House Maze

Dan and I have been looking around for a new home lately. We want to buy a home in the NW part of Calgary because we are both familiar with it and miss it very much! Both of our families are close to that area, so it will be nice to not have to travel so far just to visit. We looked at a few show homes and saw one that we liked, but we didn't want to jump on it right away. It's a lot of money to invest so we wanted to put our money in the safest and smartest home investment. And it's a good thing we continued to do our research! We found that if we put up a bit more cash, we could afford a lot bigger and practical house! While we were out with some friends, we made a stop by their place because there was a spec home that I found in my research and I wanted us to take a look at. Right when we walked through the (unlocked) door, I fell in love with it! The flooring, appliances, and toilets weren't installed yet, but I could picture it all perfectly! The colors on the walls and in the Kitchen were the exact ones that I would have chosen anyways! I thought that this was it! I was so excited, I couldn't stop thinking about it! Heck, I still think about it! So on Wednesday night we went to go look at it and talk to the builders about what all we needed to do to make that house ours. But before we could ask, they told us that it was conditionally sold! I almost broke down in tears right then and there. We asked how much it would cost to build that house ourselves and they told us it would be $440,000!! Holy crap! Let's just say that's WAY out of our budget! I had such a great feeling about that house, I thought for sure it was made for us. However, the people who bought it, have a bit of problems with their finances. Great sign! Then we thought: even if their sale did fall through, how could we get the money for a down payment that fast? Our initial plan was to let them know that we were interested in that house, and then wait a couple months for the price to drop because the housing market is really slow and there's not that much competition right now, so we wanted them to get desperate for our sale, and it would give us a bit more time to save more money to put down. Dan will be finished school in April, so with us having a second income it will be a lot more helpful to make mortgage payments and to actually be able to furnish our home. Unfortunately it didn't work out as planned... yet. After we got the sad news, we went to go look through it one last time, but this time the door was actually locked (like it should have been in the first place). So we walked around just looking at the outside, and we noticed the house next door was also a spec home, just built by a different company. We thought we might as well give it a try, and low and behold, the door was unlocked! It had already gotten dark out and the lights weren't yet installed in the house, so we really had to watch our step. This house was pretty big, and well planned out, but we didn't know the price of it so we really didn't want to get our hopes up. We thought for sure it would be close to $500,000. I looked it up the next day and it was a lot less! Not as much as we'd like it to be, but we're hoping to pull a few strings and get a better deal on it. Finding the perfect house sure is a lot of work, so I'm grateful that I don't have any work to do at my job all day. It gives me a lot more time and more focus on finding the best deal on what's out there and to find what builder will give us the best treatment. My emotions will be going up and down through this process, but I know that when it's all over, we won't settle for less, we will be happy with the home that we choose. I just wish it was sooner rather than later!