Back to house hunting we go...

Too long. I won't apologize. I won't. Because, well.

Life. Happens.

Since the last time I sat down and typed here, we moved. Twice.

Yup. Two times.

First, we moved from our lovely South Pacific Island back to New England. Groton, CT, to be more specific. It was a big move, but a good one. We loved our neighborhood, and our neighbors, and H loved his school and friends. We spent about a year and a half there. We loved where we were but found we wanted something of our own, and that led us to start to look at buying a house.

Having never bought a house before, we didn’t really know what to expect. We started looking online and I’ll admit, I quickly became obsessed with Zillow. HA! We started adding houses we were interested in to our favorites and then looked at them in person.

Ok. This shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it was. What you see online is often NOT what you see in person. Rooms looked a lot bigger, yards seemed nicer, and well, let’s be honest, pictures can be deceiving. When H and I went to an open house, our first and only, we hadn’t started working with a real estate agent yet. We arrived a few minutes after the open house was scheduled to start.

When we got out of the car, there wasn’t a “FOR SALE” sign in the yard. I thought, hmmm. Maybe it’s not for sale anymore. But Zillow said there was an open house today.

Holden was really excited to look at the house. Did I mention his favorite show is Property Brothers?

Yup. That’s our son. So he, excitedly, knocks on the door. A sweet older gentleman answers and quickly apologizes saying their agent hadn’t arrived yet, but he’d be happy to walk us around and answer any questions we have.

The house was in need of a lot of updating, and I mean a loooooot, but I loved its location and that you can’t change. It was close to the base (5 minutes away) and sat on a large pond so the view was lovely. We looked around, the homeowner answered questions for me and their agent arrived about 10 minutes later. By this point, the homeowner was annoyed, which I can completely understand, but was still so kind to us. This was when the agent turned on his slimy car salesman charm (no offense to the car salesman), asked if we were working with an agent already, and gave me his card.

I politely, but earnestly, told him we were not working with an agent, but would not be hiring him as ours seeing how late he was for his current clients. The homeowner gave me a wink and walked me to the door.

We thanked him for his time and the tour and wished him and his wife all the best as they downsized to a smaller home further south.

After that house, we expanded our search area. Initially, we wanted the following;

• Location - close to the base, within the Groton, Gales Ferry, and Ledyard areas

• Central AC (an absolute must for Matt)

• A fenced-in yard for Holden and the dogs ( a must for me)

Sooooo, we quickly found, that not many houses in the area had Central AC. Fenced in yards, sure. But many were sloped and rocky or super tiny. And taxes in some of the areas around the base were crazy high.

We expanded our search area to include surrounding areas, including Mystic (a village within Groton), Waterford/Quaker Hill (which has great schools), and Montville.

We were also paired with a real estate agent via Navy Federal’s Realtor Plus program.

Now the search was really on. On some days, after Matt got off work we’d head to several houses. Lots and lots of houses. The number of houses for sale was very high but the great thing for us was we weren’t in a hurry to buy. While we wanted to, we didn’t have to. Navy housing was fine and if we didn’t find something we really liked, we’d stop looking.

After about 2 months, we came across a cute house in Mystic. It was a split level. Ok. I need to take a moment to say... split levels or raised ranch-style houses are not my favorite. When you walk in, you immediately have to decide, am I going up or down? There’s not a true entryway, it’s just a landing area and stairs. Not welcoming at all. Ok. I digress.

So what I loved about this house was its curb appeal. It was cute. Didn’t look like a traditional split level. I didn’t really know it was a split level until I looked further at the pictures and of course when we saw it in person. The lower level of the house had a large living area, a half-bath, and an unfinished section that included laundry. The unfinished section also had great potential for a fourth bedroom.

The main level ( or second level depending on how you look at it) included a small living area, eat-in kitchen, three bedrooms, and two baths. Did it check any of our must-have boxes though? Central AC? Yup. It had it. Fenced-in yard? Yes. Close to base. Yup. One town over and we didn’t have to cross the Gold Star Bridge.

We went home thinking about it. It did check every box. We decided to put an offer in, but we wanted to have an inspection done.

The homeowners were, sadly, in the middle of a divorce so it took longer than anticipated to get a response to our offer since both parties had to approve the offer. Thankfully they did.

Onto inspection day. It was pouring down rain like a monsoon. We hired Ryan, from Anchor Home Inspection. He walked us through everything and was impressed when I asked about things, clearly I watch too much HGTV and Holmes on Homes because I was already seeing things I hadn’t noticed during our first visit to the house. Remember the rain I mentioned? This was a blessing in disguise. The windows on the lower level were leaking.

Also one of the windows in what would have been Holden’s room slammed open. Yup, open, when Ryan tried to open it. All of the windows in the house would need to be replaced soon. Cha-ching. Hmmmm. Did we want to buy a house just to have to turn around and put in all new windows?

While Ryan and Matt continued around the house, I decided to look around some more to dream about stuff I’d do to make it our own. One of the first things I wanted to change was the floors. Every room had different flooring. Literally, every room. This would drive me nuts. I would want to put in new flooring throughout the house so everything was the same.

Also, in the master bath, the homeowner used paint with glitter in it. Yup. If you know me well, you know I’m NOT a fan of glitter. I. HATE. GLITTER.

Oh. And did I mention it had a pool?

Yup. But not just any pool. An above-ground pool.

While pools can be fun, they require a lot of maintenance and we’re not big fans of above-ground pools.
After the inspection report from Ryan, we decided to rescind our offer. There was far too much money needed to go into the house and we weren’t willing to spend it right away.

The homeowner (at least the wife) was thrilled. She didn’t want to sell the house at all. She loved it and wanted to stay, so it worked out for all of us.

Back to house hunting, we go...