 |
| A picture of the house we are trying to buy... Late afternoon, sun sets in the west, which is behind the house. This was taken during the busy Open House |
Mac arrived on the island on Sunday August 3. He was picked up by a fellow ENT, and they drove off with the 5 huge bags (plus two reasonably sized carry ons). The next week Mac spent trying to track down our vehicles, preparing for (or NOT preparing for) a hurricane, and doing some inprocessing work at the hospital. There were 37 stations he needed to complete to be inprocessed and ready to work. In just over two weeks, he's finished 31 or so. That's pretty decent. He is eager to get back to work, for sure! (He hasn't been in the OR yet. A surgeon needs to be "cutting". That's just the way they "operate"! GET IT??? Julie that one's for you.)
In order to have a little bit more time in Yakima, and to allow me to take Kate up to her college pre-orientation and registration weekend, the rest of the family planned to arrive to Hawaii one week after Mac. So the kids and I (minus Kate, who informs me that she's pretty much an independent adult, right after she asks me for some cash) loaded up Mom and Dad's suburban with as much stuff as possible for our trip to the airport. We checked in 15 bags, including 2 trombones, and carried on 10 bags, including one pillow pet (IZZY! Grrrr...), 2 alto saxes, and 2 clarinets. The agent who checked in all our bags said it was a personal record for him. Yay us! We were allowed up to 5 bags each, so too bad we didn't check in 25. That would've been a record that would have really stood up over time, I would think.
Anyway, we arrived (so tired) on Sunday afternoon. Mac picked us up in a cute little 4-door Elantra rental. So sweet! But... not quite big enough for all of the stuff. Steven and I took a minivan taxi loaded to the brim, and we all made it, with all our luggage, to check in to the lovely beach-front Hale Koa military resort. It's a very nice place. They kick us out after 30 days (and yes, we will be staying all 30 days).
On the first day after we arrived, we went to the port to pick up our Suburban. We shipped that from Oakland a couple of weeks before we arrived in Honolulu. Thankfully, the Suburban was ready to go, and had absolutely no damage. We have heard so many horror stories about shipping vehicles to Hawaii! That was a relief... After that, we made arrangements with a realtor to start seeing some houses.
On Tuesday, we saw quite a few houses in central Oahu. There was one decent house, but it didn't have a yard. The others were really bad. As in ants on the floor, termite damage in the windows, a rusty pool... Depressing!
On Wednesday, we went to the newer area on the island filled with sparkling, shiny, new housing developments. The houses were in the Ewa Beach, Ewa, and Kapolei area on the west side of Oahu. This side is HOT. I don't know why, but the sun seems much stronger there. There aren't as many trees, and the land is flat, and there are just not as many trade winds blowing through to cool things off. We saw a few nice houses, but they all had a strange use of space. Wasted space, or cramped space, and pretty much no yard space. For a family who really wants bedrooms, to see a bathroom larger than one of the listed rooms is just puzzling. Who needs the bathroom to be 150 square feet!? We also went through a development of brand new houses that were still being built. It was fun to see the model houses and note all the "upgrade not included" labels. Haha!
After all this touring on Wednesday, we were tired. And dispirited. We had one more house to go to, way back up in the central Oahu area. This area is cooler, and has more of a breeze, so we were OK with that! We walked into the house, and just saw the Pink Ceramic Floor. PINK! Mac likes it, because it reminds him of Tripler: the PINK army hospital where he is now working. The realtor and I were not a big fan of the pink color. But, the house is nice. It has a good floor plan, a nice workable kitchen, a space big enough for our kitchen table, and a good sized yard. It does not have AC, but it has several ceiling fans. The sun was hot in the master bedroom and the other west-facing room, as it was late afternoon when we toured it. We saw little projects, and upgrades, and updates that we could do at every turn. This house had potential. We decided to draw up papers to put in an offer.
Thursday morning we met with our realtor and his fill-in realtor (our realtor is going on vacation) to talk contracts. Mac and I were a little hesitant at this point. We really liked the pink house, and the neighborhood, and the schools, but we were not 100% sure that this was the right place for us. We were worried about the commute (there is one road in and one road out of Mililani), and finding a swim team that would work for the kids. So, we went through the contract line by line, and then decided to wait on signing it until after we saw some other homes.
That afternoon we returned to Ewa Beach to look at 4 more properties. None of those properties were a great fit. They were nice houses, just not quite right for us.
Mac and I decided to take our realtor's advice and drive up to Mililani in the morning to mimic what a daytime commute may look like. So, Mac and I woke up early on Friday, drove north against traffic, and then drove back to the hospital where Mac had an appointment. Quickly after leaving, we realized that it happened to be a state holiday that day (it was Statehood Day for Hawaii), and this definitely lessened the impact of traffic. The drive did afford us the opportunity to look at the neighborhood and the schools one more time, and we really felt that it was a nice and safe environment. We decided that the calm, residential, suburbish scene was the best fit for us. So, we proceeded with signing the contract documents.
The sellers received the signed documents on Friday before 10 am. They had until Saturday at 5 pm to respond. Their agent contacted our agent on Saturday in the early afternoon. There were a few proposed changes to the document. Nothing major, just clarification of some verbiage.
Nonetheless, we thought maybe it would be wise to take that chance to look at the property one more time before accepting the changes and proceeding with the purchase process.
This was a bit of a gamble. If someone else made an offer, the seller was perfectly within their rights to accept that offer. A bidding war could possibly be started. We knew that the previous week's open house was well-attended, and our realtor was baffled as to why the house hadn't had several offers. Even knowing this, we decided to take a little bit of time to reflect on the house, and to consider the options.
One concern I had was that every weekend would be spent in fixing up one aspect or another of the house. There were projects to be seen at every turn. Windows to be replaced, walls to be erected, pink flooring to be destroyed... So, we just took some time to ponder. And to do other stuff.
That Saturday as our realtor was contacting us about the counteroffer, we were playing tourists in a macadamia nut farm.
 |
| Mac helps Josie crack Macadamia nuts the old fashioned way. Yes, some fingers were smashed in the process. But at least the chickens got to eat! |
 |
| Luke really liked cracking open the nuts. He guarded his "smashing macadamia nuts" rock. Just to be sure that HE would be the ONLY one to use it... |
 |
| We got to eat freshly opened coconut. Yum. |
 |
| I mean, come on. Right? Easy to forget about real estate woes with these views... |
 |
| Here we are with our "tour guide". This guy was pretty funny. |
 |
| Boat ride on the 800 year old manmade "fish pond" designed by King Kamehameha's warriors. It still works! They even have barracudas swimming around in there. Like, 2 foot long barracudas. |
 |
| A ginormous banana picked fresh off of a tree just for me? Don't mind if I do. |
Even then, we didn't make a decision right away. Mac was ready to buy that house. He saw nothing but Potential. I was a little bit hesitant, as I saw project after project after project. But, by morning, I decided that we should just go ahead and proceed, and lock it up before the Sunday open house. And that's what we did.
Our realtor was thrilled to contact the seller's agent to tell him that we accepted the terms of the counter, and were ready to proceed with the purchase. We felt so happy and relieved by this step. It was the right decision.
Later that afternoon, Mac and I went to the open house. We met the seller's agent, who is a very nice guy. He is well-respected by our realtors, too. While talking to him, several people came through the open house. He showed them around as Mac and I took measurements and took pictures. We heard comments such as, "this house would be PERFECT" and "what a BEAUTIFUL view" followed by "oh no! There's already an offer that's been accepted?"... Needless to say, Mac and I were VERY happy that we had accepted the counter offer in the morning. Had we not done that, we might have been in a bidding war.
It's common here to have "back up" offers, just in case something were to happen with our offer. That's why houses will continue to be shown even after a house is in escrow. Buyers have all sorts of chances to back out of a deal, citing reasons as flimsy as not liking the commute. Sellers have little recourse to cancel a deal, but if the buyer's financing fell through, or if the home doesn't appraise properly, that would most likely terminate the deal. So, back up offers are commonly placed and often times a back-up ends up being the eventual buyer.
We are confident that won't happen in our case!
We have a team of really experienced people helping us navigate this process, and from the mortgage broker to our agents, they all seem to know a lot about how to do this in Hawaii. We feel pretty good about all of them!
So that's how this process started. And now for the pictures. Everyone just wants to see the pictures!!
 |
| Mac in the backyard. He gets asked if he's originally from Hawaii all the time. He looks like an "islander". |
 |
| More of the back yard. This is a pretty big yard considering this is Hawaii... |
 |
| Gonna have to add a fence... |
 |
| More of the yard. And there are even sprinklers!! |
 |
| Yep... Need to close off the fencing on this side too. |
 |
| This is the living room. Featuring Pink Tile! |
 |
| Trying to find the correct Family of Pink |
 |
| This might be it... these colors options are from Lowe's. They are called "martha cooper rose", "semi-precious", and "harmony" from the 2001-8A, 8B, and 8C series. |
 |
| Nice looking kitchen, new appliances (even if they don't match!!). |
 |
| Going upstairs... |
 |
| Bonus room over the garage. This can easily be converted to a bedroom. |
 |
| This is the smallest room, which is actually about 10'x10' or so. Not the smallest room we've ever had. |
 |
| Another room, just the same size as the other small one. |
 |
| This is the master room, with views of the mountains. |
We are pretty excited about this house. There is another (larger) room which I didn't take a picture of. And this is a house that's hard to capture in photos, especially when you are trying not to gloat about having an accepted offer on a house that others are wishing they could buy... Oh well...
Anyway, now we commence the waiting game. The inspection is scheduled, and the steps are being completed to lead us to home ownership... So, to be continued...
