house hunting woes

I haven't mentioned much about it, but Rodney and I have been doing some casual house-hunting lately, I guess about 3 months now.

We're currently renting from family and getting a great deal, but we just paid off our car and feel like now is a good time to start thinking about buying a house as a stepping stone to our ultimate dream of building a house (5-10 years from now). We feel no pressure to move immediately, so we have lots of time to find the right house for us.

So far I have found 3 houses that I loved and could see us in. They were all 3 foreclosures. The first was in a subdivision 2 minutes down the road from our current house. A closer look told us it had major water drainage issues caused by the pool in the backyard. It was not something we wanted to get involved with, even though we loved the house. Strike one.

The second house I fell in love with had structural issues that involved the roof. Strike two.

The third house is actually the one we looked at last Friday, the day I documented for my most recent Day in the Life post. I mentioned that we came home and discussed the pros and cons. It turns out that there were more pros than cons and we decided to make an offer. The house went on the market on Friday, the day we looked at it. Our realtor told us it would go fast, maybe even over the weekend. We were prepared to make an offer on Monday morning but found out the bank had already accepted another offer by the time we went to do it. Strike three.

It's so frustrating, but we feel a certain kind of peace about it. Buying a house is not something you want to rush into and settle on something you're not completely happy with, so we're just waiting for the right house to come across our path. Until then we have the perfect opportunity to keep saving and trusting God for His timing.