House Hunting, Part II

Towards the end of our search, as we started broadening our parameters, narrowing in on locations and (of course) upping our price range, we found more houses that were "agreeable."  Not perfect, not even fantastic, but would definitely work.  And I think that's one of the big differences between our experience and that of some of our other recent homebuying friends.  We weren't looking for our forever home, or even for a while home.  We were looking for a place that could fit our family for the next three years and, more importantly, sell easily after that.  So we were trying to look for the same kind of house that everyone else is looking for.  Turns out, that would be a two-story colonial with 4 bedrooms and 2+ baths.  They're the most popular house on the market.  And they can go fairly quickly.  The interesting part about this whole house search was that while we were going into it as homebuyers, first time ones at that, we were constantly trying to see each house as a future seller, always trying to juggle both views.  For us, the scariest thing about becoming a homeowner is the fear of getting "stuck" with a house when we're restationed in a few years.  Although it would be awesome if we could make a little money off our home when it's time to sell, we'll just be more than happy if we can sell quickly and break even.  It's a risk, but we feel it's a good time for us to make it.  And we're pretty excited.

So during our final days of searching, the days when everyone was dealing with a stomach bug and Jude threw up in my hands in the car on the way to the realtor's office.  The days when I happened to have a change of clothes for the poor kid but not a way to get the aromatic barf scent off my own self.  The days when we always ended up dragging Jack away from some cool toy, mud puddle, slide, etc. kicking and screaming because he didn't want to get in the car and go to the next house.  Those days.  We came across a few "good ones."

One of the houses was a blossoming little cape cod in a sweet neighborhood that was not only a superb location (and close to Jon's work) but also happened to have boat access and a community beach.  Double score!  The landscaping and gardening around the house were bright and cheery, but the house itself left a bit to be desired.  The layout and design made it appear dreary and confusing.  The carpet was brand new, which is nice if you like carpet, so we had to wear special little bootie things over our shoes so as not to track dirt.  According to the listing description the kitchen was updated.  But if that was updated I'm curious to see the original!  We're willing to make necessary changes but the difficulty with this kitchen was the layout ... and the fact that the washer and dryer were located under the kitchen countertops. :( 

The house had four good-sized bedrooms, but they weren't all on the same floor (which I would find annoying with little kids).  And the central air unit, or whatever it was hiding in the hall closet, was so loud my brain was rattling by the time we left.  Despite it's quirks, we couldn't deny the fact that the house had great bones, a charming yard and was in a perfect location!

The second list-topper was a delightful little split-level in a highly-desirable neighborhood.  (Do I sound like I could write MLS listings yet?).  While small on space, it was big on charm.  And we do love some charm in this family.  Original hardwood floors, crown molding, a fireplace, and loads of natural light.  It wasn't a colonial, and it technically didn't have 4 bedrooms.  Instead it had a "theater room" and a garage that had been converted to an office.  But the backyard was a little boys' dream.  Swings, slide, clubhouse, tree stumps to climb, dirt piles to dig in and lots of ground to explore.  And trees.  Big, tall shady trees that will just dump loads and loads of leaves on the ground this fall... that Jon will have to rake up. 

Even though it was about 500 square feet smaller than our current place, we really liked the rooms and layout.  The only major hang-up was the kitchen.  It wasn't updated, which is okay with me.  I'm no chef, I can totally work with older appliances.  But it was also rather small.  As in, very few cabinets and even less counter space.  If we ended up there, I would definitely have to be creative with storage!  We also knew we would need to do a kitchen reno if we wanted a quick sell in a few years, and that's no small task!

The house was on the higher end of our price range, even though it had just been reduced that week.  But we thought it was a good value and our realtor agreed.  Since we were interested, she did some investigating for us and found out the house had been on and off the market for several months and that at least one contract had fallen through in the past.  We were surprised to hear it was because the house had appraised for less than their offer.  Way less.  Our mortgage lender has a strict policy against taking out a mortgage for more than the house is worth, and we wouldn't want to do that anyway.  So as much as we liked the place, we just didn't know how we could make it work.  We kept it on the list just in case.

Another favorite was brand new construction. It was a bit of a drive from Jon's work, but was in a water community. Which meant a dock for our someday-dream sailboat, and a little beach for the kids. And by little I mean maybe 50 yards wide. But hey, sand and water! The house was so new the builder was still finishing up a few things, and because of all the rain the yard, which was just dirt at the time, was a total mess. It was a large lot and backed up to acres of woodland. I could just picture my little guys exploring and building forts in the trees. But while there was plenty of space outside, it really lacked storage on the inside. And creativity. It was basically an L-shaped box. And a completely open concept. So the living room was wide open to the den which was wide open to the dining room which completely flowed into the kitchen which opened up to the garage... okay just kidding, the garage was the only space with a door. Now I know a lot of people like this kind of thing, but when you have loud kids sometimes you just want to go somewhere and shut the door. Especially if you're a work-at-home mom. Plus I had a hard time picturing how we would set up our furniture in there.

So the downstairs was big and open, but the upstairs was tiny and cramped. I don't mind tiny bedrooms, but in order to have an office/guest room combo, the boys would have had to share one of the smaller rooms. And since there was no place for a toy room on the first floor they would also be sharing their room with all their toys. And I didn't even know if that would be possible. But the kitchen, oh the kitchen! Gorgeous cupboards, stunning granite countertops, all new appliances. A woman's dream. Except ... there was no pantry. Clearly designed by a man.
This place reminded us the most of our old Virginia Beach neighborhood. A little spotty, but some real winners here and there. Like, there were two new houses next door, but across the street was a cement block number with a chain linked fence and huge, menacing barking dog. There was a community park, which I appreciated, but I didn't notice a lot of friendly people about either. Then again, it was new construction. Which meant, depending on our offer, the builder could work with us to make some changes (like a pantry perhaps) and we didn't have to worry about replacing big ticket items in the near future. Definitely one to think over.

So which did we choose?  The needs-some-work but in a perfect location cape cod, the charming but tiny split-level or the new construction with beach and dock?  We chose ...

House Hunting, Part I

Growing up, I LOVED houses.  I would grab "The Real Estate Journal" everytime we stopped by the grocery store, and pore over local house listing just for fun.  My friend's mom was a real estate agent and used to give me old copies of her MLS listings, simply because it made me happy.  I was checking out Better Homes and Gardens magazines from the library by the time I was 12.  And while many of my peers were catching up on episodes of "Saved by the Bell" after school, I was busy picking up tips from "Trading Spaces."  Yup, I was a fan long before Paige Davis hit the scene. 

But then I grew up, got married, had kids, and realized owning and decorating a home took major moolah ... and time.  I still held on to a few copies of BHG, and every once in a while, on a slow day at work, I'd check in with the local Pennsylvania listings to see if I could find my parents a new house.  But for the most part, my "house love" had slipped below the surface.  Until recently.

Jon and I were almost sure we were going to rent again when this next move popped up.  We weren't positive, but one night over dinner we decided it was the best and safest route for our family at this time in our lives ... and the economy.  I had even found the most perfect, ancient farmhouse on 18 acres on the water for rent on Craigslist, and was busy dreaming of my boys running barefoot across the field as I hung clothes out to dry.  And yet, for some reason, we applied to get pre-approved for a mortgage "just in case."  And then kept checking the for sale listings "just in case" and after discovering that my "perfect" farmhouse was perfectly rented, and after several weeks of hunting for a rental, and coming up empty-handed each time, we decided maybe it really was a good time for us to buy.

But now I'm jumping too far ahead.  We've known we were probably going to move since the day we arrived here.  There was always a chance we'd get restationed here, but a move was most likely.  We just didn't know where.  We also knew we had a list of our top 10-15 choices, unofficially labeled a "dream sheet" in the military.  We thought we'd get one of the choices on this list, but you just never know.  Jon has always gotten his first choice (that's my guy!), but his detailer had kinda prepared us for the worst this time around and made it seem like his first few choices weren't going to be in our future.  So we tried to "plan for the best, prepare for the worst."  In the preliminary days, we relied mainly on Zillow.  And although we focused mainly on our top choice, we tried to get an idea of the market in other areas as well.  Of course, we were very excited to find out we would once again be getting the #1 job on "our" list.

I say our list since these moves involve the whole family, but really these are Jon's top job choices.  We all know my list would go something like:  Central PA, Eastern PA, Southern PA, Northern PA and England.

We tried to be really smart this time around, especially after this last move. We learned a tough lesson in January when our house was burglarized, and we didn't want to make that mistake again.  Sometimes having a nice house, in a nice neighborhood, just isn't enough.  So our goal was to fully research and truly understand each and every town we considered.   I was actually really surprised to find out later that our realtor couldn't provide us with any neighborhood information.  I had always assumed real estate agents were also "relocation experts."  But apparently it is now against the law for them to advise us on neighborhood demographics, crime rates, schools performance, etc. because this is considered "leading" and is purely conjecture.  It all makes sense now, but at first I was a bit disappointed to hear we were on our own!

Thankfully, we live within driving distance of our new stomping grounds and we both know a few people from that area.  So we asked questions.  Lots of them.  If I even overheard someone was from such-and-such an area I was stopping them for advice.  I even called up a stranger, a relative of a friend of a friend, to ask some questions.  We searched all sorts of different websites for measurable information: crime stats, school stats, sex offender registries, median incomes, median home prices, median ages, education levels.  One website, http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/, which I love, even provided a write-up on the personality types of people who reside in specific neighborhoods (not just cities).  My favorite part of this website was that you could input one of your current favorite neighborhoods and ask for it to find similar places within a certain mile radius of a new location.  Golden!!  Yeah, I had a lot of fun with that one. 

In the end, we were able to narrow our seemingly hugantic search area to 3-4 specific towns.  By this point, our referral program had assigned us a realtor and, after months of searching the web, we were finally ready to get boots on the ground.  So anxious, in fact, that we went to check out the area on our own that first weekend, even though our realtor wasn't free. 

We went to an open house for a new construction community and of course fell in love with the place.  But when we tried to go back a few days later it had already been sold.  Yikes!  We took it as a sign that it wasn't the right place for us anyway and made an appointment to look at a few more with our realtor the next weekend.  Thankfully, my parents were down visiting Uncle Jared that weekend and offered to take the boys off our hands for a few hours.  Otherwise I don't know how we would have ever made it through 6 houses that day.  It didn't seem like a lot at first, but even without towing kids around, I was exhausted by the end of the day. 

Our first real day of house-viewing was a big disappointment.  But I suppose it was just a necessary part of the learning process.  We looked at 6 houses, only one was worth considering.  My favorite part of the day was the house that we literally ran out of at the end.  Floral wallpaper, pink carpet, crumbling kitchen ... I could look past all that.  But the sticky linoleum and plug-in-air-freshener-hiding-the-faint-scent-of-dog-urine was just a tad too much.  Even sitting on over an acre wasn't enough to make me think twice.  And the fact that it was slightly over our price range, well I almost wanted to cry (instead we laughed, even our realtor thought it was funny).  But nothing says "realty check" like discovering you can't even afford a borderline dump in certain areas of your location. 

The rest of the day wasn't much better.  The sellers were still in two of the houses we tried to look at (some sort of miscommunication), and both stories involved people in showers.  Awkward.  There's nothing more uncomfortable than walking through a house and there is still steam on the bathroom mirror.  Or trying to comment on a kitchen when the owner is sitting right there checking his email.  Or not being able to see a house at all because the owner doesn't feel good and can't leave.  Um, motivated much?  We didn't have time waste on unenthusiastic sellers so we crossed those three off the list really quick.

The other thing I wasn't expecting was the "creepy" factor.  I've been in dirty houses, houses that need work.  I get that.  I don't mind it.  We're not house flippers ourselves but I love those kind of stories.  But I just wasn't prepared to be totally, completely creeped out by some places.  They looked totally normal on the outside, were fine on the inside, but just plain felt weird.  And I'm not the only one.  There were 3 houses that we looked at that, both Jon and I agreed, were just "off."  I don't know if it was the house itself, or the people who lived there, but we just couldn't get past it.  Dude, you can't renovate creepy.  Those got crossed off the list pretty quickly too.

But there was definitely one house that felt so absolutely perfect, so us, so HOME.  Or at the very least like a friend's home.  And THAT was the house that got our attention.  But as this is post has reached uneccessary lengths already, I'll save that story for another time...

Sorry, no pictures.  I don't know about the legalities of posting pictures of other people's homes.  Although I WISH I could share with you some of the things we saw during our hunt!!