The House Hunt (part three)

Rational people would look around the fabulous home they've just found, Think of the horrendous home they saw 24 hours prior, and start signing some sort of agreement post haste. Not Ben and Janice,though. No. We decided that if this house was awesome the house down the street for $200 more a month must be incredible. And if we were going to look at that one, we might as well look at the other three our agent had found for us. Because we are just that smart.

So we got back in the car so that we could look at this:

Yeah those are matching pink counter tops and cheap cabinets in the kitchen and bathroom. The small closets were an added bonus. After that, I pretty much stopped taking pictures which was sort of a shame because I wish I could show you this bad boy:

 This was a beautiful corner lot with a kitchen TO DIE FOR. The granite counters were newly installed and the recessed lights under the cabinets will be a dream come true every time the tenant has to prep a meal.  The pool was also nice and had a door directly into one of the bathrooms. The master bath had a huge window made of glass bricks which made it so very bright. Plus, Ben had made friends with the gecko on the front porch which would bring him to a grand total of one friend, so that was nice.

Unfortunately, it was more than an hour from Ben's work and, to be honest, just didn't do enough to outshine the first house of the morning. So Jessica sweetly called the real estate agent to ask about neighborhood amenities and average utility costs, etc.  We were pleased with everything we heard so we stopped to grab lunch and then put in our application. But...
BUT
What the other agent failed to tells us while we were asking all our questions was that someone else had already requested an application and even if we were able to turn ours in before him, he had dibs. Did that dude really just tell us someone had called dibs on our house? Seriously?  While this nightmare of a  conversation was going down Ben was dutifully in another building getting a money order for our application fee so he wasn't there to keep me from throwing a tantrum.  Thank goodness for Jessica, though.  Upon hearing all that crap about "dibs" her face fell like it was her own home at stake.  It was actually very comforting and kept me from embarassing myself with said tantrum.

We tried offering more rent per month, but none of our calls were returned.  Ben and I looked at each other. And at Jessica.  All three of us knew we couldn't settle for any of the other houses we'd seen that day and we were leaving Tampa in just two days.

So now what?