When we first got to Denver last week, I was unsure about a lot of things. I didn't know where we would live, where the kids would go to school, where we'd go to church... you know, minor detail stuff like that. A lot can change in less than a week.
We started meeting with our realtor, Wendy, in person shortly after we got to town. Last Saturday was our first day of actually driving around and looking at properties. See, Jen and I had decided before I deployed last year that we wanted to buy a house this spring. Well, when I got home and got orders we made the easy decision to modify our plans to buy a house when we got to our new duty station. Fast forward to my last post about our trip up here from San Diego...
Anyway, we met Wendy and started looking at houses. We looked and looked and looked some more until our daughter got to the point where she said she doesn't want to look at any new houses. As we looked, we totally played like we were a couple on an HGTV show by saying what we liked and didn't like about each place and whether or not that particular house was still on "the LIST" of options. Finally we were able to narrow down our choices to about 4 properties. Two were bank owned (foreclosures) that were still in decent shape and had a lot of potential with open floorplans, neutral carpeting and white walls. Of course, there were some minor issues with those, but nothing that I felt was beyond my skill level or experience (except maybe the yards, but that's a different story) so we wanted to see them for a 2nd time. However, they went under contract before we got to see them again, so they were taken off the list for us. One house was just about perfect for us... right now. The decor was great and the lot is big enough to play in the yard. Plus it's right next to a green space which I figure is common property so the kids could play there as well. However, everything on that house is done which leaves very little room to grow. (Side bar: We're not planning to have more kids, but we haven't taken any permanent precautions, and the kids we have aren't likely to get any smaller.) We also looked at a house that was an obvious flip property. The owner has done a good job, but there is more to be done and we aren't crazy about the neighborhood.
That brought us down to a house that had just gone on the market and a house that already has 4 bedrooms and an unfinished basement with plenty of space for a family room or "granny flat" of some kind. Down sides? Well, the new listing is a bit of stretch for our dollar and since it is a new listing, it's not likely that the sellers would be willing to lower their price as much as we would need them to. The other one is within sight (and sound) of the local high school and you can hear the traffic on the main drag. So, the question comes down to: Will they pick the ready to move house that's too expensive but perfectly located or the house that's priced better and is bigger?
Well, we signed a contract yesterday for the second option. That doesn't mean that we've bought it just yet, but it does mean that it will no longer be available for showing to other buyers. The house is great. It's got a perfect yard with a decent sized deck. The eating area is a bit small if we put our table in there square, but if we funk it up a bit and put the table at an angle we should be good. The living room and family room (as it is now) are separated by a 1/2 wall so the space is defined but still very open. The master suite is a good size with a large walk-in closet. The current owners ran power and water up to the closet and put the washer and dryer in there! The master suite basically takes up the back half of the 2nd floor and faces West... toward the mountains, sunsets, and if you squint hard enough on a crystal clear day... the beaches of California. (;-P) The other 3 BR's are on the East side and will get the morning sun. The basement is over 400 square feet of blank space. Except for the water tank and forced air unit, we can do pretty much whatever we want down there. It's already insulated so we just need to finish the walls and put down a floor and we're good. It was also originally designed to have the laundry down there so there's already water and power. We will need to repaint the bedrooms. The master is a nice mocha color which works with the furniture that's there right now, but will look odd against our cherry pine stuff and painting is a lot easier (and cheaper) than getting new furniture... especially since no one out here sells CA King size beds. (CA King is also referred to as Western King and I thought CO was still a western state. Guess not.) Besides, we (meaning Jen) has some ideas about decorating the kids rooms.
The current owners are camping this weekend so we're going to go back this afternoon and take a super detailed look with an eye toward what can go where, what we need/want to do before our stuff gets delivered and what can wait until later.
Anyway, I want to take a minute to thank our 'sponsors' for this adventure. I called my Dad and put him to work finding us a good realtor in the Denver area and he totally nailed it. Wendy has worked hard for us and even though I know we're not the richest clients she's ever dealt with she's made us feel important. She referred us to Tim Duvall who quickly got us a pre-approval for local financing and has even said that he can't think of a reason why we can't close by the end of the month. Last, but definitely not least, I want to thank God for watching over us during this process. This house has sort of just fallen into our laps and, assuming everything goes well, I can't see this as anything other than answered prayer.
Oh, and I checked into my new unit yesterday. I'm back at work. I will get permissive TAD (free time off) but I'm holding that until we actually move and Jen's mom comes to visit. That will be in less than a month!
Have a great week and thank you for your prayers and support.
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