We have a contract!

Well, I did it. I bought a house! After a lot of drama that included losing an opportunity to buy a house by one day and viewing about thirty or so houses in East Lake and Kirkwood, I happily settled on a house in Decatur. I looked at a lot of crap. Really. Some of those places were uninhabitable, expensive, and situated next door to a crack house. I was very discouraged. The farther I got away from the area I thought I really wanted to be in, the cheaper the houses were -- but also, they were much more inhabitable. So, farther away I went.

Aside from things like a decent yard size for the hounds and enough space for our stuff inside, I really hoped to get a fireplace and a front porch. I was looking in East Lake and Kirkwood because I thought I could afford a house like that -- but it turns out if I could afford it, the house was either microscopic, or uninhabitable. Crap.

We found a decent place off a section of Memorial Drive that wasn't all that great, but I decided that was fine -- and planned to put in an offer on Friday morning. Karen, my favorite realtor lady, called first thing Friday to let me know the house had gotten an offer Thursday and the owners accepted. Huh? The place was on the market for months and it gets an offer the day before I planned to offer on it? Crap. I was even more discouraged.


Karen and I planned to meet Friday at 1:30 p.m. to continue the search. In the meantime, I made a list of houses I wanted to preview from the street and decide if I wanted to bother going inside. I hadn't looked in the area north of Decatur Square because I didn't see anything I liked that I could afford. But, there was this one place on Sycamore that looked kinda boring and small, but it was worth a look. I headed for Decatur and got onto Sycamore, but couldn't find the place. I noticed a "for sale" sign on a side street and drove by. When I got to the driveway, I really liked the house. When I saw the price on the flyer, I was really excited. I liked this place, I could afford this place, and it was in a great location. I couldn't wait to meet up with Karen!


I had some time, so I went to some other places on my list and met Karen in the very cute neighborhood south of Decatur Square called Winnona Park. We both loved the hood, and the houses were nice, but I told Karen we should really go by this house off Sycamore. We went and we both fell in love. Really. Karen almost couldn't contain herself -- when you spend nine hours in one day with a person, you get an idea what they like, and Karen really had me pegged. She'd also spent time with Len a few weeks earlier and felt pretty confident he'd like the place too.


We looked at a couple other places, but that one was it. I decided to make an offer. We did all the necessary stuff and she faxed it to the listing agent, who happened to be the owner's sister. Karen called the agent to see where we stood and was told the sister was on her way to look at the offers. OFFERS? Karen asked. Yes, the house, out of the blue, got three offers that day. What? Karen said that, by law, that realtor cannot claim to have multiple offers unless she has multiple offers, so we were pretty confident she was telling the truth. Crap. I reconsidered my offer and made it full price (which was still very reasonable, considering the comparable houses in the neighborhood) and I upped my earnest money. Turns out all the offers were the same except mine featured more earnest money. I GOT IT!


It's .8 miles from the MARTA station, just over a mile to Decatur Square, 2 miles to Emory Law School, 1.5 miles to the Dekalb Farmer's Market, and there is a Pet Supermarket .5 miles away. The location is ideal! The house has a cute front porch with the same kind of tile as Suzy and Clark's front porch. The place is a 1947 bungalow, it has a fireplace, a decent sized yard for the hounds, 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and a newly remodeled kitchen -- but the kitchen is TINY. But, it works and is nice. I am very pleased.

Now, we just have to sell this place in Seattle. Know anybody?