Ginny calls around ten, just as I’m hanging up with a client. She sounds urgent.

“Margo, it might be perfect.”

I have heard this before.

“Four bedrooms, renovated kitchen, great yard. Right over the DC line—before you ask, yes, it’s in the top choice neighborhood. And guess what? No one else knows about it! It’s not listed yet.”

That part—the “It’s not listed” part—stops me mid-sip of coffee. It pulls me up from my little desk by the apartment’s floor-to-ceiling window, a hunk of bait just juicy enough to make me forget that it could be wrapped around a sharp, painful hook. Ian comes to a standstill in the kitchen, his hazel eyes zeroing in on me.

“My sister-in-law does yoga with one of the sellers,” Ginny continues, at her usual breathless speed. “He told her they’re putting it on the market at the end of the month. Apparently, his husband got a big new job out of town, so it’s all very rushed. But maybe—and I don’t want to promise anything here—but maybe that means they’re motivated enough to take an offer now, before they list publicly.”

A surge of hope, that familiar poison, makes my heart stutter. This is the fantasy. The urban legend that everyone house-hunting in this godforsaken market latches onto at some point. You hear about a friend of a friend (in my case, it was the cousin of a coworker) who got an inside tip about a house before it hit the market, who swooped in and bought it before the masses could even think about descending. You hope and wish and pray the same thing will happen to you. You take detours through your target neighborhoods, scouting for a moving truck or an estate-sale sign, any hint at all that might give you the jump on a place before it officially comes up for sale. You know the odds aren’t in your favor—and yet it has to happen for someone, right?

Right?