The Brady Bunch Kids

The Brady Bunch Kids

Monday, September 10, 2012

Goodbye hotel living...in 2+ weeks

After spending weeks looking for places to live, we finally chose a house that 'kind of' fits us. We didn't expect it to take us so long to narrow down a place to live, but unfortunately there just weren't that many houses that we could actually fit in and some of those that we did fit in wanted an outrageous amount of rent, like 3-5 times their mortgage payments!

The house we chose was actually one of the first homes we looked at, but due to everything being turned off (water, power, gas) and dead bugs everywhere (and yes I mean everywhere!) we attempted to eliminate this house as one of our possibilities for weeks. The Friday of Labor Day weekend we finally gave in and asked the management property manager to show us the home again and while we were there we'd give them the application, app fee, and security deposit. Shockingly, they informed us they could show us the property HOWEVER they would prefer not to...as the owner had unexpectedly arrived in town (from Italy) and was in the process of doing some upgrades. She informed us that he was changing out the light fixtures, knobs, and basically anything that was 'gold' to a polished nickle product. She also stated that he has other upgrades he was planning on doing but that they would be a surprise, and then asked if there was anything we wanted to request to have changed. My only concern was the kitchen appliances and toilets due to the power and water being turned off for several months and two sections of the fence which had fallen down in a recent storm. We decided to touch base again on Tuesday morning to set up a time for Eric and I to see the house again.

Thursday we saw the house and boy was there a completely different impression! It's amazing how much different the house looked just by having all the dead bugs cleaned up! The upgrades, while minimal, were great and were still in progress. The owner of the house was fantastic! Him and his girlfriend, both from Italy were extremely friendly and constantly asked us what else we wanted changed or added (it was SOOOOO hard to resist asking for a pool!), they still had to install all new kitchen appliances and I am now kicking myself for not requesting a gas range and oven. While the realtor and I finished the paperwork in the other room, Eric continued his conversation with the couple and we were invited (several times) to come and visit them. The owner even offered for us to stay with him and/ or his girlfriend and they would be our tour guides. Did I already say how much we really like them??? Now if he has connection on free or cheap airfare....

Okay back to the house and not dreaming about a vacation in Italy.

The rental company hoped to be able to finalize our application by Friday (the next day), but it took until Monday to touch base with our previous landlord. But once I found out our application was approved, we made arrangements with them to sign our lease on the 24th in order to allow us not to have too much of a lapse of having to pay rent on an empty house. Our movers require a 10 day notification before loading and once they are notified they give us a 7-10 day delivery window. We are allowed to pick a specific day within that window and they will strive to meet the request. Since we don't have that much 'stuff' our belongings would be shipped with 1-2 other families belongings. I received a confirmation that our stuff is due to arrive in Dothan between 9/28-10/4 (and they don't unload on the weekends).

I can't wait for more clothing options, for Breanna to go to school, to be able to bake and cook things on a full stove, in the oven, or on the grill, and just to have my normal routine back! Let the count down BEGIN!!!!

No comments:

Post a Comment