Monday, June 8, 2009

And the housing hunting continues... Days 4 & 5

Day 4 we started off pretty excited for our first appointment. We thought we would be seeing another apartment but since it has not gone through the housing inspection she didn't want to show it to us. But we did get to see a wonderful apartment! It is on the 3rd floor (there is a picture and it is the one with the For Rent sign) with a HUGE balcony. It has nice ocean view too! The inside had a nice kitchen with a dishwasher (!!!), 2 full bathrooms, a walk-in closet in the master bedroom, a huge living area, and you can tell it is brand new. It really isn't in the area we are wanting to live but it would be an OK area. Basically, it is just a little inconvenient for me since I go to other areas more than Dustin. He pretty much drives to work and comes home and then on the weekends we might do a little shopping and go to church but it wouldn't be any further than the are we want except when I want to go to my weekly Bible study, the pool, or the hospital. The other problem with this apartment is that they want about $300 more a month than our housing allowance. We are trying to negociate rent which means talking to the agency who then has to talk with the owner and then get back with us. If we could get them to come down a little more and include some utilities we might be OK with paying a little out of pocket. But the rest of the day and today didn't really turn up anything. I quit taking my camera in the houses with me. I was shown a house in the are we want and was really excited until I realized that it had a Japanese kitchen (the oven is literally a microwave!). I had specifically said I was only interested in a place with hook-ups for the government appliances! Tomorrow we have 3 appointments and 1 of them is only showing us houses in the area we really like. We drove by some apartments to see who the agency is and Dustin called to see what is available and they are showing us 3 places! We also went over to a friends on-base house to see what the new stuff looks like and it is really nice! So we have our gameplan: We are going to keep looking but not settle and not pay out of pocket. If we find something we love, GREAT! If not, when they offer us a house we will take it if it is new. Otherwise we will find something off-base that is nice but maybe not perfect. Right now we are both excited about possibly living off-base. We have been on-base for over a year so it would be a nice change, especially if we could see the ocean everyday!

The best place we have seen!

Master bedroom with bathroom and walk-in closet

Kitchen

Dustin and Grace on the big balcony

The view

3 comments:

Grace's Grandma said...

I love the balcony! Do you have to climb three flights of stairs or is there and elevator? And - can you lock the door to keep Grace off of the balcony? If she takes after her Uncle Billy a balcony on the third floor could be dangerous.... but, hopefully, she'll take after you and stay safe.

Love,
Mom/Grandma

Heather said...

Yes, there is an elevator!! So we could just get a wagon to put our groceries in and take 'em up. And when you get off the elevator on our floor you are on our little porch (well, it would be ours if we move in). And you can lock all of the doors and the doors to the balcony are like our back sliding door with locks on top!

Grace's Grandma said...

I can't believe Grace is already 6 months old. Just six months ago we were trying to fight off the NICU nurses, and she was tiny and helpless. Now she can giggle and play.... and sit up and tell you what she wants in her own little way. Time flies.... and I can't wait to see her. It's less than two months now! :-)

Love,
Mom/Grandma

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