...Good News

Well you never know what may come your way on any given day.

On Monday we were feeling pretty low after our offer on a house was rejected.
We were driving around in Louise's Echo looking at "just listed" homes and I pointed out a house that I had seen on the MLS and I said well that one is for sale. There was no sign outside the property.
It was a NEW home and at the beginning we weren't looking at new homes because of the GST (boo 5% GST).
It was a milk chocolate brown colour with teal front doors. Roger thought it was a yummy chocolate colour. He likes chocolate.
When got home we discovered that the price was in our range even with the GST.
On Tuesday we went to see the house. It is on Commercial Street (not to be confused with Commercial Drive) and for those who know Vancouver it is one very long block from Victoria Drive or three blocks from Knight (with Kensington Park taking up a chunk of 33rd Ave before Dumfries, Lanark etc).
The house is on a corner lot at 35th Ave.
IT HAS A VIEW! of the North Shore Mountains and a bit of the city too. Because it is on the corner it will always have an unobstructed view!
The best views are from living room and front rooms on both the upper and ground floors.
The house is much different from the cookie cutter shape of the new homes that are of the same vintage because it is oriented with the front door along the longer side.
We really liked the different layout on the ground level floor.

This house has larger bathrooms for everyone and the sage coloured painted walls throughout with white ceilings which are attractive.

The only thing we did not like is that the kitchen is smaller in this house than in other new homes.

Now I have been promised that a "Baking Kitchen" will be made out of one of the suites' kitchens. My bedroom will be next to the baking kitchen .

I will be looking for the biggest oven I can get in the space provided in the kitchen area.
My grey KitchenAid mixer will look nice on the countertop.

So with the entire gang agreeing on this house, an offer was made today and was accepted!

We will be able to move in late September if everything goes according to plan but we can move at our leisure if we want as we have rented our Elgin Street house until the end of October.

Yipee!

*Updated* Please go to my website to see pictures: http://www3.telus.net/moons/html/index

No news is...

So we did put an offer on a house on Friday but the sellers were "sad" at the offer.
I guess they didn't expect the market to dip down and they seam set on getting their list price.
So we are back to looking daily at houses on MLS.
We eagerly await the daily emails (from MLS) and we are looking at a newly built house today.
Keep those positive thoughts coming our way!

It's too darn hot!

It was too hot to house hunt but we did anyway. The temperatures were over 30C and no wind to speak of.
Roger joined the family next door and sold some items at his own yard sale today. I think he appreciated the shade of the giant birch tree and a lawn chair.
Thank goodness for AC in the car as we did our viewings today.
We saw two new listings. One was in the Killarney area near Boundary and 49th Ave.
The rooms we all large and spacious, five bathrooms, the neighbourhood was quiet but it would be a lot longer communte for me. I think too far from the area we have been hoping for and there was no view!
The second house was only a block away from our current house. The funny thing is the house picture on the MLS was the previous MLS photo of a small little knock-down house that we could not see it being worth the money they were asking. I felt bad for the listing agent and emailed to tell them about the error.
This house was on a 42ft lot and it makes a big difference to the room sizes to have an extra 9 ft or so to work with. Surprisingly there are views to be had even in our little area of YVR. I enjoyed the master bathroom view of the Lions.
Nothing has really inspired us yet. So the search continues.
After the hot day today in YVR I would suggest adding to our list of things in the new house must have --central air (of course it would only be used once or twice a year)!

More viewing of houses

So I guess you have been wondering where we are at with the house hunt. Still hunting.
I had no idea the homes for sale would be in such bad condition or that tenants would be such slobs.
Even the house we liked the tenants I think would leave quite a mess behind upon their departure as there was stuff on the floors, wet showers etc.
So almost everyday we have looked at a house or several houses.
Yesterday we looked at a NEW house in the Langara area. Nice neighbourhood.
We liked the layout better than some of the new houses but it didn't have a view and had a very noisy young child living next door that would be home all day everyday. Another thing that was odd was their were already tenants in the both of the suites(it was a NEW house?). Hmmmm.
We also looked at an older home in the Kensington area. It was definately the cleanest of the older homes we have seen so far. No view and it was a warm day yesterday and I found it very stuffy inside (for goodness sake open some windows and doors!). The owners were also there at the veiwing time and that just doesn't feel right when trying to view a home objectively.
So that's where we stand today. Not a lot of hope at the moment.
Roger asked what our worst case scenario is at the moment. Well we can rent back for 2 months (that takes us to Oct 31st) and if we do find something and they have tenants we would have to find it by the end of the month or we really will be homeless on Nov. 1st.
Anyone have a spare room?

At last a nice house to view.

Today we saw a nice house for a change!
The house is near the church mom and I attend.
It is on a nice street of both newer and well-kept houses.
The bedrooms are small but the other areas are a good size.
The view from the kitchen, master bedroom and deck are of the city and mountains.
There is nice landscaping in the frontyard and backyard. Everything is well cared for.
We have booked an appointment to see the house again because currently there are tenants on the main floor. More waiting.

And...

Keeping you posted

If you have been following along with us you would know that today was the magic day.
So Sold or not Sold?
Well, due to some incomplete paper work with the buyers mortgage company we have agreed to an extention of one more day. Hopefully we should know tomorrow morning.
On the positive side the family wanting to buy the house is very motivated. The buyers presently live on the street (the house to the south of the church on Elgin), they live in their brother's home, they have two young children( would like to stay at the same school - McBride Annex) and I think living here at this address would allow 'grandma' to babysit without having to move in to this house.
Our fingers are ALL crossed that we will HAVE to start our house hunt on Thursday.

This is an Open House?

So being a nice sunny long weekend Sunday we decided to go see a few houses.
Our agent is a bit superstitious about seeing houses before you have sold the one you are selling(he was outta town anyway) but I really thought we should at least get an idea for the market is like just in case we are looking for something soon.
Now this was a long weekend and there weren't that many houses to see but I narrowed it down to three in our price range, in the decided upon neighbourhood and houses that were not on busy street and with the potential for a view of the mountains.
House #1 off of Victoria Drive. Yes it had a view. Is it me or should you not be cooking in the house when it is 'open' for viewing? And would you have sleeping people in the bedrooms? What about tenants who are in the basement sleeping on the floor while their children watch tv? Or what about clothes on the floor of the rental rooms? I really hope they were clean but I didn't feel that way after leaving the house. It's too bad as the house might have had potential I just couldn't get past the weirdness of it all.

House #2 off of Rupert Street. Yes it had a view too. I was shocked at the condition of the rentals. Only one was avaliable for viewing. It was in rough shape and the agent warned us that the carpets had just been cleaned and were still wet. Yuck. Upstairs we were not sure what think. There were people in the living room area. Not quite sure who they were. The upstairs had at least three bedrooms and, well, mattresses in every room on the floor (with suitcases) and all the bathrooms were not very clean. The kitchen was so unclean it was scary, in FoodSafe violation for sure. There were maps on the walls and we think it might have been rented out to visiting Asian students for short term, month to month, or shorter term. There were signs with what looked like rules on charts in the house. I felt sorry for the neglected house.

House #3 was on 30th Ave. between Knight and Victoria (in the Bermuda Triangle of Vancouver - anyone who has tried to find an address in this area knows what I am talking about!).
Also had a view (though not as nice as the other two). This was a 2 year old house, awesomely landscaped and on a corner lot but not. Okay what this means is that it is on a corner of Argyle and 30th Ave but the city must own the extra land (I'd say 8 feet) as there is no sidewalk (but some nice leafy trees) but the frontage on the specs sheet says it's only 31 feet and it is much wider than that! Mom thought the extra green space reminded her of a park. After seeing what we had early in the day this looked like a PNE prize home. It was occupied by a bachelor and the decor included a fuze ball table in the living (no dining room table). It had two suites in the basement. One has access only from the outside. The kitchen in one suite has never been used! The other also occupied by a bachelor and we think he was a DJ.

After seeing this one I have hope that there is some nice property out there waiting for us.

Don't jump Roger!

A few days ago Roger read the report we have on the house. Ever since then he has been trying to correct some of the small things that can easily be completed. "I'd like to do one thing a day" he said. Today after a nice sunny day he decided to check the gutters on the roof. Armed with a bucket he cleared the birch tree debris and now we are ready for the rains of fall (until the tree starts to loose leaves again!). Thanks Roger.