The House

Oi Vey!  Where to even begin?

We dropped the price on the Colorado house by 10 grand and that resulted in an immediate offer.  This was a huge relief since we now knew what we had to work with money wise.  So the hunt was on!

When we drove out here in April our sites were set on a new housing development,  Richmond Homes.  The model we had picked out was called 'The Benton' and fit all of our needs with a 5th bedroom in the front ground floor for the office, 4 bedrooms upstairs and a beautiful kitchen.  Alas, it wasn't meant to be.  It turns out none of these would be available until November.

Looking to a 'not new' house, we were able to narrow it down to 2 homes.  The first one was built in 2016 and had basically the same layout as The Benton and was also in our price range.  It was just about 2 blocks from the school with not too much of a yard, but then again none of the houses out here have much of a yard.  The second one was a little further away from a school, was older but had a hot tub in the backyard.  The floor plan was not a favorite of mine, the house was really long and narrow with a 3 car garage, a double car at the end of the driveway and then a single car garage that was separate and would've been the office.

We were all on board with the 2016 house, that is until our realtor Jim told us that this was a landlord/tenant situation.  The landlord had not even given the tenants notice to vacate yet because he didn't want to lose a months rent.  However, Jim warned us that if the tenants wanted to be a pain about things we would be looking at up to 6 months to evict them with oodles of legal complications.  So we looked at the hot tub house again, which was the boys favorite.  It was a nice house, but it just wasn't 'The One', so I asked Jim to expand our search area to Discovery Bay and Brentwood. 

Jim sent us a list of homes and the kids and I set out to see about 5 that I picked out.  We scouted while Ed was at work.  About the 3rd house in we found 'The One'.  It was a beautiful 5 bedroom, 3 car garage, 2 sitting rooms when you walk through the front door, large living room, loft area for Ed to play his games and then a huge den area that will be my office, (which is pretty close to the space I had in Windsor).  The backyard has a built in patio covering/trellis with fruit producing grape vines.  When we looked at the house there was a big bunch of juicy grapes almost ready to pick and we all got excited at the thought of picking our own fresh grapes.  This house also has paid for solar panels, just like our house in Windsor.  It is also in a very secure gated community where you have to show ID before they will let you in.  So pretty much, this house was a perfect fit in every way.  We came back at 4pm to show it to Ed and made an offer that night which was accepted.

Now I'm hesitant to put up any pictures of the house just yet in fear of jinxing it.  So I will probably post some pictures on Monday when we are at the 100% sure mark.

Back to Colorado, the day after we put in the offer on the California house, our realtor calls while the kids and I are in Target.  She informs me that the buyers for our house were planning on getting a VA loan.  However their realtor or financier dropped the ball and didn't see that they already had a VA loan and it's frowned upon to have 2 of those going at the same time.  So our Colorado realtor, Catherine, managed to get a re-fi done for them and is really working hard to keep this deal held together.

Our sellers are in the same situation, they are relocating due to work so they are also on a very strict time frame.  Jim also told us that the sellers have a backup buyer in case we fall through.

We have been living in limbo for about 3 weeks now and let me tell you it sucks!  Our notice has been given here at the apartment, but we're not completely sure where were going to go if the Colorado deal falls through.  I've decided that real estate is like domino's, if one falls the rest are not far behind.

This past Weds. we heard from Catherine with a new closing date of July 29th for the Colorado house.  We are supposed to be closing on the California house on July 29th.  Guess what date is the first day of school for this kids?  Yup, July 29th.  Later I will be starting a go fund me page to cover the cost of my straight jacket and meds, contribute what you can.

I do believe that this coming Monday we will get the final word on the buyers re-fi and we will be 100% locked in.  Everyone keep your fingers crossed!

Next up I'll write a little about some of our adventures exploring California and them getting ready for their new school.