update on house hunting

How long has it been since I told you guys we'd made the decision to move to Burbank? April I see. Hmm.

I've explained our process a few times to people in person but I'll update you guys on how we're doing this because it's a little out of the norm.

Usually people will go see houses they are considering, think about it, and then make an offer on a house (which is a big document that tells the seller how much money we are offering for the house and a bunch of legal mumbo jumbo). Then if their offer is accepted they move forward and begin escrow and finally close, get keys, and move. We went a few times to see houses and it was a very helpful experience but things have changed.

Since we're in a very competitive market with a lot of buyers and not a lot of houses to be bought since the banks are trying not to flood the market with foreclosures and releasing hand fulls of houses at a time, our process is as follows:
1) I get listings (aka the houses) from my realtor, zip realty, and zillow. I check them out and tell my realtor which ones look good online and are in the right neighborhoods and we make offers.
2) If an offer is accepted then we go look at the house. If the house sucks, we withdraw our offer. The state of California allows you to make as many offers as you want and gives you about 17 days to withdraw penalty free.

That's right, I don't even set foot in these houses we're going to be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on, which has saved us a lot of time because we only go see houses that we actually have a chance of getting.

Unfortunately, guess how many offers of ours have been accepted? ZERO. And how many offers have we sent in? A LOT. I think we have sent about 15 so far and we'll be sending a lot more until someone decides they want to take our money.

It's disheartening to say the least, it sure isn't what I imagined when buying our first house. I imagined hunting and hunting for the right one and mulling it over then finally deciding and puppies and rainbows would emerge. There have been maybe three houses I've loved of the ones I've seen online but I can't get attached to any of them since they come and go so quickly. Also, I haven't seen any in person so my opinions would change most certainly. It isn't for lack of trying my friends, I am on real estate listings every day and I am not picky at all about the house except the location so it's not as if I'm sitting on my butt, well technically I am since I look at these listings on a computer but I promise I want to find a house to live in very much. If any offer is accepted, you will be the first to know.

Does this make sense?