Learning Curve

We've been seriously house hunting for almost a month now. Not a significant amount of time, I suppose, but in this amount of time, I feel like I've gotten quite an education. Here's where we are at.

We've made 8 offers. Two of these offers are on houses we hadn't even seen. One of those, I will never see because by the time we presented our offer (on the first day it came on the market), the listing agent advised us that he had already received several other offers at least $50K higher than ours. That's not the first time we've gotten that response. As of today, we still have two offers out there without response, and I just got off the phone with our realtor asking him to present another one on a house that came on the market today. (We'll walk through that one on Wednesday.)

What the heck is going on in this market?? For the longest time, the sales numbers showed decline, decline, decline. The foreclosure numbers are still consistently on the rise, NOD's up, and short sale still seems to be the choice of many who want out. We were sure we would be the savior to one lucky soul, or bank. But apparently, we aren't the only ones with a savior complex.

The trouble for me is not knowing who we are up against. Are these simply cash investors? Or are these other families like ours who saved and waited for the bubble to burst? Is this just the start of the traditional spring rush where people line up to find their properties as the school year is ending? I just find it so hard to believe that -- with unemployment at 10%, personal stories from friends of ours about how they are getting laid off/pink slipped/etc. -- there are so many people qualified to buy homes right now. I like to think that it's not all as bad as we've heard, but I hate that we have so much competition. Makes me very, very uncomfortable.

Not that we can't afford it. We have been saving for a long time. We were simply hoping to get a much better deal than what it appears we'll be able to get. Our dilemma now is this. Do we buy the dream house at top dollar? Or do we buy a smaller (and in this case, we're referring to 2,800-3,300 s.f. as smaller) house and plan to turn it also into an eventual rental?

I don't know. I'm still reading and researching and watching trying to figure all of this out. Craig, of course, thinks this education is fun. I can't say I agree.

We'll find something. Eventually. Better add more Tums to the shopping list - this curve is making me ill.