Our House Hunting Story Which Led to Our Beautiful New Home
In November, we decided to start
looking for houses. There were no jobs that were opening up for Mike as we had
been searching for quite a while. We thought since we were growing out of our
little apartment and to rent anything was too much money…way out of our budget
(more than a house payment…and still not enough house). So we started house
hunting.
We knew that we didn’t have a down
payment because of our past year with all the medical expenses we had. By
talking to people we figured out that there were loans that we could get that
wouldn’t require that down payment. One of these loans was we could do $0 down
with the Rural Development Financing. But this required us to look south of
Spanish Fork River which basically meant Salem, Payson, or Santaquin would be
our areas to look at. Even the farthest location, Santaquin, would only take
Mike 13 minutes to get to work, but it seemed as if it was so far south and
away from everything. So, we were willing to go that far but hoping to find
something in Salem or Payson. The other option that we were being opened minded
with was, we knew that we would get a decent amount upon getting our tax return
back and knew that it wasn’t too far off that we could claim that. I really
like Spanish Fork and wouldn’t mind going to Springville either so there was a
chance by using our tax refund we could use that as a down payment if we found
something in those areas we liked enough.
We looked on the internet a lot but
nothing was popping up. We spent lots of time searching the internet for houses
but were finding nothing in our price range that was big enough to grow into,
were updated and not built 80 years ago. We had been looking at the newest listings
since we had scoured everything already. One day, I had just decided to go back
and see if I had missed anything and expanded my search to see everything. Well there was one house that did pop up.
This was the first house that I thought would actually be worthwhile to go and
see. It was originally posted on October 24 at 194,900 with a price change to
174,900 and then on November 4th price changed from 174,900 to
164,900 and then on December 18th changed from 164,900 to 170,000. This
house was a twinhome in Payson, 5 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2,436 sq. ft., Lot
size .13 acres, built in 2002. This included a private yard, a 95% finished
basement with room to finish one more bathroom and a small den/storage room.
This all sounded really great. As I looked through the pictures of this house
it looked really nice and updated and definitely in our price range listed at
$170,000. The pictures showed a beautiful outside front yard that included a
two car garage, a nice kitchen with nice cabinets and bar, living room with a
door leading to the backyard, master bedroom, two bedrooms, big family room, a
garage that included two storage units inside the garage, and a big fenced
backyard. As we pulled up the satellite image of the house we were nervous
because right behind the house was I-15. We still thought it would be
worthwhile to go look at this house.
We hadn’t decided on a real estate
agent (we had a couple of names though) to go with but knew we didn’t want to
do it on our own since this was our first time going through the house buying
process. We saw this house and Mike just called the listing agent in which he
left a message with. We had a wedding to go to that day and hoped the agent
would call us back. No call back. The next day we decided we really needed to
see this house. This was December 30th. We called another highly
recommended agent, Tyler Cope, and he answered right away and we had an
appointment a couple hours later to see this house. We met him at the house. He
took us through and I knew that it was the house we needed, the one I wanted,
our house. There were a couple things I was concerned about regarding the house
but knew that despite those couple of things we needed/wanted that house. So we
walked in the front door and on the left is the kitchen and straight ahead is a
living room. There is really no dining room. (one of my concerns) There is a
bar and room to put a counterheight table there. Out the living room is the
door to the backyard. There is a big backyard that is completely fenced and
there is a double sound barrier between the backyard and I-15 so that calmed
our fears as well. Right off the living room is a laundry room with a
storage/pantry closet. Through the laundry room is the garage entrance and in
the two car garage are two storage units and a door that leads to the backyard.
Also on the top floor as you go down the hall are two small bedrooms om the
right (which was my next concern because the rooms would be hard to sleep two
beds which would have to put one of our children downstairs and I wasn’t sure
this would work) at the end of the hall is a bathroom and to the right of the
bathroom is the master bedroom with a walk in closet and a bathroom. The stairs
to go down are right there as well. The lead to a big family room. There are
two bedrooms downstairs and an unfinished area with plumbing for a bathroom. In
the living room there is also a room that is currently a storage room that
could be made into a small den or left as storage. We also loved this area
cause it seemed like a cute little homey neighborhood with a little playground
just around the corner. It didn’t seem
like much of a question to make an offer on the house.
After we walked through the house
and talked for a few minutes outside our agent asked if we wanted to go talk
and discuss things further. We met up with him at McDonalds. While in the van
on the way to McDonald’s we both thought it was a no brainer to make an offer.
We were nervous because it was the first house we had walked through and we
didn’t really know what we were doing. We talked with our agent for awhile as
we got to know each other a little better and he answered any of our questions.
We told him we wanted to make an offer on the house. He said he would write up
the offer. He met up with Mike later where he signed the papers. We would know
by the next night if they had accepted our offer or not. We were a little
worried because while we were there looking at the house there was another
couple that came and looked through it at the same time. The next evening our
agent called us and said that our offer was not accepted but that we would be
the backup offer if it fell through. We were very disappointed…heartbroken.
All we could do is keep on looking.
We did have some faith and hope in the back of our heads hoping that their
offer would fall through but we had to keep on looking for something else. We
did find another twinhome in Santaquin that we went and looked at. It was three
bedrooms, 2 bath, 2600 sq. ft., one car garage, fenced backyard, and unfinished
basement for $166,000. This home was also really nice but there were a couple
things I would have needed to have done in order to want this house. Currently
the home didn’t have a dining room and the door leading to the backyard was in
the master bedroom. So we wanted to extend the kitchen into the living room to
make a dining room and put a door out to the back and finish a living area into
the basement. We put an offer in with these conditions and again this offer was
not accepted. However, we didn’t have the same feelings as we did with the
other home. We were disappointed but not like we were with the last home. So
again we kept on looking.
There was nothing that was being
listed that was in our price range that was updated, or big enough for what we
wanted. As soon as we were able to we filed our taxes so we could get our
return so we would have it when we needed it whether for a down payment or
savings to put towards a house. Also during this time a job was posted for a
lead position at the cannery in Welfare Square. Mike submitted his resume for
this job thinking maybe this was our answer to what we needed to be doing.
However, another employee that Mike works with at Deseret Meat also applied for
this job at the cannery. He had already previously worked there so he had been
in contact with the manager who said he was first in line. So Mike got a little
worried about that. So we thought while we wait to get the interview we will
expand our search and look in the Salt Lake/Davis area for houses as well. On
fast Sunday in February we thought it would be important for us to fast to help
us feel of the spirit in help with the house hunt. During my fast I thought a
lot about the Payson house and prayed about the house in Payson cause I felt so
strongly that it was where our family needed to be. That whole day we fasted I
just had a peaceful feeling about it and just kept thinking just be patient. It
was really hard to do that and keep that faith and hope that we would either
find something or the Payson house would work out. It was especially hard when the Payson house
listing was taken off the site as being under contract. At that point I lost
all hope on the Payson home and told myself I had to move on and have some
faith that our home that we need is still out there.
Well not too long after Mike
applied for this job we got a call from our agent who asked us if we were still
interested in the Payson home because it was back on the Market. It was on
Friday afternoon January 20th that Mike looked at his phone and said
he had missed a call from Tyler Cope, our agent. I said I didn’t see anything
listed today that was interesting to look at so call him back. This was around
five or so. Mike called him back and Tyler told him that the house on Nebeker
just went back on the market and asked if we wanted to put an offer in. We said
heck yes. Tyler sent the offer over to us and we signed it electronically and
sent it back. That same night it was accepted on the terms that we would work
with their title company and we would do the home inspection before the bank
approves the offer. We agreed to these terms. Tyler wanted us to meet him over
at the house the next day just to look at the house again. We dropped the kids
off at Grandma’s and went over to the house to meet Tyler. We walked through
the house again. Still loving it and knowing this was our home. We also talked
to the current owners for awhile. They told us about the utilities, and the
ward, and about kids in the neighborhood cause we saw some down the street
which was good. They said they haven’t had any kinds of problems with the house.
So it was really good to talk to them.
The current owner had gotten an
email about 4:30 the previous day the buyers had cancelled their offer and
backed out. By 5:00 Tyler knew about this cancellation and immediately called
us up. Mike didn’t answer so Tyler knew that we would still want this and so he
drew up the offer at $175,000 with the sellers paying the closing costs. When
Mike called him back he already had it written up and we just needed to sign.
We did so and our offer was accepted that night. It is just absolutely amazing
how we are blessed right at the moment we need it the very most.
On March 6th we had the
inspection done on the house. There was nothing too major but a few things that
we will fix when we move in the house.
On March 19th, Mike
called me from work saying we needed to take our earnest money to the title
company. He said the bank approved the short sale. That afternoon Mike took our
$1000 earnest money up to Salt Lake City and deposited our earnest money with
Capstone Title Company. He talked with our loan officer, Steve Lundwell and set
up a meeting to get our loan started on Monday, March 23rd.
On Monday, March 23rd we
met with Steve Lundwell and signed a bunch a papers, answered a bunch of our
questions and went through everything we need to know. He said our closing date
is set for April 17th. We ended up closing on Monday April 20th.
We had the carpets cleaned that day and I went that night and cleaned the
bathrooms and kitchen and we moved into our home on Tuesday April 21st.
