this just blows my mind...

As you may know, on Thursday of this past week Jim, the garmin, and myself set out on our fourth bonding experience of this past 9 months.  Basically, I could have had a child in the time it has taken Jim and I to find me a house...which I find oddly creepy and sad.  Either way, we sped through the East Valley, and Jim got very acquainted with Gilbert and the 202.  We saw 8 houses in a matter of 2.5 hours, and the day was quite a blur!

With Wanda being so unpredictable, it was time to find a true front runner that would make me feel awesome about cheating on her and not make my bank account wince.  We found that exact thing in a house on Orchid Lane (nice ring to it, right?).  Orchid was an identical floor plan to Kent, except flipped and it was on the cheaper side of the subdivision in terms of HOA fees since there was not access to a community pool.  This was all fine and dandy for me, since Orchid Lane had a pool, and Pebbletec at that!  

The main advantage of Orchid was the price (only $2,000 more than Wanda!) and the fact that it needed zero repairs or updates.  Orchid had beautiful, over-sized tile and upgraded shag carpeting that was in great shape; a kitchen island with wrap-around counters; a separate shower and tub in the master bathroom with double sinks; and an actual laundry room.  I had more storage and more kitchen, but I gave up a walk-in closet in the master and some living room space; but I did gain a pool and a newer house (built in 2002!).  The even better part about this house was we could close in about 50 days!  They had a contact fall through on 11/10, so basically someone had already done the leg-work for me, and I reaped the benefits.

Here are some pictures of Orchid from the listing:

view from the front door

view from the edge of the kitchen

kitchen

dining room view

this color is even more hideous in person, and it will be changed

back patio, you can semi-see the pool

Now, I know that every time I write something on this blog, the next day it changes, but that is part of the fun I guess =).  Our paperwork is still in on Wanda, and we are in a first come, first serve situation with 2 houses now...which is kind of exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time.  However, we do have a tentative closing date of January 25 and we are AWC-I with our contract right now, which means the seller has accepted it, and now the bank has to as well; Jim says we will know by Friday where we stand...

Fingers crossed...

back to the grind

...april 15, 2010...
A week later, Jim and I busted out the Garmin and got back out there.  And yes, I am comparing this situation to having to start dating again after a break-up, because that is pretty much how it felt.

Again, forgive my memory, but I don't remember what we saw this day.  I remember being generally unimpressed, as Kent was now the standard everything was being measured up against.  We did see one house, Nielsen, that was flat-out gorgeous, but was missing 2 of my top necessities...

Nielsen was about 1350 square feet, 2 bedroom (ouch) / 2 bath for $124,900 I believe.  The kitchen was upgraded, the master bedroom was HUGE, the backyard had a fire pit, and there was tile throughout the house.  There was an office off the living room that had no doors, but an option to close off a section for a closet (which is why they listed the property as a three bedroom).  The MAIN thing that I didn't like about this house, was that the living room was tiny, like teeny-tiny and there were not three bedrooms.  I saw Nielsen twice this day before deciding to offer on it, and we went lower at $122,500.  I was already nervous about this house, and felt I was settling...and in hindsight, I was.  Looking back, I have no earthly idea why I put an offer on a home that was THAT expensive without meeting a major requirement--living room!


Long story short, this went quickly, and we got the offer in the next day.  Jim called me almost immediately after submitting it, and said there was another offer on the property as well, and that if I increased my offer to $125, 250, I would definitely out-bid the other offer and most likely get accepted.  Well, I freaked out about this.  I remember driving in my car, crying, because I knew this wasn't my house and I didn't love it enough to even continue with the offer.  I felt terrible, because I knew Jim busted his ass to put the paperwork together, and Tom did the same with my loan documents.  When I told Jim I wasn't going to increase because I just didn't love the house, I knew he was frustrated with me.  But, as Jim always does, he understood.  Tom reassured me as well and told me not to settle, and that  I would find my house.

This was the last time I picked a house just to pick a house...

you smell that? yep, that's urine...

...february 21, 2010...
I met Jim for the first time on this Sunday.  I brought my mom with me for moral support, because Jim had warned me that some of the homes would be "trashed." Little did I know what the word would actually mean...

We met him in Cooper Commons and it was pouring down rain.  The first house we looked at was a home I dubbed La Costa (if you haven't caught on, I use the street names...much easier than saying 'the fourth house we saw...no before the one with the crack in the driveway').  La Costa was beautiful, and at the top of my price range... It would come to be my favorite home of the day.  We saw Waterview, a smoked filled home with holes in various doors that my mother--for some ungodly reason--loved; and we saw a two-story home that she also SWORE was the home we lived in when we first moved here, except it wasn't the same neighborhood or house at all.

We drove to more "central" Chandler, and during this car ride my mother took the opportunity to question Jim about whether he would throw in an extra garage door opener with purchase, if he was aware of current market value, and basically if he even knew what he was doing.  By the end of the drive, they were best friends and she had him cracking up with her comments the rest of the day.

In central Chandler, we found poopy diapers, a sleeping teenager, and Bob who didn't bother to clean his kitchen.  We went through a neighborhood where I refused to even get out of the car to go look at the house, and I'm pretty sure a drug deal went down while we were recalculating Jim's Garmin.  The final house was the true winner of the day...

Sheffield was in a gated neighborhood next to the community pool.  Jim tried to prepare us, but there was really no way to prepare someone for what we saw.  My mom immediately pointed out what looked like a blood splatter on the inside of the front window that could very easily have said "REDRUM" for all I know.  We opened the front door and I'll never forget what came out of Jim's mouth, "You smell that? Yep, that's urine!"  Between the smell, the dog food scattered about, the wedding dress and last month's bills...we had had enough for one day!