re: Bad idea to buy a new house right now?

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From most indications, home prices will not be declining. But the rate of increase has slowed. There is still more demand than supply for houses.

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This is all true. I told myself things would get better and prices would decrease drastically. Problem with that line of thinking is that we are wanting in an area that everyone else wants to be in also. Couple that with the lack of supply and the high demand that you mentioned, and you have a recipe for difficulties of finding what you want and not paying a price that's high as a giraffe's arse.

When homes would pop up, we kept feeling like we were having to possibly settle on a so-so house. We even looked at a number of houses, but none of them met our criteria for what we were ultimately looking for. We've basically been looking hard and heavy for the past six months. Fast forward to this past week...

My wife wound up finding some listing from a lady on some local damn Facebook page that was looking to sell her house. It met the square footage criteria, newer house, open concept design that we wanted, storage, high ceilings, cabinet space, covered back deck with entertaining area, on 3 1/2 acres, etc. Only thing that was missing was a shop....I'll have to build that.

She posted it that night, and I contacted the lady the next morning at about 8:30.

I saw it around mid morning the day after she posted it and someone had already been there at 6:00am and told her they would give her asking price. I was on my way out of town, so I didn't stay too terribly long, but didn't really need to study every minute detail of the house. I knew right off the bat it was exactly what we have been looking for and told her we could do 5K over asking. The lady was a little overwhelmed by the whole deal and she told me she'll have to think on it and didn't anticipate having two offers from the first two people that looked at it.

I texted the lady about 30 minutes after leaving and told her my wife wanted to come by at about 1:30 to see it, if that's ok. She was naturally fine with it. Luckily for me, the lady and my wife hit it off and visited for about an hour and a half. Long story short, the lady loved my wife to death and that's kinda what tipped the scale and is really why we even got the house.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the housing market is still crazy as shite, and having a little luck is sometimes what you need to get what you want.