It’s been a long and painful process the past 2.5 months but we are finally getting somewhere. This past weekend, in another attempt to find a builder and a lot that we were happy with we got in the car for the 40 mile trek back to Washington. We met our real estate agent out near a builder’s neighborhood to check out the 5 lots that were left to choose from. We hated all of them. 4 were backed against a fairly busy road, the other almost on top of the neighbors house.
So we drove to another lot we liked, that the first builder was still evaluating for costs and feasibility (at this point they said it would be a day or two and it had been a week and we were still waiting for the estimates). This one we loved the view, but because it was right against the giant power lines, our agent though the resale value would suffer greatly.
Checked out some other lots….builder isn’t willing to sell them and we don’t like the builder that owns them. Completely dejected and getting pretty wet (it is the rainy season after all and we’ve been trudging through muddy lots for 2 hours) I give our agent a copy of an existing house I liked. Maybe at this point we need to say screw it and settle for an ok house. It happened that it was about a half mile away!
So we went over to the house and found that there were about 6 for sale on the same street. As luck would have it, our agent also had to code to get the key out of each lockbox and we could look inside. Score!! First house was amazing. 3 story house on a hill with a view of the Columbia river and Mt Hood from the back. Unfinished basement. Not bad. Back down the hill we saw the most amazing house….3 story, finished basement and it backs up to a forest. Like a forest forest. Protected green space with acres of fir trees covered in moss and what’s that? Oh, that’s the sound of a nice sized creek running about 50 feet form the back yard. Heaven. It was perfect! We looked at a couple more but we still went back to the blue house.
We left excited and anxious and worried as we were expecting to build and have 4 months to get things together and this would move things up to 30 days. Eek! We spent Sunday talking plans for our new blue house and then the call came in….the builder had accepted an offer the day before. Nooooo!!! But good news! They can build the same exact house 5 doors down! WAHOO!!!
So now we get the best of both worlds. We get the perfect blue house that we loved, but we get the extra time we need to save money and pack all our crap. We get to pick out all our finishes and colors. We get to add upgrades that we really want that are difficult to put in a finished home (built in surround sound, CAT5 outlets, etc). And we get the same amazing back yard that is nothing but forest and running creek sounds and beauty.
Monday we signed the final contract and wrote a large earnest money check. Unless something terrible happens with our financing half way through (fingers crossed), we will be the proud owner of a 3,200 sq ft house with 5 bedrooms, 3.5 baths and 2 extra areas in the finished basement. Fully landscaped front and backyard with sprinklers and fencing. We are paying $10k less than we were expecting for a 2,500 sq ft home with our other builder so more house for less. We get $10k to spend on additional upgrades and a fridge, washer and dryer. And we get our closing costs paid for.
Our weekend did not go as we had planned but it had a very happy ending. We are past phase one which was very painful. We have a long way to go. There is still much to do and much that could go wrong I suppose. But, the plan is to have our new finished home in June, just 3 short months from now. And hopefully this move, which will be the 9th time in 12 years, will be our last.
<insert huge sigh of relief and a giant smile>
May 18th, 2012 
Kelly 
