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Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Fabric... Welcome to the Patriotic Quilter where I like to share all things quilty as well as red, white, and blue! Please feel free to look around and enjoy yourself! I would love to hear from you.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014

House Hunting

Hi Everyone,

First of all, it was great hearing from several of you yesterday.  I'm so glad that people are still interested in my blog since I've been so absent this summer.  I love hearing from you.  I haven't been reading many blogs lately, either, so I'm looking forward to going back and catching up.  I feel like I'm missing so much!

Can you believe that the summer is almost over?  School has been starting up all across the country.  I feel like I've missed most of it, but then, I'm not a big summer fan, so that's okay, too.  Usually I just hole up in the air conditioning and quilt.  I've barely stitched anything in over a month--I really need to change that!

The house hunting has gone great.  I find looking at homes to be pretty fun.  We looked at the serious contenders with our realtor, but then looked at others during the Open Houses, just to see what is out there.  Remember how yesterday I said that we fell in love with that first house we saw?  Once we got here and began looking at other internet favorites, I thought I would fall in love with all of them, too.  You see, for most of the past 25 years, we were offered a house by the Army.  We had two choices:  take it or leave it.  We took it and made the best of it.  Consequently, I am now trained to "like" most anything that we look at.  We did have some experience:  when we rented in Virginia, we looked at 4 houses and chose from those.  But anyway, I have liked many of the houses.  Don't get me wrong, there were some that we crossed off the list.  One, that I expected to really love, seemed all wrong.  There were two others, though, that I really liked, other than that very first one.  One of those had the most gorgeous kitchen as well as a pretty view outside--the only problem was that the garage was too small for my husband.  The second was great.  It had been owned only by one couple.  They are selling to move into a retirement home, I think.  It was so well cared for.  If anything needed replacing, the did with the best possible choice.  The only problem with it was that it was set up to be a villa.  I've never heard of that before, what it means here is that the owner pays $200 a quarter for all of the yard work to be done.  Many people may love this concept, but my husband really enjoys doing yard work.  He could still do it, but we would have to pay the fee anyway.  There is no way to change it, either, so that was a huge mark against that one.

Even though we had other possible houses, I still couldn't forget about that first one.  We had gotten a call when we were back in Virginia cleaning out the house.  There was an expected offer on it, and we were notified in case we wanted to make one of our own.  We discussed it.  At that time, it was still one of the only ones we had looked at.  We wanted to look at more, so we decided not to be pressured.  If it sold, that would be okay.  There would be other houses.  Every time I looked at the real estate websites, I expected to see that it was gone or "pending," but it wasn't.  So last Thursday, we went back to look at it--this time with our realtor.

Have you ever fallen in love with something that you saw briefly and then the distance from it increases your desire for it?  And then once you see it again, it doesn't measure up anymore?  Well, that wasn't the case with this house.  Our second time visiting, I knew it was THE ONE.  What's more is that our realtor, who is awesome at looking at all of the workings:  furnace, sump pump, radon detectors, etc., could find no problems with it, either.  We decided that we would meet again on Saturday to put in an offer.

We got back home that night and were bouncing around, all excited.  Then the realtor called and said that she had contacted the listing agent and there was another interested party.  Her advice was to meet on Friday to do the offer.  We met her at 7 pm on Friday to write up the paperwork.  We left about an hour later and she was sending it to the listing agent.  We just got home when the phone rang.  I was thinking that they accepted it already!!  No, that wasn't the case.  There was another offer in and so we needed to decide what was the best offer we could make.  Our realtor was with another client and she would call us back in an hour.  We discussed it, let her know, and then went back to her office to do the new bid.  We didn't get home until after 10 pm.

You might think that there was no way that we would be able to sleep, for the anxiety of not knowing how it would work out.  However, I was surprisingly at peace.  "If it is meant to be, it will be" was my motto.  My excitement had kept me up the previous night.  I slept fine.  On Saturday, my husband I stayed together most of the morning, in case the call came in.  Finally, around 10:30, he ran out to get the car washed.  I had already been to the car wash with him and our other vehicle, so I stayed home.  We really didn't expect to hear anything, though, until the afternoon.  And then my cell phone rang.

We got the house!  We will close at the end of September.  I'm still really excited.

Have a great day,
JoAnne

PS.  Now that the hunt is over, I hope to get back to sewing soon!
 


21 comments:

  1. Congratulations on your new home! So glad that your favorite house is now yours. Not long now before you'll be all settled...

    I had to smile at your description about NOT being picky when it comes to houses... I like to watch those house/home shows on TV and am stunned at the picky-ness of some folks.... and generally over stuff that is easily fixed like paint or wallpaper.

    Glad that, now the house hunt is over, you can get back to sewing. One needs to create something every day...

    :)

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  2. Congratulations, how exciting! Wish you the best in your new home.

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  3. I like watching House Hunters on HGTV but now know they have already purchased the house they end up in before filming. Still it is interesting to see inside the houses. Good that you got the one you had decided to make an offer on. I hope you will have a wonderful sewing room!

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  4. Congratulations on getting your "love it" home!
    I had a similiar experience with picking out a wedding dress. I loved the first one I tried on, but had to try on lots of others just to realize that the first one was my favorite afterall.
    Some purchases just have to be perfect, and it sounds like your new home fits the bill.

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  5. Congratulations on finding a home you love so quickly.

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  6. Congratulations! Now the fun begins, doesn't it . . . making this house into your home. Enjoy it, and get that sewing room set up!!

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  7. Exciting news! It will be so much fun for you to be in your own place, for the long term, where you can do whatever you want to it.

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  8. Well, you are fast! I hadn't even gotten to your first post on the move and now you have a post on a house. Congrats and how fun.

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  9. Congratulations!!! The last time I bought, I probably looked at 75 properties and ended up buying the third one I saw. There was another interested party when I saw it, but by the time I made an ofer, they had dropped out and the seller just had me and a bottoming out housing market to consider. Enjoy the peacefulness of a decision made. Lane

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  10. Congratulations!!!!! I can't wait to see pictures - and happy quilting!!!

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  11. I'm so happy you found a house! You'll just have time to settle into the rental then get ready to move again :)
    Send me your new address once you're settled in ok?

    Peggy

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  12. I wondered how things were going for you - so exciting that you have found THE ONE!!! Good luck with all your moving and getting backinto some sewing!

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  13. Ha! I love property virgins. Not the show....people like you. FYI, those monthly fees are quite common everywhere, not just in so-called villas. Usually they are called HOA fees, so chances are you might have those anyway. I'll bet that in a few months your husband will be happy to have the lawn done. A we retired to a community in SC and our HOA dues only include the common area, not your own yard so we still have to pay for yard work. So with it. Congratulations on your new (first) house. And remember ...... You can do anything to the walls that you want to!

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  14. Congrats on getting your dream house! I am SEW happy for you ;-) We have NEVER purchased a home without their being a "glitch" ... e.g., there was another contract on it and we had to wait until the first buyer either stepped up and removed a contingency or walked again (which usually takes 3-4 days to happen), or it was a short sale (meaning basically the bank with the previous owner's mortgage has to "forgive" some of the debt so it can be sold at a lower price) to the new owner, or the property was being "sold as is" which requires YOU (the new owner) to get an inspector in on your own $$ for a report on what needs to be done but you can't go back to the Seller and ask for consideration. I've often told my husband that I want to buy one of the houses that we fix and sell ... they are in SUCH great shape when we leave that they usually are on the market less than a week! Anyway ... great adventures in store for you ... things seem to be going your way, JoAnne .... SEW happy for you ;-) PS: Now to dream about how you'll decorate the house AND the quilt studio!! Linda

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  15. That's awesome JoAnn! I can't wait to see how you decorate YOUR house!

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  16. congrats, so glad you found the right one for you

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  17. CONGRATULATIONS !!!!!!!

    Looking forward to seeing your new home :-D

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  18. Wonderful news! I am so happy for you! Hope you will take us on a photo tour soon! : )
    BTW, no one around here has those lawn care fees. There may be one or two retirement communities within our valley, and maybe somewhere a gated community, but for the most part, people do their own lawn or hire someone to do it.

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  19. I'm so happy to hear you found the house that will become your new home. Hooray! I'll bet you can't wait to get a sewing room all set up. How exciting.

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  20. Awesome news JoAnne! Congratulations. I look forward to seeing the progress you share during the move and getting settled.

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  21. It’s good to hear that the house hunting went great for you. Looks like it was love at first sight for you. House hunting would surely be branded as a generally pleasant experience, if that’s the case for most of house-hunters. Anyway, I hope the move was as smooth as the ‘search’. Cheers!

    Willard Evans @ Wow Homes

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