Posts Tagged "house hunting"
A long way home
When I wasn’t here blogging, I was out and about driving from house to house with my mom. Sometime after my dad’s funeral, my mom decided she wanted to move. Sometimes you just need a change, you know? For no other reason than a fresh start.
So in May, we started the “Great House Summer Tour” though I guess “The Goldilocks Summer Tour” was more apropos because seriously, we saw a lot of houses that were too small, too big, and only a few that were just right.
I never realized just how exhausting house hunting could be. We looked online for listings and drove around the city in addition to the houses our real estate agent came up with. We saw a lot of houses in a lot of different conditions, a few that were move in ready but more that were move in once we fix up ready. And don’t even get me started on the conditions of the foreclosed houses!
We ended up putting an offer on three different houses, one that was amazing though probably not exactly what would have been best for us, one that, in hindsight, was more of a “settling” house, and the third and final one that was bigger than our intended goal but actually works out the best for us.
The first house was a three-bedroom plus loft in a newer development down the road from us. This was the only house we were both excited for and the only one I was super excited for [I, apparently, was unimpressed with most of what we saw]. The rooms were a little small but it was still very nice, especially the backyard. However, it was such a good deal that there was quickly a bidding war [and the house was just listed that day!] and since it was already at the very top of our budget, we didn’t have much wiggle room in terms of offers. So we let that one go.
The second house was on the smaller side and more in line with our original vision: smaller one-level home. However, the size was a concern, especially the kitchen, and though we weren’t completely happy we put an offer on it anyway. Now here’s the fun part. The house was a short sale so the whole process could have taken a lot longer since we would need to get the banks approval even after getting the owner’s approval. Our offer didn’t even make it to the bank. The seller’s agent did quite a number on us. The agent wasn’t responsive or upfront with our agent; he didn’t send the contract over to the sellers and after some phone tag, our agent finally got permission to deliver the contract to the sellers. After we got their signatures, we sent the contract back to the other agent to be sent to the bank. A few weeks and several phone calls later, our agent finally corners the other one only to find out that, hey! Remember that contract you sent over to me? Yeah, well something happened and they didn’t get to the bank in time…so the house has been foreclosed. Okay, bye!”
Yeah. Seriously.
I was so bitter and turned off from that experience that I just wanted to the whole thing to be over. I was not looking forward to restarting the house hunt but thankfully we didn’t have to see too many more houses. The final house was another foreclosure but it had been on the market for a while, mainly because the asking price was way too much considering the condition of the house. But while it took my mom a while to warm up to the house, I liked it. After some back and forth with the bank, we became the proud owners of an almost like new house.
So now we’re in the midst of renovations [we needed to redo the floors, paint, upgrade the kitchen and bathrooms and reconvert the garage BACK into a garage] and I could not be more excited. I’ve been occupied with paint decisions and design quandaries and art projects for my new [bigger!] room and bathroom. I’ll definitely write up a little bit more about what I’ve been working on because the projects are so cute that I must share.
I’m looking forward to moving in and settling into our new home. Yeah I’ll be sad to leave this house, which we’ve lived in for the past 16 or so years but it’ll be good to move on. And in. Definitely can’t wait to move in.
Though packing up my room is going to be a pain.
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