House Hunting

I started looking at houses around the first of the year. And continued to look for 6 months. I checked the online listings EVERY DAY. I was frustrated to find out offers had already been made on multiple houses I liked over the months. In hind sight though, I am so glad I did not end up at any of the other properties! Most of the houses were smaller and/or the kid's would have been in basement bedrooms.

There are some things on my "wish list" that are not in this house, but all our necessities are certainly here. I wanted to keep my commute to work short and I absolutely did not want the kids to have to change schools. (We had been watching the new Granger high school being constructed over the last two years and was scheduled to open just in time for Ashleigh to attend).

My must haves were; 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1200+ sq feet, and .15 acres. The hardest part was staying within my budget in the area I wanted. Our first walk through of the house, I knew I wanted it. It was a foreclosure and had been empty for almost a year. There were orange poppies growing in the back yard. I joked around that those flowers were a sign for me to get the house. (When I was growing up California there were always poppies around since it was the state flower)

Entry

Living room from the entry

Entry looking into downstairs family room

Laundry room - off downstairs family room
(plumbed for additional toilet/bath)

Extra/4th bedroom - off downstairs family room

Original kitchen (70's)

Dining room

Living room from the dining room

Powder room off kitchen

Apparently I didn't get pictures of the 3 bedrooms upstairs. Looking down the hall; the room at the end  would be Ashleigh's and had white wainscoting, crown molding, new bedroom and closet doors (nicest room in the house) but a crazy green on the walls. The door on the left would go to Jackson's room. The first door on the right is the bathroom. Second door on the right is the master bedroom with original hardwood floors and double closets. I loved that all the bedrooms had large windows.

Main bath - upstairs (LOVED the window in the shower)

 Backyard

      

It was a pretty ugly house the way it stood, but I knew the potential was amazing. The upstairs bath would need an immediate overhaul, but the rest of the house was in good condition, especially for a foreclosure!

It had a single carport rather than a garage, but it had room for Russ to park in the driveway rather than on the street, a storage closet at the back of the carport and storage shed in the backyard. No master bathroom but the main bath was larger than both of our old bathrooms put together. No garbage disposal or dishwasher but had a gas stove instead of electric. The square footage was almost double our old space at just over 1800 and the yard was HUGE (over a quarter acre). The backyard was fully fenced with 2 of the 3 sides with wonderful new fencing from the neighbors.  There wasn't much of a mountain view because off all the tall trees but the back yard is so secluded! Not a single window from a neighbor looks into the yard. No fireplace but it had A/C rather than a swamp cooler and tons & tons of natural light. I felt it had some good trade off's.

I felt the few things the house didn't have that I really wanted could be added down the road without too much trouble (dishwasher, disposal & fireplace) so it was worth putting in an offer. There were 3 other people looking at the house just while we were there and they were pretty interested also. Who know's how many other's looked at it when we weren't there. Because it was a foreclosure, there was a bidding process. There were no negotiating with the seller so I only had one shot to place the highest bid.

I was confident with my bid but nervous for the bid results. I offered more than the bank was asking but still low enough that it was a great opportunity and within the budget I was comfortable paying. I was trying not to get too excited about it but it was really hard not to. I had no idea how much other people were bidding. Tuesday morning at 10:36 I got a text message from my real estate agent, "Congrats winner!" I cried. It was really hard to focus at work after that!