lizzie + doug: House Hunting! Nov 2015

Since the moment we found out we were pregnant with twins Doug was ready to start house hunting. We could have fit them in our 1200 square foot condo, but it would have been tight.

So we finally decided to start the hunt. Doug had been looking online and found a few houses in our price range. It was time to call Jeri, our amazing real estate agent, and tell her it was time to start looking! We had known Jeri for years through volleyball and have always enjoyed her spunk…among other things.

I called Jeri one night and told her it was on. She was pumped. She put us on the agent housing site and off we went. We looked all over NOLA – Lakeview, Uptown, Metairie and River Ridge. I really wanted a house with 4 bedrooms so we can have a guest room after these kiddos (and maybe one or two more…eek).

On the first night of hunting we found a beautiful house in River Ridge. It was quite beautiful, but since I had just started looking, I was not ready to pull the trigger right away. We looked a few more days and by the time we circled back around to the beautiful house it already had an offer on it.

We kept looking, but did not find anything as pretty – the downfall of the property was that is was on at TINY LOT. I am mean small. There would be no way to expand or build Doug a work room. Also, the dining room would not fit the size table I would want, but it was so pretty.

We heard from their agent that they were countering the offer. So we threw our names in the hat too! We put in an offer and asked for some furniture, etc. Not big stuff. They countered and cut everything we asked for. It was kinda jerky as they did not lower the price – just said no to everything we wanted. I started getting a bad feeling about the whole thing. I kept thinking of the lot and dining room. I questioned, is there a such thing as perfect?

I called some of my mentors and talked through it. My dad told me to check out one more house on my list with a big back yard. We had 12 hours to decide on the counter they had given us. I went to see the other house (“the levee house”) to see if the size lot would make a big impact. IT DID. The levee house backed up onto the levee (duh) and had a HUGE lot. I got Doug to look at it immediately. He also liked the levee house.

Then we had a decision to make – the beautiful house on a small lot or the levee house with a huge lot? We decided to make a verbal offer on the levee house that was a bit lower than they wanted. They immediately said no (the house had been on the market for 3 days). We were ok as we had tried! So we then had to decide on the beautiful house. After much walking and discussion we decided to let it go. It was just not sitting well.

The next morning I called Jeri to tell her we were letting the house go and she was excited to tell me the levee house owners had called back and changed their minds! They accepted our verbal offer! WHAT?!?! I had mentally prepared for a new house hunt when we now were under contract! Woah.

We put together the formal offer and everyone signed it. We had a purchase agreement! Doug and I celebrated that night with a fantastic alcohol free beverage.