We had officially lived in Provo for one year. We planned on
renting for a year or two to get our lay of the land, decide what kind
of house we're looking for, and save up- you know- a deposit.
Fall of 2013 we were looking at houses online, not to buy just to see
what's out there and what interested us. Since we signed a one year
renters lease I had zero intention of taking our house hunt seriously
for a while. (Seth may have had trouble holding back his intentions.
Just sayin'.) In November looking at houses actually became quite
stressful so I threw down the hammer and said "no more looking at
ANYTHING for a few months! We are not ready!" Seth behaved badly and
still peaked.
One day last December Seth says to me "So, I have a house for you to
look at- BUT it's not my fault because the website emailed ME!" The
reason the website emailed him was that the house had been on the market
several months but now dropped 65K in price making it in our price
range and a short sale.
I looked at the pictures online and dang- it looked great. So we called Charles, a
family friend realtor, and I told him we have no business looking at
houses but we've got to see one. We toured the house and dang- it looked
great. The house is in Orem (at the Orem/Provo change over which just means we
can't get google fiber) right by the mouth of Provo canyon- so we dubbed
it the mountain house. It has a beautiful library, awesome deck, and so
much character. So all of sudden, the first week of December we got
financing and put an offer in on our short sale.
I wanted this bad boy to take months- so I figured it would close as the
worlds fastest short sale. But we waited. Seasons changed and we
waited. School ended and we waited. We would drive past it and imagine
the things we'd do to our mountain house. And waited. When May came
around we started to wonder if we were hoping for a house that we had
built up in our minds so we toured it again. It was a nice dose of
reality (we started making things up about the house "there's a door
there" "no there's not!" etc) but the mountain house still called to us
so we waited. We left town and came back again with no news.
Then came the end of June. If we were going to move before school
started up again then we had to buy soon, so Seth and I decided that when
we returned from England on July 2nd if the bank hadn't approved our short sale
offer we'd do a full house search and wash our hands of the mountain
house. The very day we got back in the country I got an email saying the bank
approved our offer. (At that point I was so tired and jet lagged that
at the idea of packing and moving I considered backing out of the offer.
Luckily saner minds prevailed and after some sleep I decided it was
still a good idea.)
One thing that was hard for me is that I waited for seven months for
this and my enthusiasm had waned. Sure it was a great house, yeah it
needs work, sure I'll buy it, whatever. It felt very anticlimactic. I
had friends tell me that the house was right if I felt "excited". I
didn't. I felt positive but I was also detached. The inspection was
still pending. If our inspector found mold and cracked foundation and
termites and rats and a homeless guy living in the attic then we
probably wouldn't buy it. A little emotional detachment seemed healthy.
Regardless I started packing our stuff.
Yesterday we had our inspection of the mountain house and it was
generally all awesome. Lots of little things that we can easily knock
out ourselves and the big stuff wouldn't be a deal breaker. You know
what happened, I started feeling excited and I think, we just may,
actually be buying a house.
This one.
We close on or before August 15th and we'll be able to move in just before Seth
starts school again. We're excited now. House
party is pending.
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