In February of 2002 we went to see a house within a mile of where we lived. It was an "updated" farmhouse on about 4 acres. This sounded promising, so off we went. It turned out that the updating was not complete, so there was some finishing to do, which was fine with us. The house had been completely re-sided in clear cedar. The lot sloped away from the street dramatically, and the owners had constructed an enormous great room on the back of the house. It really was spectacular, and there was plenty of space for all of us. The seller was in "distress", so was looking for a quick sale. The lot was divided by a stream which was beautiful, but the majority of the property was on the other side of the stream. I wanted access to the land for another garage for my cars. There was only a small garage attached and another small one detached. OK, another challenge, but one we thought we could tackle.

A few weeks went by and nothing else came up on the market, so we made an offer, contingent on the sale of our house. Ours was the first offer on the house since it was listed almost a year before. We were hopeful that it would be accepted, despite the contingency. Amazingly, another offer was submitted the same day as ours by another realtor! Even though that offer was lower than ours, it was accepted as there was no sale contingency attached. We were crestfallen. After months of searching, waiting, and then finding what we thought would be the ideal house, the deal was dead.

Now it is April, and we are still showing our house to potential buyers, and still waiting for something to come on the market. Our realtor appealed to us to go revisit the house that we had rejected back in October of 2001. Reluctantly, we agreed. We set up an appointment for the first weekend in May.