Moving Part 7 - Our House

This is our house. I love this house so much. I am also amazed at the size of the house compared to our Moreno Valley house. This home with the basement included is 4100 sq ft. That is almost 3 times the house we had in Moreno Valley. For just about the same price we sold that house for. 

This is looking in the front door

The formal dining room

Formal dining room

Formal living room (we use it as our office for now)

  

 The kitchen. (Yes that is Jim and our realtor sitting on the counters lol) 

See we already felt like we were home.

 Kitchen

Guest Bedroom on the main floor

 Family room from the eat in kitchen

 Family Room

Looking into the Formal living room from the family room

Master Bed room

 Master Bathroom

Kids Bedroom (Ben and Will's)

 Kids Bedroom 

(Ellie's - she didn't want us to take down any of the Georgia Bulldog stuff)

Playroom nook

 Playroom from the nook looking out

Basement

Basement Guest Room

 One of the storage rooms in the basement

Backyard (only brown because it was still winter)

Moving... Part 6 - House Hunting

So now it is January 2 and we are living with my parents. They were great to help us out. I know it was cramped for everyone and it took some getting used to but I appreciate them so much! Wally our cat went to live with Katie and we brought Molly the dog to my parents with the kids and I. But this was only going to be for 6 weeks at the most! We knew we'd find something super quick and we would all be together so soon! Right?!?!?

Jim started driving around neighborhoods. I would go through Redfin and find a list of houses then we would narrow that down to the best ones. After that Jim would drive through the neighborhood and we would narrow the list down even further. We didn't have a real estate agent yet so that made it a little more difficult. There was one house we in November that Jim loved but it had gone off the market. He decided to drive past it in January just to see it again. There was a sign out front of it and it had fliers on it. We couldn't find it online so Jim decided to call the agent listed. He made an appointment with him and they chatted for 3 hours. Michael, the agent, told him about the house and said it was a great house, beautiful neighborhood, in fact he had actually sold the owners the house 10 years before. He said however unless we could afford to put the kids into private school that we shouldn't buy that house. The elementary school that the kids would go to, if we bought that house, wasn't good. That right there showed me the integrity of this agent. He would have been the buyers agent and the sellers agent but he chose to let us know that this house wouldn't be a good fit for us because of the school. He also went through and emailed us a list of homes in different schools that were higher rated.

We went through this list and did the same thing we did with the lists I had come up with. We narrowed the list down from 65 to our top 20. Then we went through those twenty and rated them on a scale of 1-10 If they came in under a 6 we knocked them off the list. We got the list down to 10-13. Jim and Michael drove around and went to see the houses. We knocked them all off the list. So we started over. I think this happened 2 or 3 times. (We didn't think we were THAT picky lol) But none of them felt right.

We found one that we liked and decided to put an offer on but the house wasn't worth what they were asking and the owner wouldn't budge on the price so that one was gone. Jim had a hard time with it because he was worried about picking the wrong house. I got to see pictures of the homes and he would Facetime me while he was at the houses if he could but I couldn't really get a feel for the houses.

By February we were getting frustrated but still looking. Jim found one house that he liked but I wasn't 100% sold on it. We discussed where all of our stuff would go and if everything would fit where we wanted it. Jim couldn't say for sure that it was exactly what we wanted. We both were having a hard time with this. Jim said "I can't make this decision without you here. If I pick a house and you come out here and hate it then it's all my fault" So we booked a flight for me to come out and look at houses with him. He had a list of 15 houses to go through and narrow it down because we were only going to have a couple days to look at houses.

Michael said "They teach us in Real Estate to show the worst houses first so that way you end on the good ones. But I'm going to show you the best ones first and go from there" The first one Jim didn't care for and he didn't love the second one either. The third one he walked in and said "this could be a contender" It was gorgeous and had a lot of the things we were looking for.  He liked the fourth one too. But then he walked in the fifth one. He called me and said "I found our house. This is it!" He sent me pictures of the house and we agreed to put an offer on it. The problem was the seller's agent didn't like Big Banks or VA loans and we were going with both. On top of that they had 2 other offers. We were really nervous because we loved this house and it was looking like we wouldn't get it. Jim put the offer in Tuesday morning and within 3 hours they had accepted it!!!! We were finally in escrow!

Moving Part 4 - Home Selling

We had the home listed and lots of people came to look at it. (That was a feat in and of itself. House always has to be put together and look nice.) The house listed Sept 2nd. We knew Jim would be moving Oct 2nd so we were hopeful that it would sell quick. We had an offer right away but it turned out they couldn't qualify for the house with the HERO program lien.

Emotionally Scarring Backstory:

In May, we talked to a company about putting solar panels on the house. Our electric bill was sky high and we were hoping to lower it. (We were on the level pay plan through So Cal Edison and we were paying over $200 a month every month) The saleswoman explained to us about the program and we made sure to ask how it worked when we eventually sold the house (Because we knew this wasn't going to be our forever home) She told us its super easy to sell your house with it. It just transfers into the other buyers name and everything is great. (We should have done more research) We made sure to let her know that we wanted to OWN the panels. We did not want to lease them, or just "purchase the energy" We wanted to make sure they were ours. She said that was exactly what we were getting. We would own the panels. Our electric bill would be about $186 which was lower than we were currently paying. Things sounded great. (That should have been a red flag) We were also told the total amount we would be financing would be roughly 23K.

Fast Forward to the home selling:

Turns out its not quite that easy to sell a house with them on. They are listed as a lien against the house. They are in the first position. 9 out of 10 banks will not fund on a home with a lien in first position. (This basically means if you go bankrupt or short sell your home the lien gets paid before the mortgage does) The first people to offer on the house - their bank wouldn't fund on it. This happened 4 times. As months dragged on it was becoming more and more apparent we were going to have to pay off the entire 28K! Yep you read that right. Our payoff amount was 5K more than the amount we signed off on. (And in looking at the final paperwork our payment would have been $265 not the $180) (We wouldn't have to make a payment in the first year so we didn't know the exact payment amount until that point)

We also found out that we did not own the panels like we thought. We had gotten what is called a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA). Which means we were paying for 20 years of electricity. This was what we specifically said we DID NOT want. We got copies of all of the paperwork and the PPA only had my name on it. Jim's name was no where on the PPA. Both of our signatures were on every other form we signed. Both of our names were on everything. We are both listed on the title of the home so we both should have been on every form. All paperwork was digitally signed. This form was not one I remembered signing. In fact I wouldn't have signed a paper that only had my name on it without Jim's and I definitely wouldn't have signed anything stating we were getting a PPA. I can't say 100% that the sales woman forged the documents but I can say I didn't sign that paper.

But at this point there was nothing we could do. We had to get the house sold. This stretched through to November. Jim came back for Thanksgiving and on his birthday Nov 28th we accepted an offer on the house! It was a full price offer but we did have to pay off the solar panels. We had gotten to the point that we didn't really care about that. We just wanted it to be sold and us to be together again. Our closing date was originally early January.

We fought with their lender for quite awhile. They wouldn't return calls, they didn't complete paperwork on time. They were a nightmare to work with. But eventually we closed on the house and it was finalized on January 20, our anniversary. (Funny thing is when we bought the house we closed on January 22, 2010 so we lived there almost exactly 5 years to the day)

The kids and I would be moving in with my parents for just a couple weeks until we found a house in Georgia. No problem this half had to go smoothly right? Jim had already been in Georgia for over 3 months, it couldn't be much longer. Maybe 6 weeks at the most.......?!

Moving part 3 - The house gets listed!

The decision was made and I had to get our house ready to be listed. I really had fun staging the house and taking pictures for the listing. We were hopeful it would sell quickly. 

Moving Part 2

Not only did we have to fly me out there, we had to break it to my parents that we were thinking of moving. We decided not to tell anyone about it until after we had made the decision but we needed to tell my parents because we needed them to watch our kids while I went out there. We sat down with them and let them know that this is what we were talking about. It wasn't a decision that had already been made but it was a very real possibility. They were sad but they understood we had to do what was best for us. Thankfully my dad has layovers sometimes in Atlanta so hopefully he and my mom would be able to come visit at times.

We flew out to Georgia in late July. Jim flew out a couple days before I did. We first went to visit Athens. We had talked to a couple people and they said Athens is awesome and we would love it there. We went down there on Friday (I think. It's been awhile lol) We walked around downtown near the college and I hated it. lol - No offense to anyone who lives in Athens or loves it there. It just wasn't where we fit. There were tons of cute coffee shops and stores and bars and it looked like a great place to live if you were a single college student - not an almost forty year old couple with three kids. We were looking for something COMPLETELY different. I took my camera and got a couple pictures. This gargoyle was super cool!

We spent about 2 hours in Athens. I just had that "pit-of-your-stomach" nauseous feeling. (Besides being super anxious about moving, I just didn't feel at home in Athens) 

We left Athens and drove around some of the other small cities around there. As the day wore on I got more and more anxious (and car sick) I just kept wondering what the hell we were doing. Was this really something that we wanted to do?  We got back to the hotel and I just laid down. I had a pounding headache and didn't feel good at all. I slept for a couple of hours and felt a little better when I woke up. Jim said "lets drive to Lawrenceville and Auburn and some of the towns closer to our hotel"  He knew I needed to get out of the hotel and he was worried about me. We drove down to Lawrenceville and when we got there we noticed hundreds of people in the park next to City Hall. They were having a Concert in the Park!!!  So many people showed up and it looked like everyone was having a blast. The main street had tons of neat little shops and some of the buildings were hundreds of years old. It was awesome!

We decided to go back the next day and walk around. It was beautiful

This was a complete switch from Athens. I felt so at home here and comfortable. I still wasn't 100% sure. I couldn't bring myself to actually say "Yes, we should move to Georgia" It sounded good, everything lined up on paper, I loved the city and the homes (Oh my goodness the homes were amazing!) but I couldn't stand the thought of leaving our friends and family. My anxiety makes me freak out at new things. 

We drove around some more and everything we saw that day we loved. 

We spent Sunday going to church at the local ward and it was really nice. Monday came and it was time to fly home. We still hadn't made the complete decision to move. I knew we probably would be moving but I still couldn't say it. We got to the airport in Vegas and I sat in the airport and just cried. I had so many fears:

• Leaving family and friends
• starting over in a new place
• the effect the move will have on the kids
• being so far away
• meeting new people
• being lonely
• not having people to rely on
• what if I wasn't accepted?
• it was a huge change
• telling everyone we were moving. 

Jim and I talked a lot about it. He told me he needed me to be 100% on board with moving. I told him I couldn't be. I told him if we made the decision to move I wouldn't change my mind and I wouldn't let the kids know that it freaked me out but I couldn't be 100% at peace with it. I told him that if he knew it was the right thing for our family I would put my trust in him and have faith that it would be wonderful. So we made the decision to move. 

We got home and got the kids and let my parents know our decision. (They pretty much knew what it was going to be although I know they hoped that they would stay)

Jim called the new manager and let him know we were on board with it. They told him that his starting date would be Oct 6th! We knew that Jim would have to move out there first and we would move later once the Moreno Valley house sold. We were pretty sure it would be just a couple of Months. We even thought that maybe it would before the new year. (boy were we wrong!) Cont...