One more than you can ever say!

Do you remember on the playground when you were arguing with your friends over something completely ridiculous but you had to be the one who was right no matter what? No matter what they said? So you would argue something like this....."I like that shirt the most!", "No! I like that shirt the most!!", "Uh-ah, I like that shirt one more than you can ever say!" And so on the argument would go. I had that very argument just yesterday.....

Well Ladies......I put an offer on a house. Yes, yes, yes, I did. (Now, I'm ok talking money with people. Forgive me if  I make you uncomfortable by talking money but you keep reading so technically it's your fault.)

We have been looking for a house to live in for over a year and a half. So just three days ago I saw this house listed for sale and I fell in love with it. Soooooo......this house was in our price range and we had a little wiggle room. I was so excited!

Orem, Utah is a hot place to live right now apparantely. This home went up for sale just that day and had 3 offers by the end of the night. AH!!! I hate this! So we decided to put in our best offer. (it was over list price.) By the next day at 6 pm we got the word that all offers were over list price! They wanted best and final offers in by 6 pm the next night.

Stupid. Drive me crazy, Nuts! What do I do?! Offer a crazy amount?! BEG?! I want, wait! I need this house. It is perfect for my family! The schools, the neighborhood, my best friend lives right by me, tons of kids in the all the houses surrounding the house, what more could I want? 

Then it hit me.....One more than you can ever say!!! That's it!!! That is how I will make my offer! Call me crazy but I'm gonna do it. Offer them $1,000 above whatever the highest offer submitted was. It was a huge risk. "What if someone offers them a crazy amount? What if someone offers them $30,000 over the listed price???" That's the gamble. BUT---what if, by chance, they all only have gone over the listed price by just a little bit. What if I call their bluff???

If I were to just give my best and final offer......because I have been looking for literally a year and a half, I would have offered $20,000 over listed price. Crazy, I know. I wanted this house so badly. So we did it. One more than you could ever say. HA HA! Yes. They actually let you do these kind of offers:) Everyone thought I was nuts. Kirt was a mess. (Of course we protected ourselves and made this all contingent upon appraisal. Gee, I'm not completely stupid.)


We submitted our offer. Now we just had to wait.

And wait....

And wait....

And wait...

Finally I got the call. My relator told me to sit down. I immediately sat down. "Ok Niki. There were 6 offers submitted by the time the deadline hit. Of all those offers......they chose yours." I screamed. I was full of excitement and fear all at once. I still didn't know how much I was going to pay for the house. I said. "OK. So tell me how much I am going to pay for my house." There was a slight pause. "Are you sitting down?", "Yeeeeesssss?" I said slowly. "You are paying...." and he told me the purchase price.

It was only $8,000 more than the listed price!!!

Ladies and Gentlemen I won! Let's go to VEGAS because this girl is on fire!!! It was such a gamble and such huge risk but what a rush!!! Kirt and I sat there and just laughed. We would have at least offered $10,000 over listed price with six other offers on the table. But I called their bluff and won! Everyone just went a little bit over the listed price. SO happy it worked out! I am going to be in my dream neighborhood! So grateful we got the house!

I guess this just goes to show that some of the silly things we learned on the playground really can help us out later in life. Who knew for me it would be "ONE MORE THAN YOU COULD EVER SAY"