Brandon accepted a position in Las Vegas after graduating from PT school, and so we looked for temporary housing from Moscow. Our previous condo was occupied and so we recruited the help of our friends The Rasmussens, whose condo we had coveted last year. Tiffanie called us about a For Rent sign in a window while she was walking around the complex and I managed to talk the owner (a sweet man named Victor) into a month-to-month contract. Then once Brandon got settled into his job, we could also settle into a house. It was so nice not to have to stress about renewing a lease, since we had ZERO experience in buying or even looking at homes and with the market being the way it is, it's anybody's guess how long it can take.
Our friends The Grundys purchased an awesome home late last year and gave their realtor two enthusiastic thumbs up, and so we gave Jud Carpenter a call (with a name like Carpenter, he must know a thing or two, right?) We sat around one night and made a list of all the things we wanted in a house. Not a dream house, per se, since we're paying back student loans, but a daydream house. We hadn't really thought about it before and got some advice from friends and family who knew what they were talking about. And of course, we consulted the experts.
We really only had Saturdays available to look around, so we had prepared ourselves for the process to take months. Our homework was to check out the database and narrow it down to about 10 houses that we wanted to check out. I don't know if you've heard about the foreclosure situation here in Las Vegas, but it's happened to a lot of people and a lot of people are upset about it and trash their home before leaving. From the first photo we could tell that some of the homes would need more work than we'd be willing to put in and so we moved on. We ended up with a list of 7 and gave it to Jud. When we went to check them out on Saturday, he told us that several of them wouldn't work for various reasons: short sale, occupant unwilling to show the house, sold already and others. A little bummed, we moved forward. We looked at 3 homes and all of them fell a little short. And by that, I mean they reeked of smoke, had ominous blood stains in the carpet, holes in the wall or crazy layouts. So Jud took us to one that wasn't on our list and was a hair above our incredibly conservative (tightwad, Mr. Scrooge - however you want to put it) budget.
As soon as we walked in, we both knew that this was the house. It was freshly painted (and may very well have looked like the holes we'd been to previously, but we didn't have to know about it), had a spacious (for Vegas) backyard, two large living spaces AND a calendar nook. Laugh if you will, but I wanted to be able to frame a calendar (not that we have much to keep track of now) and lo and behold, the entryway had a cutout in the wall, perfect for frame. Meant to be.
Brandon and I were both certain this is the one we wanted, but it scared us that we found it the first day we looked. Jud wanted us to finish out the list for the day and see one more house. It was nice, and a similar layout to the Grundys', which we really liked. But it wasn't in as nice a shape, it had tile throughout (and we're carpet people) and we found out something about the neighbours. Well, we didn't find out as much as I would have liked - it raised more questions than anything, but from the master bedroom window we saw enough to know that we probably wouldn't become best friends. We called it a day.
We couldn't stop thinking about "our house". It was silly of us to call it that, since most of the friends we'd spoken to had put offers in on several houses and been beaten out. But we continue to talk about it and put in an offer just under the asking price. The next steps in the process are a blur, but we received a counteroffer, countered again and got the house! We worked with a great lender who'd been recommended to us by another set of friends, The Phelps. She was happy to answer my barrage of questions and walked me through every step. They had Buddy hopping at work, so I had to take care of most of it. Does that make me more of a grownup? Hard to say, since I can't remember a thing about it.
We signed our names about a million times and were told that in a couple of weeks we'd get the keys to the house and it would be ours.
Imagine our surprise when we received a phone call from Jud a couple of DAYS later, on Sunday October 23rd to let us know that the house was ours...on Friday the 21st. He was out of town and wasn't able to get the keys, so the seller had left them in the water box in front of the house. Of to a GREAT start! Irritated that we'd paid 2 days' interest on a home we couldn't step in and paranoid that someone else would get there before we did, we left for church a few minutes early to swing by and claim our keys.
The fact that a truck was parked in our driveway didn't do much for my nerves. We pulled next to them and sat for a minute, Buddy volunteering to go first and me looking for a blunt instrument for him to use. As we crept warily out of the car, a gentleman across the street stopped washing his car and claimed his truck, apologizing quietly. I tried to introduce ourselves and pretend like his attitude of "if it belongs to the bank it's mine to use" hadn't irritated me, but he really wanted to get back to washing his other car. Mystery solved.
Of course we peeked inside and found that a folding table & chair set had been left from showing the house. Bonus!
What would YOU do if you had 2359 square feet of space, 4 folding chairs and a table and it was your daughter's 1st birthday the following Tuesday? Invite 3 of your closest friends, hoping they wouldn't mind celebrating on the floor? Us too.
So we partied on the floor on the 25th and officially moved in on Saturday the 29th. The make the transition from the Southern Hills Ward to the Coronado Ward extra smooth, they planned a joint Trunk or Treat. NOW we're talkin'.
So what we anticipated taking months took us less than 6 weeks from start to finish and our month-to-month arrangement worked perfectly for getting both places clean. Apparently we're homeowners! I just wish someone had told us. :)
