The House

 View from the sunroom

We had an eventful Easter last weekend.  For the past few months we've been searching for a house.  The DC Metro Area is huge, so we cast our net wide and quickly realized that, given our tiny budget, the large yard we wanted, decent commute, and good schools, that translated to exactly one place in all of Northern Virginia: Springfield. 

We found a house almost immediately, were thrilled, then ended up walking away after we discovered the addition was unstable, the furnace test left our inspector slightly charred, and the laundry room came complete with asbestos tiles.

After that, the real estate market changed completely from the buyer's market we all knew and loved to a seller's market where every good house was getting multiple offers overnight.  We found another house, but lost out to another buyer.  Nathan and I were seriously considering giving up and moving to the mountains instead.

Until last Sunday...Nathan and I both fell in love with the world's most amazing house.  Over half a wooded acre at the end of a dead end right next to a creek (ok, storm drainage, but the birds don't know that), with amazing landscaping, a green house, sun room, and crazy-awesome kitchen.  Heaven.  The problem was, the true value of the house, though it was listed in our price range, was about $30K higher than we felt comfortable spending.  We've seen this a lot in this market: the sellers price the house low and let the competition escalate the price tens of thousands of dollars higher.  We were not going to get this property.

Except that we underestimated the human element of buying and selling a beloved piece of property.  When the seller found out Nathan was a Park Ranger, she waited for our offer.  Our agent, who I think has the mind control powers of a jedi, had us write her a letter about what we loved about the house and why we wanted it.  He also took a picture of us in front of it and sent that along.  The house got seven offers in total.  Three of them were higher than ours.  We got the house.

So, it turns out there are more benefits to being a Park Ranger than just spending your days outside.  We close on May 10.  During the inspection, I took very few pictures, but here's what I've got.  We are crazy lucky.

 Front Door

Kitchen

Greenhouse

Peek-a-boo!