Conditionlly content

To recap: we found a house we liked on Thursday, and put an offer in on Friday with a 48-hour irrevocability (Google is underlining that word for me in red, informing me politely that "irrevocability" is, in fact, not a word, and perhaps I'd like to try "irreconcilability" instead. I would not, but thank you, Google).

Our agent is away for the weekend. His mother, however, is a superstar real estate agent, so he left us in her very capable hands. We got a call from her this afternoon on our way to the Jays game. She let us know that our offer had been received, and to hang tight.

And hung tight we did.

It was probably around the 4th or 5th inning of the game when she called. Jon spoke to her, but let me know almost instantly that "it's not good news".

Another offer had been placed. Surprise, surprise. We'd been through this before on the first house we tried to buy. Agents will call around to all the other agents that have shown the house, informing them that an offer has been registered in an effort to encourage others to put their offers in.

Competition is a beautiful thing in the real estate world. Not so much in my world.

Anyway, Jon talked to our acting agent about price, and our flexibility around the closing date. The house is vacant. We're on a month-to-month deal in our apartment. We can get the hell out of here whenever works for the seller.

You want to sell your house to us...we are good buyers...you like us...you want to sell your house to us...

(That mantra may or may not have been telepathically delivered to the sellers by me...)

Apparently, there was still a baseball game going on. I couldn't concentrate because I felt like I was either a) going to throw up; b) pass out; or c) all of the above.

The game was tied. Still no word.

(This all sounds so made up.)

Our agent called. We got it. And we didn't even have to raise our initial price.

I still can't believe it, and probably won't until we've lived there for at least a year. We have conditions we need to clear, so it's not ours yet. Hopefully we'll have a better idea about what's going on by the end of the week.

So it's great. We're really close. I have to say, though, the best part of this was the way Jon and I came together while we were waiting to hear whether we had the house. I've mentioned before how stressful this has all been. It can challenge even the strongest relationship (in my opinion). People kept saying to us that there was a reason we hadn't got the houses we put offers in on before, and maybe part of that was we hadn't had the opportunity to be together when we finally hear about it, hadn't had the opportunity to wait together and feel that anxiety and butterflies-in-the-belly feeling that we were both experiencing.

It was very uniting, and solidified by belief that there's no one else in the world I'd rather be going through all of this with than Jon (regardless of the outcome).

And so, dear readers, this is truly a positive post. It seems as though we've bought our first home, and I'm so confident it's going to be filled with lots and lots of love.