We decided to rent when we first moved up to Utah County so we could see how Steve's job went and how money was before we committed to a mortgage. After about a year we decided to start thinking about it. We talked about waiting until Jessica got home from her mission and Robin was able to find her own place and then we would start looking. But then Robin said that she wouldn't mind staying living with us if we didn't mind. We decided if we could find a place that had a mother-in-law apartment so we could have our own living areas that that would work out great. So we started looking in the summer, and by looking I mean just doing some searching online, not really anything major. I was looking at older pre-existing homes and Steve was looking at new constructions in developments. He didn't love any of the homes I found and I didn't like the prices of any of the development plans he found. Finally, we sat down and really figured out how much we could afford and got pre-approved for a loan. Then I told Steve as long as he found a floor-plan in a community that stayed within our budget I would support the decision. He did a bunch of research and found a development community he liked. On Saturday, June 18th we met with an agent for the community and she showed us the different floor plans, we picked what upgrades we would want and figured how much extra it would be to finish the basement as a mother-in-law apartment. We figured out that we could keep the cost within our budget but we would have to have the bare minimum of everything (including space) and sacrifice a lot of the things I had on my wish list. We left telling them we'd get back to her by Monday. I got home and didn't feel great about it. I felt like we could get way more bang for our buck with a pre-existing home. I went back to all the home listing websites and started looking again. I told Steve before we made a decision I wanted to at least go look at the few of the homes I found so we could have a comparison. He was open to that, so I spent the weekend finding houses. On Sunday I was looking at houses and for some reason I decided to increase the search amount above what our budget was. I usually would never do that because, what's point in tempting yourself with a house you can't afford? And of course there was a house in the new search that was in the area we liked, was the size we wanted and had almost everything on my wish list. But, it was $8k over budget. So I let it go, found a couple other ones I liked in our price range and we decided to go see them the next day. Monday morning I went to check the home listing websites again, under my normal search criteria, and the house that I loved showed up. I was confused at first, thinking maybe I had searched the wrong priced houses, but then I realized the owners had lowered the price $10k! I was ecstatic! I immediately sent it to Steve and he sent it to our real estate agent so we could get an appointment to go see it. That night, we went and saw a couple other houses and then ended with THE house. After seeing the house I loved it even more. We would get a ton of extra stuff and space for the same price as the newly built, bare minimum home. We finished walking through and Steve (who usually has to take quite a while to research and think things through) said, "Lets put in an offer". I was so surprised but so happy at his reaction. He said later that it felt like it was our home. Turns our finding our home was the easy part, getting it was another story.
It was about 7pm Monday when we looked at the house so our Agent put in an offer the next morning. Then they got back to us on Wednesday saying that they had 6 different offers on Tuesday, all of them very similar or the same. So they were giving everyone a chance to put in another offer (and sweeten the offer). Our problem was we were only $2k below our budget so we couldn't sweeten our offer that much. So we decided to just do everything we could and if it was meant to be it would happen. So we offered $2k more, upped our earnest money amount and said we would pay some of the closing costs (we were getting our mortgage through UCCU and since I'm an employee there I get a discount on closing costs so we felt like we could absorb the cost there). And to add a cherry on top we wrote them a personal letter with a picture of our family telling them how much we loved the house, that we would take good care of it and we would love the opportunity to turn the house into a home. Then we crossed our fingers. They got back to us later that week saying that another offer was higher than ours so they were going to go with that offer, but they really liked us so if for some reason that offer were to fall through they would accept our back-up offer. That really should have been the end of it. There was really no reason to believe that the better offer would fall through so we should have moved on but neither of us did. I just had this feeling that they were eventually going to come back and say the house was ours. Steve didn't tell me at the time but later said that he felt the same way. So I kept looking for other houses but only half-heartedly and I continued to make plans, in my head, for that house. About a week after they accepted us as a back up offer their agent got in touch with ours and let us know that the other offer ended up being a "bogus offer" (we never found out what exactly that meant) and they had officially accepted our offer. We were SO excited! And only slightly surprised. The rest of the month went relatively smoothly. The loan went through great (which was my biggest worry) and even though we had a family reunion a few days before closing and I had a little baby that made packing and cleaning hard, we got through it all ok.
It was hard to leave our neighborhood too. It always takes me about 6 months before I start feeling comfortable and about a year and a half before I have friends and feel like I'm at home. I had just gotten to that part when we moved. Spencer had made a lot of good friends in the neighborhood and at church too. His Sunday School teachers (The Stewarts) were so cute and made him a poster to put in his new room to say goodbye.
We closed on July 27th and started moving in July 28th. The actual moving part was the hardest. I may go back on this when the time actually comes because I hate spending money on things I can do myself, but I think it might be worth the money to have someone else move us next time. Steve and I always prided ourselves on how efficiently we moved but we forgot this time that it wasn't just us we were moving, but Robin too. When you move 2 households it takes twice as much time and room. We ended up having to get 2 trucks over 2 days and took what felt like a million trips back and forth between the new and old house with small loads in the car and van. And We were supposed to meet the people helping us to move into the new house at 7:30pm and we didn't get there until 9pm.
But positives: We had a lot of help from the old and new ward. We made a lot of great friends in our old ward that were so gracious to come and help us load up the truck. The new ward rocked too! We didn't even know them and had only asked for help a couple days before and when we came to the house there were 6 guys from the ward there, plus Aunt Sallee's husband Stuart and his son. We busted it all out in about a half hour. That night we were all exhausted. I had been up moving since 6am that morning. That night we put the mattresses on the floor with a sheet, I took off my clothes and just collapsed into bed. I didn't put on my PJ's and when I woke up the next morning I realized I had forgotten to brush my teeth and take out my contacts too. They boys didn't even let us put a sheet on-they just collapsed.
The next few days were just as long and hard. We got our second truck and did another load with that the next morning and then spent all afternoon and evening cleaning the old house. Thankfully the sellers of the new house had left the new house really clean so we didn't have to worry about that.When we got up to eat breakfast the next day I couldn't find very many things. But we had cereal, milk, paper bowls and plastic... forks. We also had juice but couldn't find the cups so we rinsed out a Powerade bottle and a McDonald's fountain drink cup and used those. Also, had to sit on the floor since we didn't have a kitchen table and chairs yet. Saturday was spent trying to find the essentials and I had to work.
After all that we were able to make it to church Sunday. Miracle. We love our new house and neighborhood though. Hopefully we will make many happy memories here.
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