Suzanne O’Connor’s Bargains LA

OMG! We’re house hunting!

Time to let ya’ll in on a little secret. We’ve been house hunting for the last 10 months.

The serious hunt started in March ’09 when we started working with our first Realtor. He showed us dozens of homes. From the gutted, REO homes for pennies on the dollar to beautiful move in ready beauties. 

Hubby and I are into character homes…. Craftsman, Traditional,Storybook, Mediterranean… you know homes that have seen some life and have some architectural integrity. Not just a box with an open floor plan.
We put in three different offers on 3 different homes.  The first offer was on an approved short sale and was immediately refused. Another one was on an incredible Mediterranean REO fixer in Chevy Chase Canyon. No one seemed to be interested in it so we bid low… but then the onslaught of investors came in and outbid us. Another one was on a REO fixer home that sold for less than our offering price. What the #^*%!!!

At this point I am seriously hating house hunting and want to kick a few disreputable, slimy listing agents.

Then we started working with another Realtor, my old dance buddy Jon Trunk and his partner Bonnie Davis (Keller Williams, Studio City).  Both were straightforward, smart, trustworthy and very thorough. Plus they were way fun to house hunt with. 

In the end we saw hundreds of homes… really. We also put in several more offers on homes we found through them… none panned out, Finally, our Realtors got wind of a older character home that wasn’t listed yet and got us in before anyone else.  This one was very cool!

During this process we had so many different things to consider… schools, pricing, size, location, the incredibly difficult and prolonged sale of our desert property (UGH!). This was often a very hard, very confusing house hunt with too many variables.

We made hard choices and our offer was accepted on the cool character home….a 1927, somewhat upgraded Mediterranean with 2 beds and 1 bath that met most of our needs and has the possibility for an office or room addition.

Through this process we met some savvy, honest, wonderful Realtors, who were on top of their game and incredibly helpful. We also met some slimy, selfish, sneaky, dirty, icky unprofessional Realtors and listing agencies. House hunting is not a game for the weak kneed or faint of heart.

Now on to escrow….