HOME run!

Yes. I'm punny.

Shan and I came down on Sunday and looked at eight more houses. Some of them were quite strange, including one that had a full sized stove sitting in the middle of the kitchen! (as in not against a wall, or anything...) Most of them were either too expensive for what they were, or needed more work than we wanted to do. There was even one that clearly had hippopotamus sized rats, okay maybe that's a little bit of an exaggeration...but there were rat turds the size of marbles...

Annyway. We wound up looking at one we had previously looked at, and liked pretty well at the time, just not as well as the Le Claire house. The house sit on 4/10 of an acre, is two story plus has a full finished basement, three bedrooms, 2.5 bats, and a two car garage (which Shan fully intends to build onto). It does have a pool though.

When we looked at it about a month ago it was listed at X dollars. Since then it had gone to buyout and was owned by a relocation company (I don't know what it is about us and relocation properties) and had dropped approx 15k.

We decided to put in an offer yesterday for 7k less than that (so X-22k) with a closing in three weeks.

We did find out there were two other offers...but since we were able to close so soon we felt pretty good about our offer. We came home, said a few prayers, ate some Chick-Fil-A, said more prayers and went to sleep.

Today they chose to negotiate with us, and wanted 4k more than our offer. Shan told them at first we would maintain our offer, but would release them from their obligation to replace all carpet. They came back and told us that was already a done deal...but met us in the middle and accepted 2k over our original offer....

So that's the story of how two young people bought their second house a mere month before their wedding.

Here's a link til I can get my own pictures up: http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-Detail/5115-White-Post-Rd_Bettendorf_IA_52722_M83430-64481

On the Hunt

Let the house hunting commence! Check back for updates soon.

I'll tell ya what I want, what I really really want...

When it comes to house hunting for the second time, we have a little more realistic idea of what we want.

When we first came to Iowa on our whirlwind trip back in April of 06, we looked at about eight houses on one weekend. A few were 100 year old farm houses, with choppy floor plans, and ceilings so low even the dog could stand up straight in them. We looked at one that had an AMAZING floor plan, but was completely unlivable because of a leaky roof--which in and of itself wasn't a deal breaker...but the price was. One even had carpet in the kitchen (Yuck!) So when our realtor brought us to this house we were blown away.

I instantly fell in love with the willow trees, the hardwood floors, and the kitchen. Shannon loved the over-sized garage and the amount of land that came with it.

After living here for five years, there are certainly a few things we would change, and there are some things that we know we could do without in our second home. For instance, vaulted ceilings are not my thing. They're difficult to clean, and it's almost impossible to change the light bulbs. I love the amount of light that the sky lights let in, but they're also more difficult to clean.

With all that said...here are some things we know we MUST have in our next home, and some things that we'd like, but aren't deal breakers.

Must Haves:

• At least 4/10 of an acre (we love having a large lot, but we don't really utilize it)
• A minimum of 1800 square feet (I personally want 2000+, but when looking at real estate sites, they don't usually count the finished basement in the total square footage--so keep that in mind)
  
• 3-4 bedrooms
• A bathroom on each floor (I am not running upstairs every time I have to pee! Nor am I running downstairs in the middle of the night, those of you who know me, know my intense fear of serial killers creepin' in the dark!)

Like to Haves:

• A fenced yard (we can clearly do this ourselves...but we'd really like if it were already done)
• Some kind of deck/patio
  
• A finished basement
• A fairly updated kitchen (It doesn't have to be brand new, and I'm not a stainless steel freak like most house hunters, but I don't want a 1970's rust colored dishwasher)
  
• A fireplace
• More than one living space

One thing we know we DON'T want is a pool. The swimming season in Iowa is so short that it's not worth the up-keep to us. A few of the houses we've looked at have above ground pools, which we would most likely take out after the summer.

Of the houses we've looked at so far, none of them meet ALL of these criteria, but there have been quite a few that came pretty close. I figure that having a list here may help me keep all these things in mind when we go on our next house hunt...hopefully next weekend!

Unfortunately, we can't go this weekend, because we have a long laundry list of things we need to do to please the stupid inspection report. Sad Face. But, I'll let you know as soon as we get our search on.

Strike One

So I told you yesterday about a house that we’d fallen in love with enough to put in an offer…well, here are the details. (Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures to share, so you’ll have to use your imagination…)

After looking at a few options, we found a three level ranch, which sounds weird, but basically it was a three story house built into a hill, and instead of going up, the “top” floor was the only thing you could see when you pulled up, and then the rest of the floors were beneath it. Each level had ground access.

The lot was a huge hill, and not necessarily ideal for the dog, but it was landscaped, and terraced out to a point that we thought we could make it work.

The top floor had the kitchen, living/dining rooms, and master bed and bath. The middle level had two more bedrooms, bathroom, another living area with fireplace, and a laundry room. The bottom level was just an empty partially finished area. We envisioned finishing it out for a mother in law suite.

The house is in a VERY desirable neighborhood, and the location was great for Shannon’s commute. We’re only looking on the Iowa side of the river, even though Shannon is working in Illinois, because the tax situation and school systems are better on the Iowa side.

The house is a buyout situation, meaning that right now it is owned by a company as opposed to a person. It has been owned by said company since September, with zero offers on it…so we assumed they would be very motivated to sell. Knowing this, Shannon put in an offer for 40K less than the list price (Which I’ll refer to as $X), with a contingency on a successful closing on our house by June, 15.

They countered back, and reduced the price by 5K. At which point, we walked away, since it didn’t appear they were willing to play ball. A few hours later, our realtor called us back, and told us that they had decided to sign it back to us at $X-30K, but they wanted to move the closing date up to May 15, and wouldn’t place a contingency on the closing of our current house.

Our realtor told us we had until end of business to decide…(which was about 2.5 hours)…then called back and told us that someone else was putting an offer in, and we’d better make a decision in the next 30 minutes. (We’re fairly certain this was a ploy, since there had been no movement on the house in six months…but we’re not for sure)

Since we’re in a buyout situation, we KNOW that our house will be out of our hands 90 days after our list date, however, we don’t know yet how much money we’re going to get for it….this is where to problem was. Shan was willing to meet the price, but was not willing to take the risk without knowing what our buyout will be.

With that said, we told our realtor to tell them we’d take it ONLY if they agreed to put the closing contingency back in the contract. And, apparently they didn’t like that.

We don’t know if the “other guy” bought the house, or what. It’s not listed any longer online, but that could just be because it was supposed to go to another listing agent at the beginning of April. We continue to check online every few days to see if it is relisted…but until then we’re putting together another list of houses we want to look at…so, we’ll see what happens!

UPDATE: The "other guy" did indeed get the other house for 3% more than we offered. Oh well. Onward and Upward!