the long, long search for a new home...

Brian and I are currently house-hunting... well, townhouse hunting, really. And have been for about 7 months now, in Tarzana, Encino & Sherman Oaks. We love our little 1 bedroom apartment in Brentwood, but we've definitely outgrown it! Our dining room that was once just filled with unpacked boxes that had no home, is now additionally filled with miscellaneous wedding gifts (though the majority are hanging out with our families as we have so little room at our place), a couple boxes filled with "wedding stuff", and my beautiful (now red wine-stained) wedding dress in its garment bag laying on top of it all! (Anyone know where I can get that cleaned and preserved??) We would really like to eat at a real table for once instead of the arm on our couch... And would it be too much to ask to spend next Valentine's Day not sitting on the floor eating at the coffee table? (though it was definitely a memorable Valentine's Day!)

What follows is a condensed version of our very, very long, exhausting, trying, yet exciting search for our first home to buy! Preferably... attractive and charming... with laundry hook-ups... and 2 parking spaces... a large enough master closet to hold all my clothes, shoes and purses (something I am always dreaming about haha)... and a nice master bedroom and bathroom... yeah, I think those are the main points. Oh, and not next to the freeway!

For a while we were hitting up open houses almost every Sunday afternoon for months, which was fun, but we have basically stopped going to those now. When the writers guild went on strike it put a damper on our search, but everything turned out for the better and we are probably in a better position to buy now than we were months ago. We have a wonderful realtor, Michael, who we met while he was helping my dad and Sandy buy their new house. He's been so patient and helpful and has hung in with us every step of the way even though we're making a relatively small purchase (by his standards) - but he wants us to be happy which means a lot to us. We also have a wonderful mortgage broker who happens to be my best friend Steph's sweet dad, Gary. We're just so lucky to have so many people who care about us being happy and finding the perfect home for us to buy. :) (That was our not-so-subtle plug for Michael and Gary--they're both great next time you're house hunting.)

Anyway, we've seen so many places--some beautiful and some terrifying--that we had to share the highlights (and lowlights) with you...

These 3 are from the building down the street from our current apartment in Brentwood (we just looked for fun, we cannot afford to buy out here!):

what's with the silver spray-painted railings??

(seriously?)

a cool loft bedroom, see if you can find the air conditioning vent... you probably can't because its on the floor under the bed! oy vey...



at least it had a great kitchen!

another day, another building:

um......

I told Brian I'd sell my soul for one of these brand new condos. They were so nice. The building wasn't even finished yet when we first saw it, and since then we've been back and it's almost done. But really, WAY out of our price range - especially the nice units on the top floor of the building which would be the ones we'd want. Oh well...

I could live in this kitchen! SO nice...

and another model's kitchen...

I couldn't get a picture of the furnished living room, but the space is fantastic - so much potential!


oh well, maybe in another few years...

This is a place in Tarzana that was one of the first we saw when the house hunt began many, many months ago. We loved it, but it sold almost immediately. Now there are a couple other foreclosures in the same building that we could probably get, but after seeing SO many other potential homes, this building is no longer a front runner. Here are pics of that first place, anyway!

the front

the newly done kitchen - really nice


when you walk it, the kitchen is on the right, stairs in front of you to the left, the dining area you can see here, and the living room through the hallway... and there's a cute little atrium in the middle

a lovely backyard

check out the entire wall of closets in the master bedroom! :)
(a girl's dream!)

Here's another place we saw and really liked (2 bedrooms + loft), but my major issue with it was that it had an entire flight of stairs leading up to the front door (there was a unit below it) and the parking was a carport not very close to the unit. I just thought it wouldn't be practical at all for the future... but here it is for your viewing pleasure!

kitchen and stairs up to the open loft

nice upgraded kitchen

the loft

This place on Collins Street was beautiful on the inside - and we would've made an offer, except that the street was right off of Reseda close to the freeway and we just didn't love the location. So, we passed on it... but here are some pictures:

cozy living room


they did a nice job updating the kitchen - plus the food nook is cute...


really nice master bedroom


its basically a double master

One place we loved was a townhouse on Etiwanda. It was basically an attached home. 2 beds + loft, 2.5 bathrooms, attached garage, little backyard - and a pool in a beautiful little complex. It was listed way below what it was worth as the old couple living there had owned it for 20 years or something and was pretty much all moved out and ready to go. Unfortunately, their price was still too high for us, so we decided to pass on it. I don't have pictures, unfortunately, but I felt compelled to share the story anyway :)

It's safe to say that the strangest place we've seen in our whole search will forever be known as "the cat place." It wasn't a place we were dying to see ahead of time but we were in the area with Michael so we decided to stop by and take a look. There was a sign on the front door warning that there were animals inside, but when we opened the front door and took a step inside, we saw about 7 cats staring back at us (and a least one of them was black)--right there in the living room! We like animals, but that was just weird... we immediately turned around and walked out the front door quickly. (Again, no pictures of this one since we were inside for about 3 seconds.)


This next unit was a 1 story townhouse in a complex where my in-laws Nick & Andrea owned a condo when Brian was born :) This unit was totally outdated and by the look of the place it was obvious this old Jewish couple has spent many, many years there. While we liked the floorplan, it would've taken too much to fix it up to our liking, so we passed on it... but check it out...

the fireplace... oy vey, the fireplace...

really outdated FORMICA kitchen!

little outside patio in between the living room and master bedroom

master bath

master bedroom

A few weeks ago, we came across a place on Hatteras (in Tarzana) that we saw a week after it had been listed. We didn't rush to see this 3 bedroom 2.5 bath as it was listed, from our experience, way below what it seemed it should've been listed at - so of course, we assumed something was wrong with it. By the time we went to see it, we found out otherwise. It was priced low to get multiple offers and sell quickly, which worked - they had already had 3 offers within that first week. We decided it was worth making an offer as it was clearly move-in ready and the 3rd bedroom was really a bonus (plus, it had an attached garage!). We found out the offer that was the highest was around what the place probably should've been listed at, which was luckily still in our price range. The owners apparently wanted to take that offer but the problem was that the buyers had a dog well over the weight limit allowed by the HOA, so they were waiting to hear if they might be able to let that slide. Anyway, we thought we had a good chance to get in as the other 2 offers were pretty much being ignored by the sellers. We decided we would take a chance and we made our first offer on a house! Unfortunately, when our realtor turned in the offer, the seller's agent ended up telling him they had already technically accepted the other offer. So, basically it was a waste of our time and we got our hopes up, only to be disappointed. (And our offer was comparable to the one they accepted!). Not meant to be, I guess...

Here are some pictures of the place...


patio

living room (on the smaller side)

small dining area looking into the little kitchen (the downstairs was a little cramped, but upstairs was 3 great bedrooms)

master bath (in the master bedroom)


and since I am a huge nerd, here is us signing the offer papers...

We might have something else in the works this week, but with the intention of not wanting to jinx it... I'll end this post here and keep you updated! ;)

Thanks for reading the rambling words of a future home-owner! (hopefully!)

Love,
Mrs. West :)