"Shhhh......we'w hunting wabbits.....!"
Okay, not really, but for some unknown reason, when I think of "house hunting", I think of Elmer Fudd pointing a gun at a house. Dumb, I know. Don't ask me to explain how my brain works. I didn't get much sleep this week.
So anyhoo, last Monday we flew down to South Bend to hunt for a house (unarmed), with a hunting guide (realtor) named Tim. I liked him right away. He was friendly and quickly seemed to understand exactly what we were looking for in a house. We tried to get a good night's sleep on Monday night, and met with him Tuesday morning (still tired from traveling) and began the great hunt. He had the first day all planned out to show us 11 houses. For lunch, Tim suggested we eat at a place called "Sassy's" and talk about what we have seen thus far.
"Sassy's" is a burger joint in a shopping area called "Heritage Square" in South Bend. My favorite part of "Heritage Square" was this coffee shop that was attached to a grocery store, and you can go upstairs and sit in the balcony if you want. Over the next couple days, we found ourselves there a lot.
A lot.
A lot.
They also have this fountain there, which is very appealing on a hot humid day.
Thankfully, the days while we were there were "cooler" than their average temps. Tim thanked us a couple of times for bringing the cooler weather down with us. To me it still felt hot, but the breeze made it bearable. Unfortunately, I had to give up on fighting with my stupid wonky bangs and just had to accept the fact that I had to walk around looking like a dork.
Anyhoo, before we got down there, we had been looking at houses on Zillow.com and gave Tim a list of the ones we were interested in seeing, and we also gave him a specific one that we wanted to see first, and we did. It was the one that I wanted, but Tim informed us that someone had JUST put in an offer for that house the previous day and we had until 5:00 to try to outbid them if we still want it. We didn't want to upset someone else's offer, and we certainly didn't want to start a bidding war, so we decided we would keep looking and maybe, just maybe, we would find something else that suits us just as good, or better. So we looked at the 11 houses ALL DAY, and ended up being late for the last one, which resulted in the awkwardness of the owner being at home when we got there. The owner seemed a little bit agitated at first, but we got to talking to him and learned we sorta had a little bit of an Alaskan connection. Tim told him that we were from Alaska, and then he seemed really interested in us because he said he's been here twice and loves it, and plans to go back again next year.
This little part of the story doesn't seem important right now, but hang on, it will all play into the game later.
Well, as it turns out, I absolutely LOVED the house, especially the basement! I was super excited about this house, and Tim knew it, so after we left, he asked us if we wanted to put in an offer. I wanted to scream "YES!", but Chuck didn't want to rush into things. He liked the house too, especially the big finished garage with the workbench and everything in there, but he didn't want to regret making a hasty decision, so we decided to finish looking at the rest of the candidates on Tuesday, and then make our decision. The owner of the house mentioned that he had more lookers coming the next morning but we didn't think a whole lot of it because that house was on the market for 57 days and the owner was lamenting that he kept getting lookers but no buyers, so we thought we were safe in looking at other houses for just one more day. What are the odds that someone would finally come and make an offer the same time as us? Right?
The next morning, Tim needed time to plan our day and schedule the showings for the rest of the houses (we had 5 more to look at), so we agreed to meet at noon, which gave us time to drive to Coldwater, MI, where my good friend Tammie offered to foster my plants that I brought down with me. Yes, it was rather embarrassing hauling rhubarb plants and raspberry plants through the airport, and onto the airplane, but it was very important to me that I have a little piece of my Alaskan back yard in my new location. We can't take it across the Canadian border, so taking it down there by plane was the only way. By the time we got them to Tammie's house, my poor rhubarb was looking very depressed, but with a little cognitive therapy and love and patience, I know it will come around. I could learn a lot from my rhubarb, as I will soon be going through the same thing, being uprooted from my familiar surroundings and planted into a new location. My rhubarb will have to be my therapist after we get down there.
I regret that I didn't get to see Tammie herself. I knew she was supposed to have come back home from Mexico the night before, and I couldn't get her to answer the phone when I tried to call her and tell her that we were coming. So I just thought she was really tired from her trip, and we just dropped the plants off in her yard and left. It didn't feel right going to her house and into her yard and not seeing her, but I didn't want to disturb her if she was tired from her trip. As it turns out, I found out later that she wasn't even home yet until later that day.
Oh well. It's nice to know that I will get to visit with her soon.
(hey, tammie! that coffee shop down the road from your house, "Big Hat Coffee Shop", they have good coffee there and their cranberry scones are pretty good, too)
Where was I? Oh yeah. On Wednesday at noon, we met up with Tim again, and he reminded us that there were some lookers at that house that we wanted. This made us a little nervous, especially me, cuz I really wanted that house! But we took our chances and spent the rest of the afternoon looking at the rest of the houses on our list, wondering what we might be missing out on if we didn't. We saw some not-so-good houses, so-so houses that had some issues, and some pretty nice ones that we considered. At the end of the day, after MUCH MUCH MUCH discussion, we decided to put in an offer on that house we saw the previous day. Chuck wanted to take his chances and start with an offer that was below the asking price. I wasn't comfortable with it for a couple reasons, but he was firm when he told me to let him do the talking. So we ended the day signing all the paper work, and waited for news the next morning. Will the the owner accept? or reject? I kept worrying about the low offer we made, but if he rejected it, then all we had to do was raise our offer, so either way, I thought the house was in the bag. Well, we finally got some news that was worse than rejection. The other lookers made an offer on that house. "What?! What are the odds? Really?!" So Tim asked us if we wanted to change our offer. Again, I wanted to scream "YES!" cuz I wasn't comfortable with our first offer anyway. This being our last day there, we were running out of time and getting desperate, so this time we offered $5000 above the asking price, with the added clause that $1000 will automatically be added, up to a specified limit, if the other bid ties with ours. After signing all the papers, Tim felt pretty confident that we were locked in.
But we shall see.......
We decided to give the owner until 3:00 that afternoon to accept (or reject).
So Tim left and met with the realtor of those other lookers, while me and Chuck hung out in Heritage Square, drinking coffee, buying chocolate, pacing, worrying, wondering what was taking Tim so long to call us. It kept getting closer and closer to 3:00.... and we were imagining the worst. Now it was after 3:00, so surely we lost the house.
So while we waited for Tim to call and give us the bad news, we talked about some of the other houses we've seen that would be acceptable as Plan B. Chuck texted Tim and told him that we would like to see "these two houses" again. We were bummed, feeling 90% sure that we were defeated. We were getting anxious, frustrated, and nervous because it was really crunch time for us. We were leaving the next morning, and we still didn't have a house to claim, and we were talking about what to do. Should we make a a rush offer on a different one that we don't like as much? Should we make another house-hunting trip before we move? - that would've been a major inconvenience. Do we just forget about it, and rent for awhile after we move down there? - we didn't want to do that either. I cannot describe in words what we were feeling during those two hours of waiting. Despair, perhaps.
About 3:30, Tim calls. He says in a quiet even tone, "You texted me and mentioned two houses that you wanted to see again? Did you still want to look at those other two houses?" While he was saying this, me and Chuck were hanging our heads (in DESPAIR), and started to say "yes" and then Tim continues and says, "well, you don't have to look at those houses cuz you got this one." And now I can't describe the RELIEF we felt!!
I'm guessing the other lookers probably guessed that we offered the asking price because their strategy was to bid $2700 above the asking price, plus the clause to raise it $1000 if it ties with ours. They used the same strategy as us, but their limit was actually higher than our limit. So, the owner could've went with them, but he went with us because our bid started higher, but also their realtor told our realtor that he accepted our offer because he met us and he liked us. Tim thinks it was our Alaskan connection that really helped us out.
Whew!
After reviewing all of this, I told Chuck, "Man, all these little factors at play: his house being last on the list, so we would be late, so he would be home (awkward as it was), so we could talk and discover we had Alaska in common, and then starting our second bid $5000 over, and he still could've taken their offer and got more money but picked us anyway. Man, we were really lucky!"
He said, "No,.....that wasn't luck."
I think he's right.
Whoever was out there making petitions to the LORD for us, thank you!
So here is a picture of our new home:
It doesn't look super impressive here, but the inside is very very nice. Too bad Chuck cut off some of the landscaping part on the left side of the picture.
Here is the back yard:
It sits on a corner lot in a quiet subdivision where a good portion of the people there are middle-aged or older, so we probably won't see a lot of kids in the neighborhood, but there are probably some.
After the current owner accepted our offer, he invited us over if we had any questions for him about the house or the neighborhood. So we did go over there and the first thing he said was, "Thank you for buying my house!" We talked more about Alaska and the house and the neighborhood, and he asked Chuck some questions to get to know him a little bit. He seemed well pleased that Chuck is retired military and has a good job. He is the original owner of the house, so I think he felt better getting some reassurance that his house would be well taken care of. He agreed to come see us after we move in to show Chuck how to operate the sprinkler system and the security system, etc.
Anyhoo, so that is the story of The House That Almost Got Away.
Now that I feel good about the house we're moving into, I feel a little better about moving.
I still don't want to leave Alaska, but it does help that we will have a nice house waiting for us. My favorite part of the house is the basement - perfect for a scrap booker like me who has enough scrap booking stuff to run a store! Oh my, we are gonna have to buy a LOT of shelves! My sewing area will be down there too. It's a huge room with bright fluorescent lighting. (The owner used that part of the basement to build model trains.) The other half of the basement is also a nice huge area with a bedroom and full bath - perfect for Justin, and still more room left over as a rec/TV room. Also, I love the sun room. I am looking forward to sitting in there with a book and a cup of tea. The kitties will probably be in there a lot too.
Sorry, we have no pictures of the inside until we move in (1st or 2nd week of September).
Better yet, come and visit and see it for yourself. No excuses anymore that we live too far away!
On the seller side of this big change, we are still moving things along. In response to the "Repair Addendum" after the house inspection, we got three appointments this week: an electrician, a plumber, and a window guy. We need to have a few things looked at and/or fixed so we can get the appraiser here. Thankfully, we have no major issues to worry about. At least, there shouldn't be.
p.s. We got home this afternoon, and now it's past midnight. I still haven't seen Weeners yet. Justin tells me she's been missing since yesterday. New worries of a different kind.
