The house that "fell in our lap"

When we moved to Seattle last July, we moved into a 1300 SF apartment, with hopes of moving into a house after getting a bead on the area.

Steve quickly became friends with Chris Bruno, an old friend of mine from Evergreen, Colorado.
They were both attending MHGS and Chris was Steve's "boss" for the fundraising internship program through the school.

In December, the Brunos had us over for dinner and mentioned they would be moving back to Colorado this summer and their house would be available ... should we be interested.

In March, Steve communicated an interest to Jeremy, the owner of the house - but as he was looking for work, we had to wait and see.

In May, we went over to the Brunos house and have a closer look. It's a great house! A cute ranch, in a quiet neighborhood, right across the street from Karen, a friend of mine from co-op. It's about 1800 SF, 3-bedroom, 2-bath with a bonus room, fireplace, hardwood floors throughout, one car garage and a huge backyard with a nice deck for the patio furniture we've kept in storage these past 4 years. It has a berry garden and 3 fruit trees. The Brunos also built a chicken coop for their chickens ... which I have always wanted to have!

Needless to say - we like the house and told Jeremy we were indeed interested.

Early June, we began to feel like we shouldn't commit to the $400 price difference at this time, not knowing how Steve's job would be or how much $ he will make.

So, two weeks ago - we told Jeremy "No thank you."

Monday night, Jeremy wrote us back and asked us to reconsider - and maybe we could meet in the middle on the price of the house. He had already offered to waive the deposit fee and simply asked for 1st and last month's rent. He had given us his "break even" price - but was now willing to come down if we'd be willing to reconsider.

Reconsider we did - and Tuesday night we emailed him our offer of a middle price - only $150 more than we are paying now. For Seattle housing prices - that's a STEAL!!!

Wednesday morning he accepted our offer!!!
Wednesday afternoon, Megan, our property manager here said we needed to sign a new lease or give our notice on Thursday (today), which we thought did not need to be done until June 30th.

So crazy - because had Jeremy waited even 3 days to ask us to reconsider, it would have been too late, as we were planning to sign another year lease here!

Now, the packing will begin - as our lease is up here late July, the same time the Brunos will be moving out.

I feel excited, stressed, thankful, relieved and overwhelmed all at once. But most of all, I'm thankful that we will have a backyard and a bit more room for our kiddos to run!