Well, it took us about 9 months to find a house. The trick with the DC market is that inventory is always low and there are a lot of people in the market for houses in particular range (400K-725K) in a particular neighborhood (Upper NW). There are also a lot of crappy houses in great neighborhoods that fell into disrepair for one reason or another and then there are crappy houses that people bought, started to renovate and then ran out of money. As a result of all this, we saw a lot of duds. Although the money pits were awesome for their 'wtf' reactions, nothing, however, beats the day that we were shown a split-level ranch house off MacArthur. Modern, clean, good condition--we were excited to check it out. Our agent reserves a show time and we roll up to the house.
The agent does the whole ring the doorbell, knock on the door, giving it a final 'hello! real estate agent showing' to secure the space. Silence greets him, so we step in. We check out the kitchen, the bathroom, living room, etc. I then noticed a door to the basement so I called out to the agent that I was going downstairs. As I began to descend, a door suddenly opened and an overweight man in boxer shorts and black tube socks burst out of one room and ran into another one. I screamed and ran up the stairs. We all then ran out of the house.