I never thought I’d be saying this at 30 years old in the San Francisco Bay area, but I bought a house with my wife. It wasn’t too hard, but there are a lot of things I’ve learned and I now see the stress that occurs when trying to buy.

On July 3rd, 2017, we put an offer on our first house. It was a 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath house with a hot tub in the backyard. We fell in love with it, so it was something we had to put an offer on.

This was the first time I ever put an offer on a house, so doing it was scary, knowing how much the houses are in this area. Since the asking price for the house was at the top of our loan amount, we put an offer for the asking price. During the next two days, we found out we were the lowest offer with 7 different offers made. The highest offer was all cash, so it was apparent that the highest with all cash got the offer. Home of our dreams got taken from us; however, my gut was telling me there is always going to be something else.

The following weekend, we decided to look at houses on both Saturday and Sunday. Saturday, we found a really cute house that I wanted to put an offer on right away. It was a 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath house with a huge backyard.

This house was very unique and I could definitely see my family growing up here. The day we wanted to place an offer, we learned that evening that an offer was accepted that morning. We were very disappointed, but I knew we were still going to look at some great houses the following day.

The next day, we saw 4 houses. Out of all 4 houses, we absolutely fell in love with one. It had a perfect backyard, had 3 bedrooms + an office, 2.5 bath, 1894 square feet, 2 large living areas, and two-story. It was perfect.

This house was also on the market for just 1 day, so this was the first day viewing the house. We decided to place an offer on the house a few hours later; however, because the house was cheaper than our loan amount, we put an offer on the house that was more than the asking price.

A few days roll by. We find out that there were 5 offers on the house, but the owner picked the two highest offers, mine and another person. The owner decided to do a counter offer with a few contingencies. As an end result, we upped the offer to $20,000 more than the asking price and agreed to their terms, not knowing the offer amount the other person was putting down. That’s the trick. You never know what others are offering, so you just never know if you will get the house you put an offer on.

Another 2 days roll by. We expected to hear the outcome at 5:00PM on Friday. 5:00PM came along, but I didn’t hear anything. I was practically on the edge of my chair, waiting and waiting all day for that email or phone call with the news. Since I didn’t hear anything at 5, I was starting to think I didn’t get the house, being disappointed and stressed once again. As I was having a few drinks after work with some co-workers, I got a phone call. It was my realtor calling me with the most amazing news. WE GOT THE HOUSE!! I haven’t been this excited in such a long time. I now will own a house after closing and can finally live comfortably. Again, I live in the Bay area. It’s not cheap, but the area I live in, Antioch, California, is much cheaper than living in San Francisco and most the Bay area cities.