Way over due... House Hunting Story!/本当に久しぶりです...家探しの巻

I don't even know where to start since it's been just way too long... We are very sorry about our total disappearance for a month or so...本当に久しぶり過ぎてどこから話し始めたら良いのか...長い間静かでごめんなさい...

So our last post was about Madison getting potty trained and it was a little more than a month ago... Okay so I guess that's about the time when our house hunting took over our lives almost every weekend. We still managed to squeeze in Disneyland as per our sweet daughter's request so that really kept us busy...

最後のポストは１ヶ月前のマディソンのトイレ訓練が成功した事か〜...その頃始まったのが私達の家探し、でもその忙しい中もちろんディズニーランドに行く時間は可愛い娘の為に見つけました...

So let's talk about our house hunting story... You might want to make sure you have some time to sit down and read my lengthy story... Our more elderly readers may want to visit the restroom prior to reading...:-)

さて、家探しの話を始めましょう...ちょっと長いのでお年寄りの方達はトイレに行っておいたほうがいいかもしれません...

As most of you know we've postponed owning a house for a really long time and that's mostly because we like to live in very expensive cities and it has been really hard to save up enough money to buy one but we've been living in sunny California for about a year and a half and we've decided this is where we want to settle for a while... Anyways, we found out that one of the members from our congregation is a realtor and she came with a really nice lender guy that a lot of members have recommended so we met with John the lender guy back in November and were approved for way too much loan which if you ever bought a house before probably experienced too... We patiently waited to start looking at houses until January although Linda was ready to crash open houses while they were visiting us at the end of December...:-)

ほとんどの人達も知っての通り私達は家探しを長い間遅らせてきました、ナゼかと言うと私達はいつも住むのが高い市に住んでいたからお金もなかなか貯まらなかったんです。いつも天気がいいカリフォルニアへ引っ越して約１年半が過ぎ私達はこの気候の良い所で子供(達)を育てたいと決意しました。教会に来る人達の一人が不動産関係の仕事をしていると知って早速その日と(ドナ)に手伝って貰う事にしました。まず最初にお金がどのくらい借りれられるか家用の銀行から貸金額を教えてもらいました。これをしたのは１１月頃でその後年が明けるのを待って家探しの開始...：）

This is exactly why we disappeared from the blog world! House hunting is exhausting!! It's absolutely fun but wow it is a lot of work! We knew we kind of wanted the whole process to take some time until July so we don't have to break our lease but every weekend we found a house we really liked(Linda and Steve can testify this part...) and each house confused us more and more... We had a good amount of wish list but we(I) came up with a score card that will help us decide... We gave almost must have items 10 points and gave would like to have items 5 points each which totaled up to 150 points. We went back and forth about wanting a pool like a million times in the process. We almost put in an offer for a 65 points house which was soo stupid but the pool blinded our thinking brain and thanks to Steve's eye opening comment(I don't remember exactly what it was) we were able to come to our senses and avoided making one of the biggest mistake of our lives...:-) And we have realized houses in California are really small, mostly one floor and expensive! We were so used to New England two story houses with a specious basement but we don't have that here unfortunately...

この家探しが私達がブログの世界から消えた大きな理由です！家探しってとっても疲れる：(毎週末気に入った家を見つけてはどうしようか相談しての繰り返し...なので私がチェックリストを作り、絶対家に無いと困る物には１０点、そしてあったら良いなーと言う物には５点の合計１５０点満点のこのリストを使って家探しを続ける事にしました。家にあったプールに惑わされてもう少しで６５点の家を買う事を危うく逃した事も...家探しを初めて気が付いたのがカリフォルニアの家はどれもとっても小さい！しかも高い!!デイブの家族が住んでいる東海岸の家とは全然違うんです。地下もないしほとんど１階建てだし...

Also wanting to be able to send Madison to a school that is rated 8 or higher prevented us from making an offer on a house we liked, but this was very important to us so we moved on and kept looking... There is a city called Los Alamitos on the East side of Long Beach and this is our goal area to be in the future because of great schools(most schools are 1o and very few are 9) and great neighborhood but a lot of houses are around a million so when we came across one house on short sale that was in our price range we jumped on it and made an offer even though they probably wanted a bidding war and would have sold for much higher... Unless Donna(our realtor) cancelled our offer we are still waiting to get this one I guess...:P

一番大事なチェックリストだったのがマディソンが良い学校に通える事でした。だから学校のランクが７以下の近所は却下。そのため気に入った家も何軒かあったんだけど、探し続ける事にしました。ロングビーチの隣にあるのがロスアラミートスという市で一つ抜かして全部の学校はランク１０(最高)でそこに住むのが私達の将来の夢なんだけど今はどの家も高過ぎて手が届かないんだけど一件だけある日出てきました。見たその日に買う申し込みをしたんだけど、ショートセールって言う販売状態の家は売るのにとても時間がかかるので未だに待っている状態です。でもドナ断ってくれたかな？

Then around mid February we decided we do want a pool and Dave who had President's day off and Donna went to look at a house that was out of our comfortable house budget... Well the house was stuck in 60's and nothing was updated BUT this house was a half block from a Blue Ribbon School Cubberly, had a well-kept pool, and 1800sq!!! So they quickly made an appt for me to come see the house on Wednesday night as we were told there is an offer coming but they will hold off until I can come see the house and make our decision... So as our normal routine on Wednesdays I picked Dave and Madison up from our apt after work and we headed to the house... Everything was outdated but I really liked everything about the house, we could see how each area can be slowly updated in the future and the space we couldn't have done any better with our price so we signed some papers after bible class that night, said a big prayer and attempted to fall asleep at night...:-)

そして、２月の半ばにやっぱり家にプールが欲しいと決断しちょうど休みだったデイブはドナと一緒にプールのある家を一軒見に行く事にしました。販売金額は私達の予定額より少し上だったし中は６０年代から何も変わってないんだけど、とっても良い学校が家を出てすぐそこにあってプールも奇麗だしそして何と言っても今まで見た中で一番広い！その場で私が仕事の後見れるように向こうの不動産屋さんに頼んでその夜見せて貰いました。その夜、私が見学した後いろんな書類に署名して正式にその家を買う申し込みをしました。ドキドキしながら眠る事にしました...

Next day was really hard day for us to focus on our work as we waited to hear from anyone really... Around 4:30pm Dave called me and told me that they actually got 4 offers and another one is coming in BUT the sellers really want us to get it so IF we can offer full price we would get it... We were like "Okay let's go for it!" after getting the numbers from our lender, John but I got nervous and asked Dave to wait until we get home and we should talk about it more... I almost decided during drive home to back out but Dave had talked to his dad Steve and shockingly he gave us his blessing!! That day, especially that evening felt like a crazy dream because as soon as I walked through our apartment door about try to convince Dave to not go through with it, our fire alarm went off(our annual fire drill!) and within a minute we were all standing outside me holding wild Ellie Bean in my arms and Dave holding Madison and a paper with all the numbers he wrote down to try to convince me we should go for it! If Steve didn't tell Dave that this is the time to over reach a bit since the interest rate is unbelievably low we may not have tried it since I do have higher successful convincing record in our marriage... While we were standing outside we found out that 5th offer came rolling in out of no where... Of Course right? Oh during our waiting to be released to be sent back to our rooms one of the dogs ran out to the street and cars were stopped and people are on the street trying to catch the run away yorkie it truly added another level of crazy-ness to our already crazy evening. And this is not the end of our evening, of course we had to wait for the counter offer(apparently to multiple buyers) to come in and we had to leave the apartment to go meet our realtor's husband at Carl's Jr by their place to sign some more papers... Then another sleepless night followed... not for me but for Dave...

次の日は仕事に集中する事がなかなか出来ないまま返事を丸一日待って、ちょうど家に帰る用意をしている時にデイブから返事が来たと言う電話がかかって来ました。私達意外にももう４人その家を買いたいと決めた人達がいるらしく、それでも私達の様な若い家族に住んで貰いたいからもし私達が向こうの欲しい金額を払えれば家は私達の物だって...デイブはそうしようって言ったんだけど、私はちょっと心配になったので家に着いたらちゃんと話し合おうと言って電話を切りました。私を待っている間デイブはお父さんのスティーブと電話で話して驚く事にスティーブは今率がすごい低いから少し高い家を買うのは今だって言ってくれたんです。私は運転しながら、止めた方が良いんじゃないかってデイブを説得しようと決めてたから、スティーブが賛成した事を聞いてビックリ!　この日はすっかりデイブに納得させられちゃいました...そして、向こうの不動産屋から書類が送られて来るなり速攻署名してこの日のストレス満満の一日は終了...

It's Friday!! and another hard to focus day as we waited once again until about 5:30 which was the deadline for the counter offer... I asked Dave to not tell me anything IF I'm on the road since I didn't want to cause an accident by either overly emotional with joy or sadness... So of course I did not hear anything from him and right after I walked through the door Dave told me

WE GOT THE HOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Even though we were told we would get the house if we gave full offer after hearing that they gave back multiple counters we weren't sure that we would get the house... But they really picked us! I felt like winning a lottery... First... but then I realized oh we are not getting money instead we are spending so much money... Whatever! This is soooo exciting!!!!!

On Sunday after the morning service Donna made an appt for Anna to see the house in the daylight and we got to meet one of the owners and she showed us around and also let us know that we really were picked out of five offers due to the fact that her sister is also a teacher and they liked the idea of a young family living where their parents had lived for fifty years.

Then Monday we met with John the financial guy again to sign some more paper and Tuesday we officially went into ESCROW!!!

Now tomorrow is the all important inspection which has been fifty years in the making...
should be interesting :-)