House Hunters

Big things are happening at the Hamilton home! We are buying our first house! I'm both incredibly excited, and incredibly scared. New adventures!

In the almost 4 years we've been married, we've lived in 5 different apartments in 3 different states. We've never lived in one house longer than 11 months. I. am. so. tired. of. moving. Mostly, I'm super done with feeling like my life is constantly transient; like any moment we'll have to pack up and go somewhere else.

When we first moved back to California, I was pretty confident that we would rent for a year, then buy a house. Oh, how wrong I was. If you know anything about Silicon Valley real estate, you know it's INSANELY over-priced and RIDICULOUSLY competitive. I remember the first week we moved here, Peter and I went for a walk around a neighborhood with homes near us. The neighborhood was nice; it looked almost exactly like my parent's neighborhood in Thousand Oaks, except the houses were smaller and the yards were tiny. We thought for sure that would be a great place to buy a little starter home... NOPE. We went checked the prices on those homes-- WELL OVER $1MILLION!! For what I'm pretty sure would be considered a shack in most places in the country. Just because it's in the South Bay. And because there is such a high demand for housing and very little of it, homes that go on sale have over dozen offers, sell within a few days, and far over asking price (and in cash). I realized pretty quickly my dream of owning a home would never happen here. So I sadly resigned myself to living in apartments I didn't really like or feel at home in, for the foreseeable future.

But, the longer we lived here, the more we realized we really don't like living in the heart of Silicon Valley. In fact, I kinda hate it. Don't get me wrong, I fully realize there are far worst places to live, but it's never fit my ideals of what I want my hometown to be. I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE our ward (local church congregation) because it has provided us with an amazing community of people just like us (young families forced to live in crappy apartments). I also LOVE LOVE LOVE my neighbors; they have become my best friends!

But Mountain View itself... definitely not for us. It's way too crowded! I constantly feel claustrophobic. Every inch of spare ground is constantly turned into more apartments to try and meet the housing demand. (It may be called Mountain View, but I rarely can see them.) Our street is entirely apartment complexes, and so is the street behind us, and the one behind that, and so on. And they aren't very nice complexes either. It's like Isla Vista and Provo South Campus combined. It always feels dirty and kinda shady. It's not the safest place. While I've never felt directly threatened or unsafe, I know there are crime problems here, including a bad gang rivalry. I shouldn't have looked at the crime reports for the area. My street has more sex offenders than I can count. To say the area is expensive would be an understatement. Check out any recent list of the priciest places to live, you'll see quite a few Silicon Valley cities in the top ten. I want open space! I want to live on a street that is not constantly lined with cars because there is no parking! I want my own washer machine that I don't have to leave the house for or run out of quarters to dry my clothes! I want a backyard to let my kids run free!

This decision has been a long one. I feel like we've been talking about our desire to move for almost year. Last November I started to get the distinct feeling that we weren't needed here, and maybe the Lord needed us somewhere else. We looked into other possibilities in the South Bay, such as San Jose, but the commute, the price tag, the general shadiness of San Jose kept us from really pursuing it. Then, Peter's work started needing him more in San Francisco. It became apparent that commuting from here would be a difficulty. So then the idea came to us: what if we moved to the East Bay?! The commute would still be there, but it would easier and faster. Housing is still California expensive, but more affordable. We could actually get a house! And it just kinda took off from there, very quickly to be honest. But we knew it was the right decision.

So we started looking at houses, checked out a few in different cities. The first thing we noticed about the East Bay--SPACE. Glorious, glorious space!!! In fact, it reminds us a lot of where we grew up. Beautiful green hills, nice houses, clean streets, great schools. Our favorite city, by far, was Danville, even though it's more expensive. I realized that after all the searching we did in different cities and housing types, I would much rather live in a townhouse in Danville than a single-family home in Dublin or somewhere else. Since the area is expensive, we realized that even if we got a regular house, it'd be small, old, and we probably wouldn't be near many other young families like us. Even though a year ago I would have sworn to you I would never buy a townhouse, I'm totally in love with the idea now.

Last week a beautiful, modest townhouse came on the market in Danville. As soon as we toured it, I knew it was the right one. We looked at other places that were bigger or newer, but I still knew this would be better. It's in a cute little community where all the houses face in to a large grass belt. I'm sure kids come out and play together after school there. As we looked around the neighborhood I could see strollers, kids' bikes, etc. Families live here! It had a backyard! There was room for family to grow! So we put in an offer. I was pretty much a nervous wreck, because I know how competitive the market is and how easily we could get rejected. But we got it!

I am so grateful for this amazing blessing of being able to buy a home! Now I'm just praying like crazy that everything will work out and go through smoothly so we can become real homeowners!

PS I've gotten some requests for pictures of the house. Unfortunately, all the shots of the inside I have are kinda blurry and full of strangers from the open house. I promise to take some better ones next week at the inspection and post them!