The Excitement Stress of Moving

Excitement has changed to a little bit of stress as we'll be moving to Austin in just over a month with no place to live! I know I am overreacting, but I have nightmares about living in Zilker Park with a moving box providing me shelter from the elements. Normally, I wouldn't be so concerned, but this is Austin and Austin isn't exactly known for mild summers.

I was actually in Austin last weekend and thought that I had found the perfect place. It was a beautiful condo in Tarrytown--close to everything and was in great condition. We went to put an offer in and the seller's agent told us that they had already accepted an offer and did not want to accept competing offers. We told him that we would offer above the listing price and the seller still didn't want to entertain our offer. Now, maybe I'm a bit jaded with California real estate and the concepts of overbidding and unethical strategic purchasing tactics, but I've never known anybody who didn't want to get more money for their home. Oh well, there will be other homes. I just hope that the person who bought the condo isn't in my class.

To that end, we just booked tickets to go to Austin over the Independence Day Weekend to look for a home. Our real estate agent (Debbie Trominski at Hindsite 20/20 in Austin) has been absolutely awesome. A couple things we have discovered in this hunt for the perfect home:

1. Always be ready to make an offer at the drop of a hat.
2. Don't get too connected to any particular home. There is a good chance you won't get it.
3. Buying a home when you aren't in the town is a difficult task. It's impossible to buy a home based upon pictures.
4. Flying back and forth gets expensive and is very time consuming. But that really is the only way you can have any confidence in buying a home. You basically just need to hope that something good comes onto the market while you are able to view homes.