On House Hunting and Buying with Jack (Followed By a Boring Story about Our Experience)

Jack and Amelie ended up going house hunting with us a few times and behaved very well whenever we went.  Amelie was mostly indifferent, but Jack really got into it. After a couple of houses, he was pointing out broken seals on the windows and open stairs down to the basement. And, being Jack, he was very opinionated on which house we should get. The Realtor was cracking up at his observations at every house. The first house we walked into, Jack nodded his head and very seriously asked her, "So. This house is made out of wood?"

As far as we could tell, Jack liked a house based on the following criteria.

1. If it very obviously had a little boy living there.

2. More importantly, if that little boy had toys he likes. (Legos and trains got the biggest responses.)

3. If it had a finished basement. (Jack: This will be the "train room.")

4. If it has a storage room with old toys. (Jack: Woh. The little boy here has his own storage room.)

4. If it had a coy pond. (Jack: Will they leave us the fish? (To the Realtor) We will have to ask them to leave the fish if we buy this house.)

5. If it had cats.

6. Bonus if it had multiple cats. (Kate: Jack, the cats do not stay. They go with the owners. Jack: Maybe they will forget them?)

Jack's favorite house was one that had a coy pond AND a boy with toys. Of course, we think the "boy" was in high school and still had all of his toys from when he was little out and about. And that house was a DUMP with trash laying around, things broken all over the place, and rotting trim on the outside. He also kept talking about how much he liked the house that had cats following us around all over the place. Never mind that is reeked of cigarettes and did not have as many bedrooms as advertised, it had cats. 

And of course, the house we picked meets none of his criteria. When we told him which house we were getting he replied in a disappointed tone, "Oh. Well, you better find some carpet to put in the basement."

AND NOW THE BORING PART

When we found out we were moving to the Cincinnati area last year, we decided that it would be best that before committing to buying a house, we should rent for about awhile to get to know the area. Also, we figured that we should wait until I had a job so that we would have an easier time getting approved for a mortgage and would have a better idea of what we could afford. Little did we know that I would have so much difficulty finding employment. So we kept pushing back our time frame. 

We ultimately decided that we needed to proceed even though I have yet to find a job, since who knows when that is going to happen. So we managed to get pre-approval for a loan and were already to house hunt. And then the kids were sick. But no big deal, it was just a short delay. But then a day before we were scheduled to meet with our Realtor, we were rear-ended in The Accident. (Sorry, I have no desire whatsoever to blog about that.) Needless to say, that delayed matters and we cancelled our meeting.

Eventually, though, we were able to begin our search. Imagine our surprise when we found that the FIRST house we looked at was The House. It was exactly what we wanted. But we figured, we really needed to look some more. And as we should have known, when we decided to put an offer on it, someone had beaten us by less than a day.

So we kept looking and eventually settled on another house that we had looked at on our first day out. If it had not been for the first house, we probably would have thought this was The House. The offer did not quite go as smoothly as we had hoped, (not really the seller's fault as much as their Realtor's) but it was all resolved and a closing date was set. 

As many bumps in the road as we have had, I hesitate to share too much about the house until the keys are in our grubby little paws, lest I jinx us.

But just to give a general idea...