good realtor. Realtors have an obvious advantage to the casual home buyer because they have access to a huge database of homes for sale, apparently they pay for access to this database. If we were going to find anything we’d either have to drive around the areas we wanted and hope that the for sale signs would find us something or just hire a realtor to help us out. There are clear advantages to hiring a buyers agent. For one you don’t need to drive around for hours looking for houses for sale. More importantly though, these people do this for a living, they can help us with all the paperwork, they know what they are doing when bargining with the sellers to get the price down.

So this year when it came to the decision to either sign another year long lease or find a home we were determined to find something. Our plan was not to renew the lease here, if we didn’t find something before we had to move out of here we had the option of spending as long as it took to find a place with Myk’s mother. Not exactly a wonderful option, but it was the best we could see, this way we wouldn’t need to sign another year long lease, or worry about getting out of it once we found a house. This weekend we were planning on moving there.

We continued to actively look, and earlier this week Michael spoke with Tony Alcaro. He called to inquire about a house we had seen online, and it turned out to be under contract already. But this realtor offered to help us. Our expectations weren’t terribly high, we’d been through this before, and kept getting disappointed. We met him on tuesday night at a property near Lansdale, weren’t really happy with it, but he seemed like a good guy who wanted to help. He sent us dozens of properties to look at, and Michael picked out a few we wanted to see. One in particular stood out, it was in Schwenskville, which seemed to be a little further than we wanted to go, but we would give it a chance. We arranged to meet Tony on thursday evening.

We arrived just before the sun went down. The drive out there was nice, the location was amazing. The house is on the side of a hill, overlooking a stream, which is backed by a small mountain. Wow. Sure, there are neighbors, but the lot is .43 acres, so there is privacy. Trees, many trees. We were able to walk around the house. By the time Tony arrived we were already in love with the house. We got to see the inside, and it was so amazingly perfect! Some small things will need work, but the major things have been done already, new kitch
en, redone bathroom and laundry room, new roof. It has a fireplace! It has a loft! We wanted it.

We followed the realtor back to his office to fill out the paperwork to place the bid. The house had only been on the market for 16 days, so we hoped we get a bid in before anyone else did. Tony ordered a pizza for us all to eat while filling out the paperwork, and by 8:30 we had finished all the paperwork and were ready to head home.

Friday night Tony gave Michael a call, they had accepted our bid!

Tony Alcaro has been an amazing realtor. He figured out what we wanted and went ahead and was able to find it. He’s worked with us to get the price we wanted, helped us every step of the way. He’s just a good guy. His office is in Lansdale, and he does work all around this area, so if you want a house near here, go to him! He’s great!

Now we need to go through mountains of paperwork, get all the proper inspections done. Apparently the whole process takes about six weeks. We’ll be staying with Michael’s mother until it’s done, it’s wonderful that she’s letting us stay there for a few weeks, just one less thing we’ll have to worry about.

I’m so very happy!

It snowed yesterday. It’s snowing today. I’d say we got a total of at least six inches. The first snow storm of the season decides to hit on the weekend we are moving! Sigh. It’s ok though, we went out today and it seems the major roads are clear enough to get by tomorrow when we are moving the big stuff.

Of course I also started working again this week, so much to worry about! I have been doing ok though. I got a little stumped in places, but it’s all healthy hard work, and I’m not bored at all.

Having a lot to worry about is great. I’m no longer strictly focused on worrying about one foolish thing. And as a whole, I think that’s made my stress level even out to a point where I am actually quite comfortable, so strange how that works.

I guess that’s it for now, we’re going to have our last fire in our fireplace here tonight. In fact, since we’re moving all the furnature out tomorrow this will be our last night in the apartment as well. Crazy %) This will be my last night with internet at home (I’ll be online at work) for a few weeks! Egads! *grin* I’ll survive. It’ll be a very healthy break. Take care everyone, happy holidays! *wanders off for a while*