What

After several months of looking around the market and making several offers, I am under contract to purchase at 120 South Champlain Street, Burlington, VT 05401.

This house selection represents a diversion from my strategic plan, which was to purchase a multi-family property within walking distance to downtown Burlington. I looked a several good houses that fit the criteria of 2-3 units, within a 1/3 of a mile to downtown,  and with decent structural integrity. I made offers on three of the places - probably too lowball. In each case the house was either too expensive for what it was (but eventually the seller received their asking price) or it was listed and within 1-2 weeks there were multiple offers received and the seller received more than her asking price.

Ultimately, the market in Burlington has performed well through the recession because the inventory of available housing is still very low (1.5% rental vacancy rate, according to Allen and Brooks, Dec 2010). Because of that houses are selling quickly, at asking price, typically with multiple offers. Very stressful for an interested buyer who's looking for a good deal!

During the course of my searching, I stumbled across the above referenced little gem of a property. I passed it by the first couple of times that I saw it on the MLS sites because it was not a multi-family. However, I had always walked by the street and thought: what a great place to live! Here's why:

The Property: 120 South Champlain Street

east to Prime Downtown Areas: Church St Market (open air shopping mall, 1 block from co-op grocery store, City Market, and 6 screen Marquis Movie Theater)

west to Lake Front: (park and bike path) 

Town Center Mall: (one of larger enclosed shopping malls in the state)

City Hall Park: (location of Burlington Farmers' Market every Saturday in the Summer)

 "Our Block": (Home to great restaurants like August First and Pistou and great eco chic home goods stores: Anjou & Little Pear and The Green Life)

As if that central location were't enough, here is a an aerial picture take from above Lake Champlain, looking eastward towards Burlington's waterfront and downtown. You can see the cute little house in the picture:

Finally, after a couple of weeks of passing by the listing, I called the agent for a showing. She told me they were just waiting on another offer, but she could show me. We went, fell in love an put in an offer, which we had to immediately increase because it had turned into a competitive situation with another buyer.

Ultimately, the seller accepted the other buyer's offer and we were sad!!

We spent the next week, re-doubling our search efforts, but there was nothing on the market that we wanted as much as the house at 120 South Champlain. I decided to sit back and focus on other life projects: work, my relationship and, of course, my taxes!

Out of the blue the following Friday afternoon, I received an email from the realtor saying the contract had fallen through because the City wasn't allowing an addition the buyer wanted to add to the original house. Essentially, the house was ours if we wanted. We took the weekend to discuss and re-affirmed our offer on Sunday afternoon. By Wednesday, we were under contract.

We're buying a house!