A reader posting under the name Sara shared her home buying story last week in the comments, and it was just too good not to re-post here on the front page.

In 2007 I was 28 and decided It was about time to buy my first home. My partner was game and everyone was buzzing about real estate. Our friends were crowing about how easy it was to get approved and we thought: “If they can do it so can we!”

So off to the bank we when and lo and behold we were approved for $350,000. I am a numbers geek so I went home and figured out that payment and said no way. We had a combined income of $70,000 so I thought that the bank was crazy. That was the first warning sign.

I came up with a payment I was comfortable with, set my own ceiling at $200,000 and went shopping. Now—we live in Tacoma so this is possible, but the places they were showing us were dumps. After a while, we moved on to looking at less desirable neighborhoods and did find something we liked in a decent place. By this time however I was starting to suspect something was wrong.

We made more than the average income for the area and yet all we could find was a 2 bedroom on the wrong side of town. My Realtor tried to talk me into moving my purchase point up to the maximum, but I started searching the web for more information.

In my search I found this website, Seattle Bubble, and I started reading. I read six months worth of posts in a single sitting, and when I looked up I knew I had my answer. We canceled our shopping trips, fired our Realtor and sat down to wait.

And wait. And wait… well at least it felt that way.

Fast forward to 2010, two raises, one baby and one Mom tired of waiting for her fenced backyard. We decided to start looking again. First day in we put in an offer on a 2 bedroom bank-owned property. Listed at $85,000 it went to multiple bids and sold for $80,000.

The multiple bids scared us so we pulled out and waited and watched Redfin. A few months later another two bedroom came on the market listed at $94,900. We were ready and put in an offer immediately. It also went to multiple bids and we put in what we were comfortable with $95,000. We won the bidding war and we were under contract.

I put these examples in to show you that just because there are multiple bids does not mean they are high bids. Both houses had over 5 offers and we would have won either with a full price offer.

Now for a brief history of the house. It is a 2 bedroom, 1 bath 1906 Victorian remodeled in 2006 before its last sale at a price of $192,800. Updated plumbing and electrical with no major problems found during the inspection. The bank fixed a busted pipe in the bathroom and painted one exterior wall without any hassles about bank will do no repairs.

The funny thing is that despite our income growing to $90,000 a year, this time our original loan application with BECU was rejected! Probably because we are both post-grads with student loans up to our ears. So we had to go, you guessed it FHA (the new sub-prime).

All in all it all went smoothly, we closed on June 25th in time to get the $8,000 tax credit for a final effective home price of $87,000. The house is comfortable, I have mowed the 4 foot grass and painted some walls, but other than that It was move in ready.

So that is my Seattle Bubble, REO story. Finding this website and waiting 3 years saved me $105,800. Prices may still decline but for now I am now longer in an apartment and renting this same house would be $900. Our payment is $740. So I guess Ray is right, there are gems out there and Thank you Tim for me. At least you made a big difference in my life.