Thanks for all of your replies (even though none of you is actually selling me your house yet as requested.... Our new strategy is to look for things 50K under our budget, as suggested. I wish we had known this tactic was necessary when we lost out on the first house we loved (but alas, we only offered 12K over!) but now we are just waiting for the right thing to come on so we can throw everything we have at it. We are looking further afield out of necessity but our hearts remain in FH and HOP....