Home is Where the Heart Is

In June we decided it was time to start looking for a place to call home. This was something we had been talking about how we want to do since before the wedding. Our initial plan was to stay put and pay down our debts so that next year we would be in a better spot and then start looking, but the more and more we talked about it we thought it was the right time to being life’s next little adventure and start the home buying process. We thought a yard would be nice for the dogs; living in an apartment with 2 (even though small) dogs is crazy. Also the market seems to be a good time to buy right now. Seth had a friend who knew a good agent (or so we were told.) He came over one afternoon and we login onto the MLS with the agent’s login, and began looking at homes.


Our first thought was let’s not go too crazy and let’s look at smaller less expensive home and townhomes. We found a few really cute townhomes but none seem to fit just right, my parents told us don’t buy a townhouse you will hate it, and although I still like the idea of a townhouse it just doesn’t meet our needs. (We need a yard for the dogs.) The first night we went out looking at houses we were a little disappointed in what we saw. It was tough we really want to just find a place that we like. We realized that some of the homes are going to need work and that was our mindset. We had been pulling the lists ourselves and going based only on what we saw in pictures on the MLS listings. We went out again and found a home we thought would work well for us, it was at the time priced where we felt good and although it needed work we felt comfortable with the price and the money it would take to fix up the home. We put our offer in… a few days later the bank came back wanting 15k more, I wasn’t sure what to do, I asked my parents to come with us to look at the house because I was not sure. I think it was then that we realized this was not the home for us especially when the bank now wants more money on a home that really needed some TLC. One thing that my parents really pointed out to us was that our Realtor was not really helping us make the right choices; he was almost pushing us into buying this home, even when we brought up our concerns with the home, and he basically just played them down like it wasn’t a big deal.

The next day we changed agents, and looked at a few more homes with a lovely agent, she was nice and was pulling homes for us to see which was a lot more than what the previous agent had done for us. Then my mom was looking on KSL and called on a home she saw that she thought we would like. The agent called my mom back and talked to her for some time and my mom told me to look at the house on KSL. When I pulled up the ad, it was a home that I had seen on the MLS several times and kept asking to go see. I talked to the agent and he set us up with a time to see the home he was selling the next day. The following day I had several email exchanges from this agent asking me so many questions about the home I really want not just what I think I can afford at this point in my life. I listed the basic’s 3 bed, 2 bath, yard for my dogs to play in, good neighborhood, told him the area’s we like. He came up with a list of about 10 homes that he thought matched what I was looking for and sent them to me and told me to tell him all the things I liked vs. hated in the homes. From that list we saw about 6 homes that night. We saw 4 homes we just loved and knew matched what we wanted. 3 of the homes were short sales, 2 of the homes were really nice and we didn’t think we could ever really get them, but we decided to make offers and see what happened.

The non- short sale home, came back quick and the agent wanted a lot more than we were willing to pay for a home we had an offer in on an identical home 2 doors down. So we walked away. A few weeks last we learned that on our Favorite home we were in first position and that the bank will be countering but we heard the counter, however before they officially counter offer us they needed to run the offer by the investor of the home, we were told that in 2-3 weeks we should hear back from the investor and could very well be on our way to owning this home. We got super excited… That was July 18th, it’s now Aug 26th and almost 6 weeks later we are still waiting to hear on the home. We are still very hopeful that this home will be ours, and have fallen more in love with the home during this waiting phase. WE HOPE THIS IS HOME! However if it’s not we still have offers in on the other 2 homes, and we continue to look at what’s on the market. So far nothing compares to this home… Stay tuned for news of when we get an answer now.

Huk

A few weeks after we came home from our lovely honeymoon in the Caribbean, my parents set off on Vacation to Europe. One day while they were gone I got bored and for some strange reason I looked on KSL at dogs, I don’t normally do this but I was bored and I looked. I was looking mainly at Shihtzu puppies as I knew that when we added another dog it would be another Shihtzu to our family. I found this cute little black/brown shihtzu with the cutest white front paws and send a picture to Seth saying… “Can I have him?...” from there we talked about it… I called the guy to see if he still had the cute puppy with the white paws, he did. We said we were going to go look at him that night but decided we should wait because we knew once we went and looked he would be coming home with us. The next say Seth called and said he wanted the puppy so we called again; yup he still had our cute little boy with the white paws. I drove to meet them in Provo and came home with our new puppy that day. He was so good on the ride home just slept in my lap. When I took him to ColdStone to meet dad, since Seth was still at work for the day he woke up and ran around a little stumbling all around. It was adorable and he melted both our hearts.

I made the deal with Seth that this would be his dog and he could name him, since I have my Zoie. Seth decided to name him Huk; I thought ok that’s not bad right? Well a few days later I find out the reason behind the name… It’s one of Seth’s favorite Pro- Star craft players… (I know… Really they have pro players who would have though?) So now I told him fine... you named a dog after a video game player, you can’t be trusted and I will be naming the kids. (I already have names picked out)

When we first brought Huk home, Zoie was pissed; she wanted nothing to do with him. We knew she would be this way going into it, it was hard but now they are best friends and play all day and sometimes all night. I really hope that Huk will help to break Zoie of her Jealousness before we have kids and she acts up because of them.