The House Hunt

So we've been on the house hunt since February.

We've had zero luck. It's awful. It sucks!!!!!!!! What makes it harder is watching friends in places put an offer on the house and get it. I don't know all the details of thier home purchase, of course, but I feel like their purchase process has been easier than ours has been.

Here's our history. Keep in mind, these are only the houses we've put an offer on. We've looked at probably 18-20 houses. (We looked at 12 houses within the first week Dave was home from deployment.)

Mid-February: Hanford Dream-House - $265k
3 bedrooms, 2 full baths, bonus room in basement, pool
I found my dream house. And it's in HANFORD. Who knew?! Priced at the very top of our budget, this house had it all. Located walking distance to Downtown (Superior Dairy, Thursday Night Markets), built in 1911, purchased from second owner in 2000, the house was rebuilt from the studs up in the keeping with the original design of the time period. There were even some old original doors with original glass doorknobs. GLASS DOORKNOBS! It was on a half-acre with a fenced off garden, pool, covered patio. A single car detached garage - which may have been part of the original NAS Lemoore barracks). The only house I will love in Hanford. Since Dave was still deployed, I inserted a contingency that the approval of the house was based on Dave seeing it within 15 days.

......Le sigh.......

Not accepted. Contingency and VA loan were stated as reasons.

Late February: Conklin Approved - $235k
4 bedrooms (one without a closet), 2 full baths, open floor plan, pool
This foreclosure had the Conklin's approval since it was one block away. Needed some TLC, but in general good repair. A good easily rentable investment.

Outbid, possibly a cash offer.


Early March: The Random One - $225
4 bedrooms, 2 full baths, pool
A Short Sale. This one was not in the neighborhoods we'd been looking in, but it met all the other prequalifications. A nice house that needed some work on the back yard (who puts gravel throughout one-fourth of the backyard?). We put in an offer (total low-ball offer), went to Hawaii, three days in the vacay, we get a counter offer with notification that the seller's have received another offer that was higher than the counter offer they offered. UGH. We decided to significantly - when I say significantly, I mean SIG-NIF-I-CANT-LY - increase our offer.

Outbid. Currently the back-up offer.


Early April: Superb Rentablity with Conklin Approval - $220
3 bedrooms, 2 full baths, pool, hot-tub, open floor plan
So this one is an interesting one. Another Short Sale. By a CDR/squadron CO. They were only $40k underwater, so we were confused as to why it was a short sale to begin with. It also was priced low for the neighborhood/amenities to create a mulitple offers situation. Well, congrats, jerks. You did. The house was listed on Friday, seen by four potential sellers. By Monday there were three offers. The buyer countered all offers asking for "H&B," highest and best offers. I'm not gonna lie. We offered a significant amount of the asking price and included all closing costs. We thought we had a strong offer. And it was. But who can compete with an all cash offer. UGH. FOR SERIOUSLY!?

Outbid by all cash offer.


So that's our story. I know that "normal" length of time it takes to find a house is six months. And we aren't there yet. But I am sooooo flippin' tired of getting outbid. On every house we've been one of at least three offers! Seriously!! I have to remind myself that Hanford, because of its proximity to NAS Lemoore, is not representational of the rest of the market. I feel like nowhere else are people fighting to get a house. This market feels more like 2007 than post-crash 2012.

That's the rational side of me.

The emotional side of me is more like this: Is our realtor actually doing her job? Is she representing us well? We are a NO-RISK LOAN. Really - the loan agent double ran our credit because she hadn't seen anything that high in a while. And we were the first offers on each of these houses. How is that fair? That people who are Johnny-come-lately get the house that we saw first? It's not fair. Also, I think that most realors as skeezeballs.

Additional worries include the spring-summer bump. Housing prices go up. Poopface.

What's for Dinner

This series is stolen from Kelly. And it should be referred to in the past tense - what WAS for dinner, because these are old.

I gave Dave a Webber Grill Book, and it has tons and tons of recipes. We first tried our hand at crabcakes on the grill. Turned out DELICIOUS.

I also found a recipe for an easy curry, and having all the ingredients already, it turned out well, though a little runny.

Our USNA Hallway

I was over at Amy's house some time ago and loved this set of four prints of Mids through the season. I loved them so much I asked her where she got them; unfortunately, the shop in Annapolis that sold them closed some time ago, but Amy providentially heard about the closing and bought an extra set. After expressing my undying love teh the prints, Amy donated them to the Wrigley household. So I spent a day finding the right frames, washing glass, and setting the photos just right. Then Dave spent a night hanging them. So here they are! Our very own Amy-style hallway of USNA Mids throughout the year.

All prints are by Nancy Hammond.

Summer: Detailer with Plebes. Dave's favorite.

Fall

Winter

Spring: Ring Dane. My favorite.

Sunset Wine Club

For Christmas last year, Dave's parents gave us a subscription to Sunset Magazine . Taking advantage of the $19.95 (+shipping) new member offer, I joined - with the intention of immediately canceling - the wine club. 

There's what I got for my $40. 2007 Brook's Riesling from the Willamette Valley, 2005 "*%#&@!" Twisted Oak Calaveras County red wine - considered to be "this year's Rhone-style wine...[with] blueberry and plum flavors;" AND the Vinturi Aerator. There are a few reasons why I'll be canceling, however.
1) I'm pregnant.
2) The regular price is $35/month plus $20 shipping - so almost $60/month really.
3) You have to be home to sign for the delivery since it's alcohol. As it is, it took 3 attempts for delivery this time.... So that's annoying.

My Backyard

Our freshly mulched backyard, with labor provided by the Hamiltons and Dave, I supervised.

Guesses as to the fruit? Plum?

I think this one is a peach!

Pomegranates in the making.

Pomegranate Pollination Station.

The first Bonnie Grape tomatoes are coming in!

Greedy little birds already drained my bird feeder. I half-filled it on Friday,

 and one week later, crumbs are left.

new haircut

got my hairs cut for the first time since being in Cali. By a very nice lady. I think she did a good job, I wasn't expecting the wedge-ness, but i'm fine with it, i like it. She made sure to cut off all my damaged hair from Japan's water. This is the picture I took in to her:


UPDATE:

The most important thing about this haircut is that it finally has gotten rid of all my damaged hair courtesy of Japan. Danielle, my hair cutting lady, said it was indeed damaged and exceedingly dry, most noticeably on the top layer. And a little green at the ends. GREEN. I told her how women who have thier hair dyed blonde in Japan come out more strawberry-blonde- because when the dye goes on, it turns hair slightly green - then red is used to counter-act the green. She said that made sense with what she's seeing. Gross! So my priority was to have all my Japan hair cut off - even if that means shorter hair. I just want my healthy hair back - where I can run my hands through it without getting a tangled dry mess. So with dryness-greenness-and-damages cut off, my hair should be 1000x healthier. Yay hair!