We wanted to keep our search in a radius around where we were living (Decatur, GA) and found a great realtor who has worked in the area for many years. Our first day looking at houses was a bit eye-opening. The prices in our area were higher than we would have liked for the type of house we wanted. Additionally, it seemed like half the houses we scheduled to look at were under contract by the time we got to them. Fortunately we knew we had some time and didn't want to rush our decision. We expanded our radius a bit and by the second day of looking at houses, we already found one we wanted to put an offer on!
It was soon discovered that there were already a few offers on the house, which again was a discouragement. But our great realtor, who knew how to think outside the box a bit, helped us get a step ahead of the rest. It came down to everyone putting in their best offer and the owner would make a decision from there. We were told we weren't the highest offer, however...the owner liked us the best. And that's how we became under contract!
To back up, when we first went to look at the house, we briefly crossed paths with the owner. It was obvious that we had many similarities to him. He had previously lived in Colorado, owned dogs and was very much into the outdoors and adventure sports. We may not be as heavy into the adventure sports, but we certainly enjoy hiking, camping, kayaking/SUP, biking, etc. Our realtor had us offer a short letter to the owner telling them a bit about ourselves, giving us an opportunity to highlight the similarities. It's not officially why we won the bidding war, but I'd like to think it was a big part.
So all of that, from finding out our house was being sold to becoming under contract all took place in a matter of around two weeks! After that we just had to endure a few weeks of all the legalities...inspections, loan offices, financial background checks, counteroffers, lawyers, paperwork, more paperwork and so on. Until the day of closing, which aside from and exhausted hand from countless signatures went well. We got the keys to our house. It took us one more week to arrange movers and a few other details, but now we are in and enjoying getting settled into our new home!
To reiterate, the entire process was much easier than we both expected. Sure there was a lot of paperwork and organizing all of our finances, plus it didn't help that during that period I went to Denver twice and Milwaukee twice, but it all worked out. We weren't even in the market long enough to stress out about what we were going to find and how we were going to afford it.
We like the house for many reason. It was slightly more expensive than we were thinking we'd want to pay, however the location and potential really help. It is a newer house (2003) in what I would consider being on the upslope of an "up-and-coming" neighborhood. The listed square footage of the house was pretty good (double our rental house), but what was sort of hidden was the completely unfinished 2nd floor! It looks like an attic, however it is big enough for a full floor including 2-3 rooms and a bedroom. So the potential is definitely there and we excited, but not oblivious to, the hard work that we can put into the house.
We look forward to settling into and making this a home that we will enjoy for a while.