Moving Part 5. The Agony and the Ecstasy

I was just about settled on the last house we looked at when it was suggested we expand our search a little, especially to include one that would not need extensive renovations. But I loved that house, for all its imperfections. Still, I was a reasonable person, so I agreed to at least look at some others. We found one, just down the street from some friends who moved away from our 'old' neighborhood. It was bigger, and nicer, it was somewhat more conventional than my eclectic fixer-upper, but it didn't need anything immediately changed. And after all the work that looked really good.
So... we made an offer.
It was a moment of resolve, and tense calm. (If that makes sense) We committed to a house. We were 'all in.'

Only to find out that the day before they had accepted another offer. We were crushed and saddened to lose the first house we no reservations about. We hadn't really thought about finding a place before our vacation anyway, but we were excited about being done early.
Our agent suggested we make an offer anyway, just in case the first one fell through.
We did and half heartedly looked at other houses for the next day or two. We didn't find anything half as nice, and my old love seemed paler in the new light of the house we couldn't quite get. We resigned ourselves to selling our house at the end of August with less than three weeks to find a new one.

Then in the evening before our trip to California the agent called. Because our offer had no contingencies (we didn't make our buying the house contingent on selling our own by any specific date) the previous offer which had contingencies had to either remove theirs or retract the offer. They chose to retract the offer, and the house was ours!
Joy!