This is Planet Money from NPR.

Sean Hawksford came to Bozeman Montana for college and fell in love with it.

Great hiking, great skiing, tons of natural beauty.

And he also fell in love with a Bozeman local who is now his wife.

They decided to settle down in Bozeman by a house and start a family.

And this plan was looking very good.

Sean had a successful business, his wife works, they had saved up a bunch of money, and

the bank qualified them for a half million dollar loan.

They started looking around and almost right away, they saw a house they really liked.

Sean, we said all right, it feels like a huge step, but we'll make the offer, we'll

do it, we'll commit to making the offer.

The house was listed at $425,000.

They offered $435,000, so $10,000 above the asking price just because they wanted to lock

it down.

But in fact, that was not enough to lock it down.

The owners came back to them and said, listen, we've got a bunch of offers.

If you want this house, you'll need to do better.

So Sean and his wife talked it over and they dug deep.

They offered $450,000.

They responded and said, I'm sorry, we've accepted someone else's offer.

Apparently, it was a cash offer.

Their agent said, listen guys, this happens, don't worry, we'll get the next one.

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