It started a year and a half ago, when Kari and I began casually looking at foreclosed homes. We wanted something to fix up for ourselves that was in the city of Des Moines, brick, full of character, and easily customizable. ...We basically wanted to build a new home inside of an old home.

So my realtor took me to a home in the Des Moines village of Beaverdale. An enormous brick home on an acre of land, secluded by woods, a stream in the front yard, and only a few miles from downtown. It was a real shithole, haha. No really, a real shithole. When my realtor took me to check it out for the first time, she slammed the door open and yelled, "POLICE" - just to try to scare off any weirdos that may be inside. Then, half of the rooms we went in, she'd say, "oh I hope there aren't any critters in here." It was absolutely disgusting inside.

I had really mixed feelings at first. There were so many amazing features in that house. Aside from the things I already mentioned, there was a 350-400 sqft master bedroom, amazing porches, an amazing atmosphere, etc, etc. I had a million ideas on how awesome it could be.

The problem was the cleanup, time, and money. Everything needed ripped to the studs. It would have consumed all of my time, and all of our money. So we let it get away. Someone got it for $107,000.

A couple months ago, Kari got the bright idea to drive by it and see what the person who bought it had done with the place. So we drove up - for sale. Someone had flipped it. We immediately got excited, made some calls, figured out that we could afford it with a lowball offer and moved forward. Our house was on the market within a week.

Our house was for sale with a "right to home of choice" contingency. This basically means that as soon as we accepted an offer on our house, we could make an offer on the other house. If he didn't accept, the whole deal would go sour. It protected us from getting screwed into 2 house payments, but it also made getting the other house quite a gamble.

Long story short - the house we wanted sold before ours did. It was a rollercoaster of a ride. We'd had 23 groups through our home - but none of them were the right ones.

I'm a bit sad we didn't get the house we wanted, but it still needed a lot of money and work.

I dunno. Quite a bummer, but also a huge weight off my shoulders. Living here for a while longer will allow us to pay off more debt, save more cash, and be able to be a bit more flexible the next time we try to sell.

Plus, now I don't have to give up my sweetass office - the loft that 23 potential buyers hated. Suckers.