And, another win for April.

Apparently our agent went to present our offer on the house we want yesterday amidst eight other
competing offers.  He made his best pitch and we got the house.  So we’re pretty excited  Here’s a flickr photoset of the new house.  Note that real estate photographers tend to use wide angle lenses to make rooms look larger, though it’s pretty sizable compared to where we’ve come from.

So we have three reasons to be thankful for our fortunate experience of getting the very first house we bid on in San Francisco. 

1. The first is our mortgage broker, Linda Hays, our mortgage broker at First Security Loan Corp.
   (408.998.7831)  Her job was to find us a great mortgage and get us to closing without hitches.  She not only gave us some credit report advice, but went above and beyond the call of duty to deal with the seller and their agent.  With 8 offers in front of the seller, and 2 others competitive with us, she got on the phone with the seller and the selling agent and had a long talk about our finances and what wonderful owners she thought we’d make.
2. The second is our real agent, Peter Fong from Coldwell Banker (415-452-7800).  Peter very patiently worked with us while we vacillated around which San
   Francisco neighborhood we wanted to live in, what our budget was going to be, and how many bedrooms we needed.  When we found the house we wanted he brought in a competent contractor to find all the problems so we could comfortably estimate the work required and make an "as-is" offer.  He made an in-person presentation to the seller which was certainly a clincher in the deal.  Given the fact that he wrote an offer with a dollar value that had two competitors, he managed to win the deal on things that didn’t cost us any money, such as a generous "move out" date. 
   
3. The third, obviously, is luck. With all the stories about prices going up so quickly due to multiple offers, we would have been the typical couple bidding on houses for a year before we finally got one.  We got lucky, and we know it.

If you decide to buy a house in San Francisco, I hope you’ll consider using Peter and Linda.