Monday, March 09, 2009
I forgot to mention that we decided not to go with the other builder I'd mentioned earlier. I just didn't love the plans they were offering in our price range, although the size and over all style of the homes was what we were looking for. They just weren't quite there for me though, although Chad liked one of the plans. It was only a 3 bedroom and I didn't want to settle.
BUT.....
We found a house! It was one we'd looked at earlier, then they took it off the market and put it back on so we revisited it after the other couple of houses didn't work out. We'd liked it the first time we looked at it - I actually took Chad back for a second visit, but after seeing it another time, we liked it much, much more. Maybe b/c we weren't comparing it to the first new house. It's smaller, 2800 sq feet, but still big and has everything the other had, except some of the rooms are smaller - mainly the master bedroom and the game room, although the master bedroom is still quite large - it's just not ginormous. The yard is quite large, has a huge side yard for the boat and a large backyard to put a pool in some day. It looks nice inside and out and has underground sprinklers front and back - not a lot of homes here do for some reason. Inside it really doesn't need anything in order to move right in, although we'll do some stuff to make it our own. It's about 2 1/2 years old, so still pretty new.
Inside there's a nice large entryway with huge ceilings, to the left is the formal living room and it has vaulted ceilings. To the right is the formal dining room. If you continue forward and a bit to the left, it leads into the kitchen which is granite, has a small island, stainless steel appliances and a nice pantry. There's a breakfast nook right off the kitchen and then leads into the family room. Off the family room is the door to the backyard where there's a nice covered patio. If you were to continue through the hallway instead of going into the kitchen or family room, there is an extra bedroom/den with double doors that will be my scrapbook/art studio room/guest room. There's a full very pretty bathroom at the end of the hall, just off the bedroom/den. To the right of the dining room is a short hallway that leads to the 2 car garage. Before the living room, to the left of the entryway is the staircase. It's not a straight shot, has a turn to it and then at the top is the game room. There are two standard kid sized rooms up here, one with a small walk in close that will be Micki's. There's also a full bathroom and a laundry room with a sink (garage has a sink too), which Chad's not sure he likes it upstairs, but I think it will be nicer since all the bedrooms are up here - no hauling clothes up and down. There's attic pull down storage in the hallway - and it's very roomy - maybe not quite as much room as we have in OR with our garage attic storage, but there's still plenty of space, more spacious than a lot of homes we've seen. The master bedroom is up here and it's very large. The owners actually have a king size bed, huge dressers and the entire wall in front of the bed filled with a huge entertainment center(there's a niche all along the wall that it fits nicely into) and they even have a couch and side table in front of the EC and it doesn't even look crowded at all very surprising, but it doesn't. The bathroom has double sinks, a garden tub and separate shower, and the closet off the bathroom is very large. We plan on fixing up the bathroom with granite counters and vessel sinks and possibly tiling the shower just to really step it up several notches above contractor grade.
That's it. OH, and it goes into escrow tomorrow!!!! Chad just has to sign the final documents when he gets home tonight. There were a lot of negotiations back and forth, and we got it to the price that we wanted - our top price for this particular house, although $20,000 under our very top price. The owners have actually come down over $30,000 from their original asking price. If all goes well, we should be closing by the 31st of this month. Yay.
BUT.....
We found a house! It was one we'd looked at earlier, then they took it off the market and put it back on so we revisited it after the other couple of houses didn't work out. We'd liked it the first time we looked at it - I actually took Chad back for a second visit, but after seeing it another time, we liked it much, much more. Maybe b/c we weren't comparing it to the first new house. It's smaller, 2800 sq feet, but still big and has everything the other had, except some of the rooms are smaller - mainly the master bedroom and the game room, although the master bedroom is still quite large - it's just not ginormous. The yard is quite large, has a huge side yard for the boat and a large backyard to put a pool in some day. It looks nice inside and out and has underground sprinklers front and back - not a lot of homes here do for some reason. Inside it really doesn't need anything in order to move right in, although we'll do some stuff to make it our own. It's about 2 1/2 years old, so still pretty new.
Inside there's a nice large entryway with huge ceilings, to the left is the formal living room and it has vaulted ceilings. To the right is the formal dining room. If you continue forward and a bit to the left, it leads into the kitchen which is granite, has a small island, stainless steel appliances and a nice pantry. There's a breakfast nook right off the kitchen and then leads into the family room. Off the family room is the door to the backyard where there's a nice covered patio. If you were to continue through the hallway instead of going into the kitchen or family room, there is an extra bedroom/den with double doors that will be my scrapbook/art studio room/guest room. There's a full very pretty bathroom at the end of the hall, just off the bedroom/den. To the right of the dining room is a short hallway that leads to the 2 car garage. Before the living room, to the left of the entryway is the staircase. It's not a straight shot, has a turn to it and then at the top is the game room. There are two standard kid sized rooms up here, one with a small walk in close that will be Micki's. There's also a full bathroom and a laundry room with a sink (garage has a sink too), which Chad's not sure he likes it upstairs, but I think it will be nicer since all the bedrooms are up here - no hauling clothes up and down. There's attic pull down storage in the hallway - and it's very roomy - maybe not quite as much room as we have in OR with our garage attic storage, but there's still plenty of space, more spacious than a lot of homes we've seen. The master bedroom is up here and it's very large. The owners actually have a king size bed, huge dressers and the entire wall in front of the bed filled with a huge entertainment center(there's a niche all along the wall that it fits nicely into) and they even have a couch and side table in front of the EC and it doesn't even look crowded at all very surprising, but it doesn't. The bathroom has double sinks, a garden tub and separate shower, and the closet off the bathroom is very large. We plan on fixing up the bathroom with granite counters and vessel sinks and possibly tiling the shower just to really step it up several notches above contractor grade.
That's it. OH, and it goes into escrow tomorrow!!!! Chad just has to sign the final documents when he gets home tonight. There were a lot of negotiations back and forth, and we got it to the price that we wanted - our top price for this particular house, although $20,000 under our very top price. The owners have actually come down over $30,000 from their original asking price. If all goes well, we should be closing by the 31st of this month. Yay.
After my latest update, I did find some houses I liked. One required some work on the flooring and repairing the ceiling, but the cost was so reasonable, the sellers just wanted out of it as is. That got snatched up before I had a chance to even decide on it - too bad, the finishes were just gorgeous and the kitchen to die for.
We thought we were going to put an offer in on another house we looked at - actually liked it better than the original new house we were going to get. This house was a tad bigger, and had a gorgeous kitchen and family room, had 5 bedrooms and they were roomy, plus the game room, living room, etc. The yard was enormous, and it was in a posh neighborhood. It was a foreclosure, and it needed a really good cleaning, plus all the carpets upstairs needed replacing, and it needed fencing. For the price they were offering it at we felt it was totally worth it. When we prepared to put the offer in, we found out the taxes were around 8,000 a year - holy cow! That made the payment jump up like crazy, so we were going to have to go in quite a bit lower to compensate and still be able to afford it. The other agent then told us that it was owned by Countrywide and they would not accept ours or anybody else's offer without a pre-approval letter using Countrywide as the lender. We had the pre-approval from our lender, but no, we were told they won't even respond to an offer unless it's through them. We walked away. We weren't about to start playing those games, and with the cost of the taxes on top of that we knew we shouldn't even go there. It was shame, such a beautiful house, but it would have been worse to worry over it.
We thought we were going to put an offer in on another house we looked at - actually liked it better than the original new house we were going to get. This house was a tad bigger, and had a gorgeous kitchen and family room, had 5 bedrooms and they were roomy, plus the game room, living room, etc. The yard was enormous, and it was in a posh neighborhood. It was a foreclosure, and it needed a really good cleaning, plus all the carpets upstairs needed replacing, and it needed fencing. For the price they were offering it at we felt it was totally worth it. When we prepared to put the offer in, we found out the taxes were around 8,000 a year - holy cow! That made the payment jump up like crazy, so we were going to have to go in quite a bit lower to compensate and still be able to afford it. The other agent then told us that it was owned by Countrywide and they would not accept ours or anybody else's offer without a pre-approval letter using Countrywide as the lender. We had the pre-approval from our lender, but no, we were told they won't even respond to an offer unless it's through them. We walked away. We weren't about to start playing those games, and with the cost of the taxes on top of that we knew we shouldn't even go there. It was shame, such a beautiful house, but it would have been worse to worry over it.
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