Trying to buy a house

A couple weeks back I decided it was time to _try_ and enter the real estate market.  If you don’t know Victoria, it’s a fairly desirable west coast city to live in with not a lot of options when it comes to affordable housing.  Average price for a house is easily ~400k+ and the townhouses/condos I’ve been looking at have been in to ~300k range, and that’s in the suburbs.

I’ve had limited success so far but have finally gotten to the point of making offers and battling over counter-offers.  It’s very much a game, not unlike fighting with Product Management over requirements, scope and resources.  With any luck it’ll be over soon and I’ll have a nice home office to work from.

The real estate agents will surely make out alright, a $300,000 sale would gross $12,000 in fees and I can’t imagine either the buying or selling agent having much in the way of costs.