The Roof Is On Fire

You don't withdraw an offer on a house and not feel a little regret. At some point, you were willing to shell out the time, money, and energy on it and that doesn't go away. Even the relief of getting out of a potentially dangerous property doesn't help when you're explaining your story over and over, realizing you're staying with your parents' for at least weeks more, and thinking of restarting your search.

About two weeks after we withdrew our offer, I came home from work and my mother said, "I got an interesting call today." A woman with whom she is friendly - who lives around the corner from the bungalow that was almost ours - called her that morning to tell her that the house we were going to buy burned to the ground the night before. Yes. It burned down. The woman awoke to sirens and flames so went outside with the rest of the neighbors to see the house burning.

The house had been on the market for a few months, had at least one offer withdrawn, and had a resident who had already bought another house. Of course, everyone thought arson, though it was initially named an electrical fire. I felt absolutely sick and thought how close we could have been to being moved in (and could have owned it by then - the owner had been really ready to go). I felt even sicker when I realized I had a copy of the recent inspection report and dozens of photos of the house - I knew they were investigating and hoped they did not need to get in touch for evidence.

Last month, we found out that the Fire Marshall's investigation proved it was an electrical fire and there was no crime. I'm glad because, in a neighborhood with houses so close to each other, the thought of someone purposely starting a fire is infuriating. I'm also obviously glad that we weren't in the house at the time.

The entire experience in the Bronx really knocked us down. It took us a few weeks to get back into looking for places, we learned that you can't predict how anything will turn out, and we were incredibly pessimistic. We didn't trust anyone, we expected the worst, and realized this real estate thing is something you can't control. It was then that we became the perfect buyers -- just so jaded.