We are SOOO excited about our house. Everything worked out really, really perfectly. We've been looking for houses since early this year. We started out pretty slow, but then got more serious about it in the last couple of months. We looked at a lot of houses in Chico, and also considered a few houses in Paradise because they were significantly cheaper. (Although, you do pay for that in gas and inconvenience). We made an offer on a house that was really cute. It was a little bit small but it had a beautiful back yard, and it still had 3 bedrooms like we wanted. It was a great house over all. I didn't love the size of the kitchen or some of the flooring, but the rest of the house was great. We had to put a really low-ball offer in since it was listed for more than we could afford. We didn't get it. I wasn't totally bummed, but I also wasn't sure if we'd find what we wanted before the deadline for the $8,000 tax credit.
We looked at this house on Ceanothus that was listed for basically exactly what we set as our "max" in our minds. We went to see it and it seemed SO nice and big!!! We had looked at 2 other houses that day and they were horriblllllle. This one seemed perfect. It was an REO and we knew that it was under market because we could see what other houses on the same street were listed for and selling for. We figured someone might just make a higher offer than us, above the asking price, and we'd lose out. But we though "hey, let's give it a try!". When we went to write the offer, our realtor called to see if there were any offers. It sounded like there was one other one being submitted but he didn't know how much it was for. We figured they were probably offering the asking price like us, so he suggested we offer $500 more. I guess it did the trick! They counter-offered us for the same price, just with a few stipulations like a shorter escrow time (works for us!) and a shorter amount of time for inspections and things like that. So, even though it was technically a "counter offer", they essentially accepted our offer! Woo hoo! We signed agreement papers like 2 or 3 days before the cutoff for the $8000 tax credit, AND we also signed in a small window of time to where we not only qualifed for the $8000, but we will also get $10,000 from the state. YAYYY! The 10 thou will be payed in increments over 3 years. so we'll get a little over $3000 around tax time for the next 3 years. YESSS!
I just feel so blessed. The timing was PERFECT. We qualified for both tax credits. We got a great house (built in 2007) for UNDER market and still in our price range. It's bigger and newer than the houses we had looked at. It's in Chico in the 95973 area which we like. We'll be moving when it's not rainy outside. It's just perfect for us. We feel kind of poor now since our payments will be a lot more than what we're used to paying in rent, but I'm thinking our taxes the next few years will make that a lot easier! We just never thought we could get a house like this in our price range. A few little downsides - we needed to buy a new stove, and we'll need bathroom mirrors since there aren't any. Also, the backyard is tiny and pathetic but that doesn't really bother us. Almost no yard work!
Here are a few pics of the house from the real estate sites. We'll take more pics when we move in! :) :) :)
(Garage is in the back)
Here's our charming (read: small and pathetic) back yard! :)
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