HOUSE HUNTING, WEEKEND #2

2 weeks later I was able to return to continue looking for houses. Andy and I had continued to do our online research, and found some good possible options. We met with our realtors early Saturday morning and they had some options as well.

As we discussed the areas and houses that everyone had found online, we decided to hit the streets. They started by taking us to the Westgate area that had a couple short sales. They showed us a former model home that needed a little work and the layout was a little funky, but I really liked it. Andy was completely against it, so we went on. There were some other cute houses in the same neighborhood, but we felt they were just a little too small for what we were looking for. The search continued. We looked at a couple more houses and decided to look at what seemed to be a beautiful short sale in Peoria.

The house was AMAZING!! Beautiful huge front door, amazing kitchen with all the upgrades. Immaculate tile work. Everything was completely upgraded. It wasn't quite finished though, and the neighborhood seemed a little sketchy. Andy fell in love!! We decided that we would discuss it further and go to church to see how we felt.

We went to church, and then met up with my cousin, Christina. We told her all about the house, and she tried to keep an open mind. After lunch we met up with the realtors at "the house" and Christina took a look around. Andy and I started to get some eerie feelings about the whole situation, and so we all decided to drive around the neighborhood to check things out.

It was not looking too promising. There was a gathering a couple houses down, and we don't think it was a casual family sunday brunch. Christina, a native to Arizona, promptly told us that no price was the right price for "that house," and that we would have some DEFINITE problems in that hood. We realized it was not the house for us, and moved on.

After looking at some other options around the Arrowhead area, we decided that we were finished for that weekend and headed back to "the hood." This weekend was dissapointing, but I don't think we felt as hopeless as the last time...

Weekend 2 finished... No house.

THE HOUSE HUNT...

Andy and I found out that he got the job in Arizona the first of March, and he was due to start work on March 16. We decided that he would move to Arizona and I would stay in Utah to finish the semester of school. Andy moved to Phoenix and lived in "the hood" (an extended stay hotel downtown Phoenix,) and we started to look for a house. I came down one weekend after some extensive online searching for a house, and we decided that we wanted to look at foreclosures in the Glendale/Peoria region of town. It was a LONG day....

Every house that we had looked at was beat up, smelled horrible, had been sabotaged or we just wanted to gut the thing anyways. One house in Glendale looked as if it originally had tile in the kitchen and the foyer, but then they decided they also wanted to put tile in the living room. They picked tile that was simillar but did not match at all... the house looked horrible because of it. Other than the mismatched tile, it was the house in the best condition. Andy kept asking me about Laveen, it is where Mark and Kelly (Crystal's brother and wife) live and he said the area seemed a lot nicer. I was pretty against it at the first because it was so far away, and people weren't telling me it was the best neighborhood. At the end of the day, we decided that Laveen would also be an area we could consider. We were pretty much willing to go anywhere at that point!

The next day, we did a little more searching around in the Glendale, Peoria areas, then our realtors also decided to take us up by Anthem and into North Phoenix area. We saw nothing we even were remotely interested in. We were tired, exhausted and completely frustrated to say the least. We had no idea it would be so hard.

Weekend 1 finished... no house.

IT'S HERE!!

Finally, what everyone has been waiting for.... Our blog!!

I decided with the new house renovations, and since I have a little free time on my hands for a while, I would start a blog. Nothing big, just a blog...

Thanks everyone for pushing me to do this!!