House Shopping AGAIN---PART 1

After this house shopping ordeal-this is the last time I want to buy a house!  3rd times the charm I suppose!

When we found out we were moving (October), we did lots of studying, researching, shopping...HOMES.HOMES.HOMES!  You come to find pretty quickly what you like and what you want.  Here was our want list

WANT: 4+ bedrooms, 2+ bathrooms, 3 car garage, at least .18 acre lot, in a good area with decent schools, a 30 minute commute for Craig or less (in PDX he was doing AT LEAST 45 minutes EACH WAY!), a family room with a separate room for the kid's "playroom" or a separate room for them to have to watch & play---not a front room when you walk in-some houses had lofts, room in the yard to plant fruit trees & a garden, I wanted a 90's house because I like the neighborhoods because all the houses look different and unique and most time came with a bigger lot, I wasn't a huge fan of 2003+ houses cuz the neighborhoods are squished in & all houses look same, Craig liked older homes with fire burning stoves but I hate them because in my eyes that would equal lots of $$ to update, I wanted at least 2300+ square feet-Craig likes nothing too big because then the family feels very separate, our price range could've gone higher than our Washington house because we were making more money living in Boise with lower insurance, taxes & a slight pay raise but since paying $165 less for our rental vs. WA house-we found we didn't want to stretch ourselves thin so we wanted to be under the monthly payment of WA house, and mostly just getting a good feeling

So we found a few and had to wait until at least January to do anything.  We are in our rental for 6 months and can be done end of April. I found out near my birthday that the loan officer in Utah that did our re-finance on our Ogden house was fully licensed in Idaho.  Craig gave him a call right away and got the loan approval process started.  About the 3rd week into January, Craig called a house we had been watching to do a walk through.

I thought it was a little too soon although I was really excited.  Also I was nervous because of all the houses this was the only one that stayed on our radar list.  I knew I would fall in love with it and Craig is good at just leaving.  So...that's what happened!  Walked through, loved it, met all my expectations, totally could see our family in this house, did have some cons but over looked them.  (in the backyard is a 2 way street that is semi-busy; located right next to a city water station; in a neighborhood with similiar looking homes but overlooked because at least it came on a .20 lot; was built by a builder that we had heard bad things about; the 4th bedroom was located downstairs off the family room away from the other bedrooms)  The next day the agent had told us that she was doing 3 walk throughs that weekend and I got nervous.  I was frustrated that Craig wouldn't offer on it, especially cuz the agent told us they could do a longer closing date AND would probably go lower.  It was a really bad night for us!  I fell in love and wanted it.  Craig wanted to keep shopping, but mostly wanted to see more houses in person.

Saturday we called the listing agent and asked her to show us some other homes.  We were very impressed with her.  We spent Saturday morning seeing a house I fell in love with that was right by our rental (90's home, 2400 sq feet, beautiful inside!, nice .18 lot....but the taxes & price were very high)  After going through that house it failed my mind and was actually disappointed in it.  The upstairs was the only thing going for it.  I found another house that I had been watching and we went to that one right after.  It was a great showing and I loved a lot of things about it!  It was 2300 sq feet and felt perfect for our family.  BUT when we walked in the backyard-I was disappointed.  It was small!  The size of our WA backyard it felt.  We compared everything to the #1 house.  We decided to go back to her office and write an offer.  I was soooo excited!  It felt good and right!  There were some things that it didn't have but you realize-you'll never find the perfect house with every single thing.  We waited all night Sat and most of Sunday and started feeling doubtful that they must've not liked our offer.  We only came in $5k lower than their asking price, them paying closing & leaving their fridge.  As we were waiting, Craig got an email notification for a house that came on the market the day before.  He was SOOO EXCITED ABOUT IT!!!  More than house #1.  But I didn't feel like he was completely on board with house #1.  I didn't want to see his excitement for fear that we made a mistake.  He showed me the house, the information about it and quickly I could see why he was so excited!  It had  2350 sq feet; 4 bedroom; 2 1/2 bath; 1999 house, .23 acres with fruit trees & garden area, in a great neighborhood-suprisingly only a few blocks away from house #1, on a culdesac, a large 3 car garage, had a separate "playroom"   Just looking at the pics...it was a WOW  house.  Now came the stress.  What do we do?!!!  Just then we got a counter offer!  They said no to the $5k lower unless we pay our whole closing costs (about $8k) or we pay their full asking price and they'll pay only $3500 in closing costs...oh and the fridge would be $800!  I was ticked.  I felt like they were being greedy and didn't even want to work with us.  I wasn't giving up but felt like I couldn't go further on house #1 until I at least saw the new house.  We'll call that house #2.  So we told our agent we were thinking about their counter but we found a house we wanted to see the next morning.  Timing...RIGHT!!!  If they didn't counter, we wouldn't have a choice.  Craig was off work the next day so he was able to get in to see house #2 right away!  Just timing is amazing!!!  We decided to go for a drive to see it, although it was 8pm at night and I instantly got a huge smile!  It was everything that I wanted-that I had been looking for-that wasn't available for the past 4 months I had been looking.  I loved the neighborhood, the area, the house was so cute outside, the culdesac.  It was perfect!  We were scheduled to walk through the next morning!

Pics from internet listing & google